It is hard to imagine how popular music might have evolved without the use of the synthesizer and other such electronic innovations. Although Dr. Robert Moog is a household name for his pioneering efforts in this field, important groundwork was done several decades earlier by a Canadian physicist and instrument designer named Hugh Le Caine (1914-1977). One of his instruments in particular, the electronic sackbut, is now widely recognized as being the first voltage-controlled synthesizer.
Developed at the University of Toronto, Canada, in 1945, Le Caine's sackbut featured a piano-type keyboard built into an old desk. Unlike most of the early commercial synthesizers that appeared at the start of the 1970s, Le Caine's instrument was touch- sensitive; the characteristics of the sound altered according to how lightly or forcefully the keyboard was played, giving the sackbut much the same potential expressiveness as a real acoustic instrument.
Two other particularly innovative design features also stand out: the use of adjustable wave forms to create basic sounds, and the use of voltage control to alter certain characteristics of the sound, such as pitch and modulation. Sound quality was also altered electronically by manipulating special filters. Voltage control would be used on most subsequent synthesizers produced until the early 1980s.
Le Caine would revisit the sackbut in 1971, but although he intended to produce a commercial instrument, the project failed. Despite his public obscurity, Hugh Le Caine's instruments had a great deal of influence on the world of electronic music.
