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The Trautonium
Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 3:05 pm
by tektoog
Re: The Trautonium
Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 10:25 pm
by Jay
bizzare looking and sounding instrument! looks like some mad scientist equipment hee hee I wants one!
what are the metallic strips under the keys?
Regards
Re: The Trautonium
Posted: Fri May 31, 2013 8:25 am
by trogluddite
Nice find, tektoog - great to see another vintage instrument that hasn't been killed off by MIDI! Love the finger vibrato 'string' sounds, beautifully played.
Jay wrote:what are the metallic strips under the keys?
It's a 1930's vintage ribbon controller, a 'fretless' keyboard in effect - the
Wikipedia page has a pretty good description...
Re: The Trautonium
Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:08 pm
by k brown
Note the subtle and almost constant use of the expression pedal; something far too few synths players do anymore. A big part of Vangelis' expressive playing is his use of the CS80's polytouch control of osc volume, and to a lesser extent filter cutoff. You see the same thing with Hammond players - that exp pedal is going all the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrautoniumAnybody ever diddle with Rick Jelliffe's Newmixturetrautonium?
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/neumix ... k_jelliffe Pretty strange beast, and hideous to look at, but quite unique. Don't know how close it can get to sounding like a real one, but interesting anyway. Apparently deadware now, but here's a copy if anyone wants to experiment with it.
Could be an interesting project for someone (Spogg?) to recreate in FS!
http://www.doepfer.de/traut/traut_e.htmI honestly can't fully follow Doepfer's description of what the SubHarmonic Generator does; what pitches it generates.
Re: The Trautonium
Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2020 8:54 am
by Spogg
I never heard of this before. The original post is 7 years old, so I didn’t see it.
What a truly fascinating instrument! Especially considering when it was first invented. Neon tube relaxation oscillators!!
It’s wonderful how whatever technology is available, someone will always push it to the limits to create musical instruments.
The main issue of reproducing it is the reliance on a ribbon controller to get the expressivity. I guess one could use a Seaboard RISE keyboard, but I doubt it would be the same as an analogue ribbon controller.
Cheers
Spogg
Re: The Trautonium
Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2020 2:10 pm
by Spogg
Moved to General so I don't accidentally delete it

Re: The Trautonium
Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2020 4:04 pm
by tulamide
The Mixture-Trautonium is also known as the first synthesizer, but Sala always hated synths
Fun fact - Hitchcock's The Birds wouldn't be half as thrilling without the Trautonium. Sala made all the bird noises throughout the movie with it.
Re: The Trautonium
Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:34 pm
by k brown