Sculpting with voltage

Beyond imitation

Every new instrument discovers its own language

Potted histories of electronic music's ideas and technologies abound, but they're increasingly revealed to be incomplete, inadequate and, quite often, wrong. Rather than arguing over who did what first (who cares, anyway?), I'd rather marvel at the explosive proliferation of voltage-controlled electronic instruments that arrived in the 1960s and '70s. Their impact on our sonic world – and on how we hear, understand and imagine music – has been extraordinary. It was during this period that the synthesiser, as we know and love it today, truly came into its own.

From the outset, synthesisers had to fight to be taken seriously as musical instruments. For many early researchers and developers, their purpose (as the name suggests) was to synthesise the sounds of existing acoustic instruments. This fuelled widespread fears that machines would eventually render human musicians obsolete. The concern wasn't entirely unfounded. Early drum machines, for example, were designed to provide rhythmic accompaniment for organists, effectively eliminating the need for a drummer.

But that dystopian future never arrived. Instead, these machines gave rise to entirely new musical forms, and instruments built to imitate 'real' ones developed distinctive identities of their own. The sounds of particular synthesisers and drum machines have become the defining voices of entire eras of popular music. Four decades on, the unmistakably '80s sound of the Roland TR-808 drum computer is still being weaponised (see hip-hop hyperpop).

The Fairlight

The art of unintended consequences 

In the 1970s, pioneering Sydney engineers Kim Ryrie and Peter Vogel set out to build a digital synthesiser capable of producing tones as subtle and complex as those of acoustic instruments. One of electronic music's great ironies is that they transformed music precisely by falling short of that ambition. Their solution – digitally recording and manipulating real-world sounds – redefined how sound could be composed and manipulated, ushering in a new era of electronic music. Marrying the tape experiments of early musique concrète with the cutting-edge digital technology of the day, the Fairlight helped lay the foundations for the modern DAW (digital audio workstation).

Musicians quickly recognised its creative potential. Its earliest champions included Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, soon joined by Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Icehouse, Art of Noise, Thomas Dolby, Grace Jones, Tears for Fears and Duran Duran.

Electricity remembers

Revolution produces its own feedback

What is the state of electronic music today? The proliferation of digital technologies means more people than ever carry remarkable production studios in their pockets. Platforms like Ableton Live, alongside programming environments such as Max/MSP and its free cousin, Pure Data, offer seemingly limitless possibilities for composition and experimentation.

In recent years, the shift that began in earnest in the 1980s – away from analogue and towards 'the box' – has started to reverse. Interest in analogue modular synthesis has surged, drawing creators back to the tactile pleasures of instruments, electricity and sound. The irony is delicious. The very machines once feared for their power to mechanise and dehumanise music are now warming us against the chill of the digital age.

I have certainly enjoyed leaving the computer behind and returning to a more instrumental approach to sound generation. Composing with an analogue synthesiser, particularly an early, slightly unreliable one (I'm a big fan of the VCS3), means returning to your ears; tuning by hand and, in the process, imbuing every sound with its own sonic fingerprint.

When I place my hands on the dials of an analogue synthesiser, or patch an old modular, I feel as though I am sculpting with voltage; channelling warm electrical signals through filters like flour through a sieve. It's a strangely tangible process, one that makes me feel part of the circuitry itself, my own electromagnetic field connecting with the sonic energy emerging from the speakers.

That complicity with the electromagnetic universe is exhilarating. And while I make absolutely no value judgement about digital creation, I am relishing the warmth and plasticity of this analogue renaissance. I'll ride its wave until the call of the ones and zeros becomes necessary to realise a new experiment.

Robin Fox is a renowned Australian musician and audiovisual artist whose work spans live performance, exhibitions, publicart and composition. His work Constellations, an immersive audiovisual experience, was presented at the NFSA in 2025.