“We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet…”
Daphne Oram, founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, returned time and again to this quotation from Francis Bacon’s 17th century fantasy, The New Atlantis.
Now, with help from our friends at Goldsmiths College, we have been able to acquire the machine that was fed by these fantasies, “The Oramics Machine”, as she called it.
Listen! That’s Daphne herself showing off just some of the sounds that this extraordinary beast could produce.
People like to say that things are unique. This one really is – there was only ever one. Daphne operated it by painting on the ten synchronised strips of 35mm film that used to run across the top of the machine. Via light-dependent transistors this produced voltages that controlled the sound generators in the white cabinet. These too were based on hand-painted waveforms:
We have big plans for this unique machine.
We can report that it has been very carefully conserved by our experts and it’s going to go on display in the Museum later this year, surrounded by other gems from the Museum’s music and sound collections.
Nick Street has posted a video of the machine’s arrival in this country: Oramics by Nick Street. If you’d like to hear more about the project, keep an eye on this blog or e-mail us at: publichistory@sciencemuseum.org.uk.
3 comments on “We Have Also Sound-houses…”
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Very much looking forward to seeing the Oramics Machine when it is on display
I am looking forward to the machine created by my namesake!
This is a fantastic addition to the museum as it pulls together women’s roles in technical innovation as well as in British history. Oram’s job as a sound engineer at the BBC was largely due to the need for a skilled workforce during the Second World War, and her position allowed her to experiment with the sound technology at the BBC after hours. Although persistence in her campaign to set up a sound workshop at the BBC eventually paid off, the directive could not accommodate Oram’s vision for investigating electronic sound for its own sake. Her belief in the Baconian ‘sound house’ led her to set up her own workshop in an oasthouse in Kent where the genius of ‘Oramics’ was manifested in this extraordinary machine.