Con Brio, Inc.
| VintageTech's ADS 200 | |
 front view
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angled view
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| Brian Kehew's ADS 200 exhibited on Vintage Computer Festival 10.0 (2007) | |
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Con Brio ADS 200 and Brian Kehew |
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ADS200 in a van
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Con Brio, Inc. (alternatively spelled Conbrio or ConBrio) was a short-lived but influential synthesizer manufacturing company which, from 1978 to 1982, produced its most famous (and only) product, the ADS (an acronym for Advanced Digital Synthesizer).
Con Brio was founded in Pasadena, California, around 1979 by Tim Ryan, Alan Danziger, and Don Lieberman, three California Institute of Technology students who originally studied audio synthesis equipment designed to map the cerebral cortex of cats. Their first prototype was a modular production station dubbed the ADS 100. Originally designed as a tone generator to test hearing, the ADS was innovative in its approach to synthesis, and was, in fact, one of the earliest digital synthesizers. It was capable of several types of synthesis, including additive synthesis, phase modulation synthesis, and frequency modulation synthesis (commonly abbreviated to FM). It used three 6502 processors (the same processor used in the Apple II computer and Commodore 64) and included a video monitor which displayed sequences and envelope parameters. It could also be upgraded with commonly available computer peripherals, including an 8-inch floppy disk drive. All of this was controlled via a brightly colored control panel and two 61-note keyboards.
The ADS 100 was later famously used to generate sound effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Although Con Brio used this aggressively to market their product, no price for the ADS was given at the time, and the ADS 100 was largely assumed to be commercially unavailable.
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