Description | In 1948 Sala further developed the Trautonium into the Mixtur-Trautonium. The Mixtur-Trautonium allowed for the first time in music history the execution of sounds which had only been known in theory since the Middle Ages, but were never actually playable[example needed]. Sala's invention opened the field of subharmonics, the symmetric counterpart to overtones, so that a thoroughly distinct tuning evolved.
Sala presented his new instrument to the public in 1952 and would soon receive international licenses for its circuits. That same year, Harald Genzmer delivered the score to the first Concert For Mixtur-Trautonium And Grand Orchestra.
One of the first additions of Sala was to add a switch for changing the static tuning. Later he added a noise generator and an envelope generator (so called 'Schlagwerk'), formant filter (several bandpass filters) and the subharmonic oscillators. These oscillators generate a main pitch and several subharmonics, which are not multiples of the fundamental tone, but fractions of it. For any of the now two manuals, four of these waves can be mixed and the player can switch through these predefined settings. Thus, it was called the "Mixtur-Trautonium".
Oskar Sala composed music for industrial films, but the most famous was the bird noises for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The Trautonium was also used in the Dresden première of Richard Strauss's Japanese Festival Music in 1942 for emulating the gongs- and bells-parts and in the 1950s in Bayreuth for the Monsalvat bells in Wagner's Parsifal. |
| Brand | Oskar Sala |
| Model | Mixtur-Trautonium |
| Device | Synth |
| Type | Desktop |
| Engine Type | Analog |
| Engine | VCO |
| Voices (max) | 2 |
| Oscillators | 2 |
| Sub | 1 |
| Noise | Y |
| Engine Detailed | 2 Saw Up, Sub Oscillator, White Noise. Schlagwerk (Special LFO/ADSR - Unit) |
| Filter (VCF) | 2 12dB Slope (2-pole), Formant. |
| Keys | 2 |
| Key type | Wire |
| Velocity | N |
| Aftertouch | Y |
|
Produced: | 1948 - 1952 |
| Legend: |
Obvious |
Y: Yes, N: No, N/A: Not Applicable |
| VCO |
Voltage Controlled Oscillator |
DCO |
Digital Controlled Oscillator |
| LFO |
Low Frequency Oscillator |
Sub |
Sub Oscillator |
| VCF |
Voltage Controlled Filter |
VCA |
Voltage Controlled Amplifier |
| Velocity |
As with a piano, the harder you hit a key, the louder the sound, unlike most organs which always produce the same loudness no matter how hard you hit a key. |
Aftertouch |
Pressing a key after you activated it. Channel Aftertouch, no matter which key, it will send a Channel message. Poly Aftertouch, sends the pressure per key instead of the whole channel. |
| Values for OSC, LFO, Filter, Envelope are per voice unless stated otherwise. |
