---
id: rca
title: "RCA Synthesizer"
year: 1957
category: "Synthesizers"
lang: en
canonical: https://nodemusic.cc/node/rca
source: node.music
---

# RCA Synthesizer (1957)

Synthesizers · https://nodemusic.cc/node/rca

## Summary

A three-ton sequencer made of 1,700 vacuum tubes, built to automate the pop industry and replace dance orchestras. Controlled by punched paper tape, the synthesizer proved too complex for show business, but paradoxically became the Holy Grail for the American academic avant-garde.

## Full text

Engineers Harry Olson and Herbert Belar built the RCA Mark II with a strictly pragmatic goal: to eliminate the human factor from the recording process. In their papers, they explicitly referred to the acoustic characteristics of traditional instruments as "objectionable." The strike of piano hammers, the scrape of a bow, the sharp attack of a ringing bell — they considered all of this to be acoustic garbage.

Before the machine fell into the hands of the avant-garde, the company managed to release an experimental demo record. On this EP, the synthesizer obediently played Irving Berlin's jazz standard "Blue Skies," a Bach fugue, and even Brahms's Hungarian Dance No. 1 "in a gypsy style."

Ultimately, the machine found its flock behind the closed doors of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

The workflow here was a true test of endurance. Initially, this leviathan couldn't even record audio to magnetic tape—it cut tracks directly onto fragile acetate discs. To mix a track, a composer had to play back one such disc while synchronously cutting the output onto another, simultaneously inputting new parameters. Any mistake, a second's delay, or a trembling hand meant an irrevocably ruined disc and the need to start the entire grueling process from scratch. It wasn't until 1959 that a 4-track Ampex tape recorder was bolted onto the system.

Instead of a keyboard, the composer sat at a puncher, driving commands into a 15-inch paper tape. The synthesizer's main enthusiast, Milton Babbitt, adored the machine precisely for its programmability. The logic of binary code allowed changing the sound architecture on the fly: by switching a few cables on the patch panel, the composer could force commands originally responsible for pitch to control filters or volume. For serialists, whose music was built on strict mathematics, this level of control was truly a dream come true.

Many of the center's residents disliked the RCA for its rigid adherence to the 12-tone scale but recognized it as an ideal PR signboard. Composer Alice Shields recalled: the sight of the 7-foot metal cabinet in the spirit of "mad scientists" unfailingly made studio guests take a deep breath of satisfaction.

The synthesizer ceased operation not only due to obsolescence. In 1976, vandals broke into the studio and smashed the machine. Nobody bothered to rebuild the highly complex vacuum tube architecture after the break-in. This three-ton dead monument still stands in the exact same room where it was installed in 1958.

## People

- Milton Babbitt (1916–2011) — American composer, mathematician, and ultimate control freak.
- Herbert Belar (1901–1997) was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American engineer and co-author of key RCA electroacoustic developments.
- Harry Olson (1901–1982) was a prominent American physicist and engineer, and one of the founders of modern electroacoustics.

## Connections

### Influenced

- [Moog Modular](https://nodemusic.cc/node/moog.md) - INSPIRED
- [Buchla & West Coast](https://nodemusic.cc/node/buchla.md) - INSPIRED
- [MIDI](https://nodemusic.cc/node/midi.md) - EVOLVED
- [C-Lab Creator](https://nodemusic.cc/node/creator.md) - EVOLVED
- [Columbia-Princeton Center](https://nodemusic.cc/node/columbia_princeton.md) - ENABLED
- [Synchronisms No. 6](https://nodemusic.cc/node/synchronisms.md) - ENABLED

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_Mark_II_Sound_Synthesizer