Models
Every model, most significant first.
3 models
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Virtual ANS
Software synthesizer emulating the Russian ANS photoelectronic synthesizer
Synthesizer · Russia
Virtual ANS is a software synthesizer developed by Alexander Zolotov (WarmPlace) that recreates the ANS, the photoelectronic synthesizer built in the Soviet Union by engineer Evgeny Murzin and named after the composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin. Like the original instrument, it produces sound from drawn images: the user paints on a vertical spectrogram-style canvas where the horizontal axis is time and the vertical axis is pitch, and the program resynthesizes that picture additively across a large bank of sine-tone oscillators. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and in a web browser, and is widely used for spectral, drone, and experimental sound design.
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ANS synthesizer
Optically controlled music instrument
Synthesizer · Russia
The ANS synthesizer is a photoelectronic musical instrument designed by the Soviet engineer Evgeny Murzin and completed in 1957, named after the composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin. It generates sound from images: marks made on glass plates coated with opaque mastic are read optically and resynthesized as continuous additive tones. A single instrument was built and was famously used by composers such as Edward Artemiev, including for Soviet film scores.
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Aelita
Soviet synthesizer
Synthesizer · Russia
The Aelita is an analog synthesizer produced in the Soviet Union during the 1980s. It is valued today mainly by collectors of Soviet-era electronic instruments.