OPEN FOR OFFERS, GET IN TOUCH!
The first electronic instrument to reach a mass market, the Selmer Clavioline pioneered many of the basic concepts of synthesis, along with a few features that are still remarkable today.
Electrical instruments first appeared at the close of the 19th century, but it was another 50 years before an affordable and widely distributed electronic keyboard became available. Its story began in the developments of the 1920s and '30s, but came to fruition in 1947 in Versailles, a part of France more famous for its palace, treaties, beheadings and references to brioche than it is for electronic music. It was in this year that a chap named Constant Martin invented a small instrument designed to be bolted under the keyboard of a piano and used to imitate orchestral solo instruments. It was the Clavioline.
Physically, the Clavioline comprised two parts: a keyboard unit, which also contained the sound generator and controls, and a combined power supply, valve amplifier and speaker cabinet that looked like nothing so much as a cheap public address system. A dedicated multi-pin cable connected the two together, carrying a considerable amount of power to the keyboard to heat the valves, as well as carrying the audio signal back to the amplifier/speaker.
Players could attach the keyboard to the underside of a piano keyboard using the supplied metal brackets, but had to position it carefully so that they could control its volume using the integral knee lever, while still being able to pedal the piano itself. Alternatively, for those who preferred not to mount the Clavioline under a piano, there were several stands manufactured to support it at a playable height. These ranged from a stylish collapsible tripod that seems to have hailed from the USA, to the wobbly Selmer stand pictured here.
The expression lever was fundamental to playing the Clavioline. When it was at rest in its leftmost position, little sound emerged from the instrument, and the player had to apply pressure to move the lever to the right for the sound to be heard. While this might sound strange to those of us brought up on instruments with simple volume controls, it was quite intuitive for players in the '50s, who would have related it to the knee levers found on most harmoniums, or perhaps to the need to apply bowing pressure on stringed instruments or blowing pressure to brass and woodwind. The lever was, therefore, much more than a volume control: it was the means for articulating the instrument, and skilled players could wring remarkable feats of expression from it. These could range from slow crescendi to staccato, and even plucking effects obtained by flicking the lever. (Clearly, a 'quick knee trembler' was desirable in more ways than one!)
The 36-note, high-note-priority keyboard covered three octaves, from a low 'F' to a high 'E', and used three-octave dividers to derive all the pitches from a single top-octave tone generator. (Why 36 notes? Because adding the top 'F' would have required a fourth divider.) Beneath this, there was a slider that the player could push left or right using two protruding metal rods. Pushed to the left, this transposed the instrument down an octave, and to the right, up an octave. This gave the Clavioline a five-octave range, which was a big deal in the '40s and '50s. Fine-tuning of the lower and upper ranges and the instrument as a whole was accomplished using the small potentiometers mounted on either side of the base of the keyboard unit.
The knee lever was a fundamental Clavioline control that could be used to generate a surprising range of expressive effects.Photo: Richard EcclestoneThe standard Clavioline offered 18 on/off switches called 'stops' on its front panel. The 14 tone modifiers were named 1 to 9, plus O, A, B, V and P, and these were augmented by four vibrato switches: I, II, III and Amplitude. As shown in the attached table, Selmer offered suggested voicings, but there was nothing stopping players from creating new timbres by combining the stops in novel ways.
As for the sound itself, the valve oscillator in the Clavioline produced a harmonically rich, buzzy waveform similar to a square wave. You can hear this by setting all the stops to 'off', whereupon the unmodified tone can be heard. At least one recommended patch, the Trumpet, was based on this sound, modified with just vibrato and, of course, articulated using the knee lever. Other sounds were derived from the basic timbre by the application of high-pass and low-pass filtering. Although I have never come across an explanation of the actions of each of the filter stops, and I am far too lazy to reverse-engineer the circuits, the actions of some are quite obvious. Others one learns to use through trial and error.
Although the filtering was remarkable for its era, it was the vibrato that was to become the defining factor in the Clavioline sound. This was true vibrato: in other words, modulation of frequency, rather than the tremolo or amplitude modulation that was sometimes, and inaccurately, called vibrato elsewhere. Three speeds were selected using the I, II and III switches, and two depths were available, determined by whether the Amplitude switch was on or off. This means that six vibrato settings were available, but it was the fastest and deeper of these that became the instrument's trademark.
Nevertheless, none of this explains why the Clavioline had such a recognisable character, nor why it has proved so difficult to imitate, even with today's sophisticated synthesizers. The secret to this lay in its amplifier. To quote Selmer's service manual, "The Amplifier is an unusual type insofar as a large amount of distortion is deliberately obtained. This distortion is used to further modify the signal and contributes in no small measure toward the construction of the authentic tone. The Amplifier is, therefore, an integral part of the instrument..."
Sold serviced, with warranty.
Shipped bombproof, anywhere you like.
——
Turnlab is a company based in the centre of Antwerp (Belgium) specialised in pro audio equipment & instruments.We buy, sell, repair, service and rent out new, second hand and vintage gear. Consignment & trades possible (with other vintage/2nd hand AND new gear)
