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Although most people would assume that the very earliest electronic sound synthesiser was created in the last Century however the earliest synthesizer was a two hundred ton monster, the Dynamophone (also named the Telharmonium) constructed Century before that. It is likely that plenty of keyboardists will have knowledge of the Theremin which first appeared in 1919 and is famous for its appearance in science fiction movie soundtracks during the 1950s & 1960s. Ever since then there have been many wonderful but highly unusual, sounding and looking, electronic synthesisers and below I will be discussing the wonderful Wasp synthesizer.

Even though the earliest sound synthesisers made incorporating transistors (as against tubes) were available to purchase in the 1960s it wasn’t until the next decade that the earliest compact, portable and self contained form which people know nowadays were available to buy. Before the self contained, compact and portable format of electric synthesisers they were large and immensely complicated and expensive modular synths from the likes of Donald Buchla and R A Moog. The portable, self contained and compact Minimoog (Model D) were available to buy in Ninteen Seventy and was praised for being less costly, but this was just if you compared it to the price of the modular synths. It wasn’t until the arrival of the Japanese synths sold by companies such as Korg, Roland and Yamaha and the British Wasp synthesiser made by the Electronic Dream Plant (EDP) that we started to see a synth which could truly be described as being affordable.

In the Nineteen Seventies keyboard players known across the planet, such as; Herbie Hancock, Jan Hammer and Rick Wakeman, and bands such as Genesis and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, used synths built in the U.S.A by well known companies such as; Oberheim Electronics, Moog and E-mu. Nineteen Seventy Three saw the arrival of synthesizers from Japanese manufacturers such as Korg and Roland. Roland’s SH-1000 and the Korg Mini-Korg 700 may have had a weaker sound than the competing American manufacturers the synths from Japan were considerably less costly. The Wasp synth from the Electronic Dream Plant, made in Britain, was first sold in Ninteen Seventy Eight and the list price was £199.

For less than £200 the EDP Wasp was a full functional synth which featured the common elements of two DCOs, a VCF, a VCA and an LFO. DCO (digitally controlled oscillator) 1 has the following waveforms; ramp or pulse width(which can be set from 10-50%). The second digitally controlled oscillator(DCO) can produce square or ramp waveforms and the sound synthesiser also has a noise generator.

The LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator), used to modulate the pitch and VCF and has the following waveforms sine, ramp, sawtooth, square, random (sample and hold) and noise. The LFO intensity can be varied in both negative and positive values and it is able to reach speeds into the audio frequencies for some freaky sonic effects. Two envelope generators (EGs) enable shaping the filter and the amplitude. EG knobs available are decay, sustain (with optional repeat function) and attack for the amplitude and delay (with repeat function), attack and decay for the VCF (voltage controlled filter).  The voltage controlled filter (VCF) is a 12db multimode highpass, lowpass or bandpass with controls for Q (resonance), cutoff frequency, LFO amount, Envelope amount and filter type.

To keep the price low EDP’s Wasp synthesiser had strange keyboard which was touch sensitive and non moving (instead of the more usual moveable piano keys. Other unusual aspects of the synth include; an internal speaker, a black and yellow color scheme and an EDP-Link IN/OUT (to link 2 Wasps). Although it somewhat looked like a child’s toy the sound that it emitted were amazing and the synthesizer swiftly became very popular with keyboard players. World renowned users include Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran), Vince Clarke, Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) and The Stranglers and there are numerous others including; Devo, Bauhaus, Kim Wilde, 808 State, J. G. Thirlwell (Foetus), WhiteHouse, Add N to (X), Dave Holmes and Notwist. Obviously the Wasp synth was frequently purchased by struggling keyboardists and domestic users also. Probably the finest method of incorporating the heart and soul of a Wasp synth is to use a Wasp sample collection to use in your music sampler such as EXS24, Structure, Gigasampler, Kontakt and Halion.

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