Michel Waisvisz

Michel Waisvisz (8 July 1949, Leiden – 18 June 2008, Amsterdam) was a Dutch composer, performer and inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments. He was the artistic director of STEIM in Amsterdam from 1981, where he collaborated with musicians and artists from all over the world.

His involvement with STEIM goes back until 1969, when it had been co-founded by his mentor and friend Dick Raaymakers. He has been a member of Amsterdam's Electric Music Theatre scene of the 1970s, performing intensively and raising critical voices against the upcoming high-tech culture. He co-founded and organised the first sound festival in the Netherlands:The Claxon Sound Festival.

Waisvisz had a passionate dedication to a physical, bodily approach to electronic music which he has expressed in the use and presentation of his many developments of hardware and software instruments. From his point of view electronic music is created in direct musical interaction with individual technology, allowing for instant travels into sound through improvisation. This multidimensionality in electronic musical practice has been summed up in the expression of Touch in an essay together with Joel Ryan and Sally Jane Norman in 1998.

Hardware Instruments:
TapePuller (1970): an instrument to play seated, pulling a tape with both feet over the tapehead, thus using the recording medium in a performative manner.

CrackleBox (1974): a portable instrument with batteries and a built-in speaker. The oscillator is played by the direct touch of the fingers on the exposed contacts of the circuit. The player's skin becomes part of the circuit.

CrackleSynth (1974): Michel Waisvisz' individual synthesizer. After bending a VCS3 Synth (the "Putney") in the early 70s to play it with a touchable "crackle" surface, this three voiced instrument became Michel Waisvisz' synthesizer development. It has 12 keys with tuning knobs combined with three crackle-patches.

...
Wikipedia