Constant Martin (10 May 1910 – 16 June 1995) was a French engineer and inventor who perfected and successfully commercialised radio sets and most famously the

Clavioline The clavioline is an electronic analog synthesizer. It was invented by French engineer Constant Martin in 1947 in Versailles. The instrument consists of a keyboard and a separate amplifier and speaker unit. The keyboard usually covered thr ...

, a precursor to the

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

. He is the grandfather of director

Michel Gondry Michel Gondry (; born 8 May 1963) is a French filmmaker and producer noted for his inventive visual style and distinctive manipulation of mise en scène. Along with Charlie Kaufman, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one o ...

and Oliver "Twist" Gondry. After having obtained diplomas in 1930 as an electrical engineer and radio technician, Martin began his career working for Victor Martin (no relation), a manufacturer of radios, where he developed an original receiver. In 1932 in Versailles, he began to experiment with the creation of electronic music. During 1932 to 1937 he developed an instrument related to the organ which used harmonium reeds. The instrument was demonstrated in the Church of

Sainte-Odile, Paris Sainte-Odile is a Roman Catholic church located in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, at the northwest edge of the city. It is dedicated to Odile of Alsace, Saint Odile, the patron saint of Alsace. It was constructed between 1935 and 1946, and is ...

in July 1939. In 1943, he completed the construction of an electronic organ with independent

oscillators Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum ...

and harmonic analyzers, which he presented at the Oratoire du Louvre, in the

Hôtel des Invalides The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and an old soldi ...

and at the

Palais de Chaillot The Palais de Chaillot () is a building at the top of the in the Trocadéro area in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. Design The building was designed in classicising " moderne" style by architects Louis-Hippolyte Boileau, Jacques ...

. He also made the electronic bells that rang out at the city hall to sound the liberation of the city of Versailles. The Clavioline was launched in 1947 with great commercial success. It was manufactured by Selmer in France and the United Kingdom, by Gibson in Kalamazoo, USA, and by Jorgensen in Düsseldorf, Germany. It rapidly became the world's leading monophonic instrument with more than 30,000 sold in the UK alone. In the 1950s, using the most recent electronic discoveries to improve his organs and bells, Martin demonstrated new electronic bells at the

Église Saint-Philippe-du-Roule The Église Saint-Philippe-du-Roule is a Roman Catholic church located at 154 Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Resembling a Roman temple. it was built in the style of Neoclassicism in France, Neoclassicism between 1 ...

in Paris. In 1961, using transistors, he was able to add harmonic effects to his instruments to produce sounds that almost faithfully reproduced the sound of a pipe organ. From the early 1960s his electronic sounds could be heard introducing the time on Radio

Europe 1 Europe 1, (''Europe un'') formerly known as Europe nº 1, is a privately owned radio station created in 1955. It was owned and operated by Lagardère News, a subsidiary of the Lagardère Group, it was one of the leading radio broadcasting s ...

, and the announcements at

Orly Airport Paris Orly Airport (, ) is one of two international airports serving Paris, France, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, south of Paris. It serves as a sec ...

. His Clavioline would be used by famous artists of the day such as

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

Del Shannon Charles Weedon Westover (December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990), better known by his stage name Del Shannon, was an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known for his 1961 number-one ''Billboard'' hit " Runaway", which was covered la ...

, and

The Tornados The Tornados were an English instrumental rock group of the 1960s that acted as backing group for many of record producer Joe Meek's productions and also for singer Billy Fury. They enjoyed several chart hits in their own right, including ...

. Martin was unable to compete when polyphonic synthesizers from Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands were introduced. Nevertheless, for over thirty years, Martin had pioneered and revolutionised the manufacture of electronic instruments and demonstrated the possibility of producing a variety of sounds that could be used in many genres of music.

Bibliography

* 20th-century French inventors 1910 births 1995 deaths {{france-engineer-stub