Studio for electronic composition Darmstadt

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The Studio for Electronic Composition in Darmstadt was created when it opened on March 1, 1955 in the Kranichstein Music Institute. The city commissioned the composer Hermann Heiß , who had been studying electronic music production since 1951, to manage it . In 1957, Hermann Heiss privatized the studio and set it up in a separate building. It was thus one of the first private studios for electronic music in Germany and was named Studio for Electronic Composition Hermann Heiss Darmstadt . Hermann Heiß developed a new technology for a tape recorder for a more efficient way of working in the production of electronic sounds and commissioned a tape recorder equipped in this way from the Eberhard Vollmer company in Plochingen ( Hot-Vollmer magnetic tape recorder system 166 ). In his studio he wrote numerous electronic compositions on tape , from the electronic pause signal of the Hessischer Rundfunk (1955) to the Missa for alto, tenor and electronic sound (premiered in 1964 in Klosterneuburg near Vienna).

With the beginning of his retirement in 1963 Hermann Heiss gave up the management of the studio. Today all equipment of the studio is housed in the ZKM in Karlsruhe . In 2004 there was a solo exhibition under the title Klingende Electrons , which showed all of the studio's original equipment. The tape recordings with electronic compositions made in the studio were digitized in 1996 at the ZKM for the International Digital Electroacoustic Music Archive (IDEAMA) and are available to visitors in the ZKM media library.

Most important devices in the studio

  • Hot-Vollmer magnetic tape recorder (see above), which allows different soundtracks to be mixed together and thus an electronic music production that is 10 to 20 times faster.
  • Ring modulator (built by Hermann Heiss himself).
  • Reverb spiral (built by Hermann Heiss himself).
  • Two loudspeakers (built by Hermann Heiss himself).
  • An oscilloscope with an attachment for experiments in connection with image and sound.

literature

  • Barbara Reichenbach: Hermann Heiss. A documentation. Schott, Mainz 1975, ISBN 3-7957-1572-5 .

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