Variophon
The Variophon is a wind instrument synthesizer that was developed in the 1970 / 80s at the Musicological Institute of the University of Cologne and built in 1981 by the Realton company.
principle
It is based on the then new synthesizer principle of pulse shaping . Accordingly, every wind music sound can be traced back to its stimulation impulses (vibrations of the excited reeds or lips). Back then, the variophone was the answer to the fundamental question of how the timbre of instruments is formed and why the timbre laws work that way.
With the variophone, which is praised as an electronic wind instrument , the saxophone, trumpet, trombone, oboe, clarinet, bassoon or panpipe could be produced in their respective sound type.