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192 Chapter 15 Vocoder History
The Voder was demonstrated at the 1939 World Fair, where it caused quite a stir:
In World War II, the Vocoder (now called VOice enCODER) proved to be of crucial
importance, scrambling the transoceanic conversations between Winston Churchill and
Franklin Delanore Roosevelt.
Werner Meyer-Eppler, the director of Phonetics at Bonn University, recognized the
relevance of the machines to electronic music after Dudley visited the University in
1948. Meyer-Eppler used the vocoder as a basis for his future writings which, in turn,
became the inspiration for the German “Elektronische Musik” movement.
In the 1950’s, a handful of recordings ensued.
In 1960, the Siemens Synthesizer was developed in Munich. Among it’s many oscillators
and filters, it included a valve-based vocoding circuit.
In 1967, a company called Sylvania created a number of digital machines that used
time-based analysis of input signals, rather than bandpass filter analysis.
In 1971, after studying Dudley’s unit, Bob Moog and Wendy Carlos modified a number
of synthesizer modules to create their own vocoder for the Clockwork Orange sound
track.
Peter Zinovieff’s London-based company “EMS” developed a standalone—and
altogether more portable—vocoder. EMS are probably best known for the “Synthi AKS”
and VCS3 synthesizers. The EMS Studio Vocoder was the world’s first commercially
available machine, released in 1976. It was later renamed the EMS 5000. Among it’s
users were Stevie Wonder and Kraftwerk. Stockhausen, the German “Elektronische
Musik” pioneer, also used an EMS vocoder.
Sennheiser released the VMS 201 in 1977, and EMS released the EMS 2000, which was a
cut-down version of it’s older sibling.