Electronic Music Studios

Electronic Music Studios (London) Ltd. (EMS) is a synthesizer company formed in 1969 by Peter Zinovieff, Tristram Cary and David Cockerell.

The founding partners had wide experience in both electronics and music. Cockerell, who was EMS' main equipment designer in its early years, was a gifted electronics engineer and computer programmer. In the mid-1960s Zinovieff (who originally qualified as a geologist) had formed the pioneering electronic music group Unit Delta Plus with Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Cary was a noted composer and a pioneer in electronic music—he was one of the first people in the UK to work in the musique concrete field and built one of the country's first electronic music studios; he also worked widely in film and TV, composing scores for numerous Ealing Studios and Hammer Films productions, and he is well known for his work on the BBC's Doctor Who, notably on the classic serial The Daleks.

The company's first commercial synthesiser, the VCS 3, designed by David Cockerell, was produced in 1969. It was developed in the basement of Zinovieff's house and was nicknamed "The Putney" after the London suburb where he was living at the time.

EMS' original aim was to create a versatile monophonic synthesiser that would retail for just £100. While this proved unattainable in practice, the company nevertheless succeeded in manufacturing and selling the VCS3 for just £330, less than its nearest American competitor the Minimoog (which originally retailed for US$1495 when released in 1970) and far cheaper than Moog's modular systems, which cost tens of thousands of dollars. EMS also released the DK1, a velocity sensitive dynamic monophonic keyboard controller for use with VCS3; this included an extra VCO and VCA and retailed for £145. The DK1 was nicknamed "The Cricklewood" after the London suburb where Cockerell lived. EMS used to have a R&D department based over a DIY shop in Cricklewood Lane, Cricklewood, London, so that could have influenced the name of the mechanical keyboard. It is not widely known that EMS electronic equipment was mostly made by another company "Hinton Electronics" based in Wareham, Dorset.

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