Deutsch
Hönig-Synthesizer
Seppo Gründler
A Piece of Hardware as the History of an Institute
As late as the 1990s, a machine the size of the bedroom cupboard would impress students and visitors to the Institute for Electronic Music at the Graz Academy of Music. The first thing to catch the eye was the lack of a keyboard, the large number of buttons, patch bays and a large matrix plug board. After the machine was switched on, you could hear “that you can't hear anything,” as Heinz Hönig (born 1929) likes to say. The SYM microcomputer that had been used to control it was by now no longer in operation, and the “Hönig,” as it was lovingly called, was used in the teaching studio mainly for the demonstration of basic synthesizing techniques and principles. The digital synthesizers in the studios hid their algorithms and mechanisms from the user behind hexadecimal displays and increment-decrement keys.
The Graz Institute for Electronic Music was founded in 1965. The purchase of commercial synthesizers was beyond the financial reach, and work began using tape splicing and the Institute’s own developments. Oscillators, envelope generators, ring modulators and mini-sequencers were developed and constructed. A synthesizer with eight voltage-controlled oscillators followed in 1973. The existing envelope generators were integrated, and filters and impulse generators added. According to reports by Institute staff, all the financial possibilities were used in order to advance the construction. Budget items such as teaching materials helped in the purchase of small components, condensers, resisters etc. At this time, the use of electronics was not uncontroversial. In addition, the lack of a keyboard in the conventional sense meant that the synthesizer could not be played and instead it was designed entirely for scientific and conceptual work. Low-frequency oscillators that allowed sequences of sounds lasting over 16 minutes represent the first use of digital technology.
From 1977 on, digital control technology was implemented further, with a microcomputer with digital-analogue converters generating the control voltages (the MIDI had not even been invented at that time). Helmuth Dencker, a composer employed at the Institute who enjoyed programming, created the EMC Compiler, a software program that allowed the input of various rule systems. Processes, loops, transpositions etc. no longer had to be entered note for note, but instead could be used as conceptual modules in the composition. The computer and the program dealt with the details.
Slowly, commercial synthesizers became cheaper and better – and hence increasingly acceptable for academic activities. In 1985, the recording and teaching studios were “midified” and equipped with modern digital synthesizers. Starting from the tape splicing technique and synthesis using oscillators and ring modulators, via voltage-controlled synthesis, the Hönig developed into a computer-controlled analogue synthesizer. By recycling reusable modules and components and through continuous expansion, the device became the history of the Institute cast in hardware. At the same time, the MIDI and digital commercial synthesizers were being developed, and industrial production and massive sales caused prices to fall; a control system (MIDI) still today criticized for its coarseness prevailed as an example of modern market mechanisms. Following the Institute’s relocation to new premises in September 2002, the analogue synthesizer ceased to be used.