{"id":6574,"date":"2014-02-15T13:49:45","date_gmt":"2014-02-15T20:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/version5\/?page_id=6574"},"modified":"2021-01-07T10:49:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T12:49:40","slug":"lyricon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/version5\/vintage-saxes\/sax-shaped-things\/wind-controllers\/lyricon\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyricon"},"content":{"rendered":"

To aid in navigation, I\u2019ve added some links here to the various sections of this page. (Just click the \u201cBack\u201d button on your browser to bring you back to this set of boxes.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Lyricon patent info<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n
The Lyricon\u2019s history<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n
Buying a Lyricon and some sound samples<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n
Lyricon I<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lyricon II<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n
Wind Driver<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n
Fingering system according to the patent<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n
The end of Computone. The evolution of the wind synth. The Lyricon III?<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vintage Lyricon ads<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n
Where to get more info & downloads of manuals<\/a><\/div><\/td>\n
\u00a0<\/div><\/td>\n
\u00a0<\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

If you`re the owner of a wind controller, then you`ve benefitted from the work of Bill Bernardi and Roger Noble. These two men were the inventors of the first such wind synthesizer: the Lyricon.<\/p>\n

\"Lyricon,<\/a><\/p>\n

 Photography by: Brandon Daniel  Source: Wikipedia<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Lyricon patent info<\/span><\/p>\n

US Patent # 3,767,833<\/a> was awarded to Computone Inc.\u2014the company Bernardi formed to manufacture the Lyricon\u2014on October 23, 1973, and listed B. Bernardi and R. Noble as the instrument’s inventors. The patent Abstract describes the Lyricon as follows:<\/p>\n

A wind-actuated electronic musical instrument for play by a musican. [sic] The musician uses substantially the same technique as is associated with acoustic wind instruments to vary the range of musical sound and expression produced by the electronic musical instrument. Transducers convert the musician-produced air flow, lip pressure and fingering of the instrument to appropriate electrical signals, which signals control the frequency, harmonic content and harmonic phase of the sound produced by a tone generator.<\/p>\n

Source: Google Patents <\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The patent illustration shows an instrument that looks very similar to the Lyricon in the photo above.<\/p>\n

\"Lyricon<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: Google Patents<\/a><\/span>  <\/a><\/p>\n

The inventor’s explanation of the Lyricon’s history<\/span><\/p>\n

The most definitive websites that I could find about the Lyricon, were those belonging to multi-instrumentalist and composer, Jorrit Dijkstra.<\/p>\n

On his website Dijkstra has a page dedicated to this wind synth<\/a>. After buying a Lyricon in 1999 that needed repairs, Dijkstra tracked down the wind synthesizer’s inventor, Bill Bernardi, and asked him to repair it for him. The information that Dijkstra obtained from Bernardi, is important to understanding the Lyricon’s history.<\/p>\n

Bill Bernardi explained the evolution of the instrument like this:<\/p>\n

I studied the acoustics of wind instruments, and made a sythesizer [sic] that works with additive synthesis to imitate the overtones. The transducer contains a membrane and a photo cell, which translate breath and attack into voltages. After the first Lyricon we got requests from players to simplify the synthesizer and add an extra oscillator, so they could play parallel intervals. So we developed the Lyricon II and the Wind Driver. The synthesizer in the Lyricon II is totally different and the Wind Driver has to be hooked up to an extern [sic] analog synthesizer. They were mass produced by Selmer. Of The Lyricon II 5000 pieces were produced. The Lyricon I was hand made, only about 300 of them were made. [About 250 units of the Driver were made.]1<\/sup> My favourite is still the Lyricon I, cause it has more control features and a better synthesiser [sic].<\/p>\n

Source: Jorrit Dijkstra.com<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A critical element in the Lyricon’s ability to convert the player’s air flow, lip pressure, and fingerings to electrical signals is the transducer, and just as critically, the membrane that covers it. Furthermore, according to Bernardi:<\/p>\n

I tried at least a hundred different materials for the membrane of the transducer, to find the perfect one. It\u2019s not rubber, it\u2019s some sort of fiber. When you don\u2019t play the Lyricon for a long time, the membrane gets hard and needs to be replaced. I have plenty of them, I stocked up for years on them. The photo cell is very hard to get too, they don\u2019t make them anymore, I bought all of the ones I could still find.<\/p>\n

Source: Jorrit Dijkstra.com  <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>
\nBuying a Lyricon today and some sound samples
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

By now it might be becoming clear to you that these are instruments for which replacement parts are not readily available. Also, it should be noted that the only known place to get a Lyricon repaired is through Bill Bernardi himself.2,3
\n<\/sup><\/p>\n

Before you decide to pick up one of these vintage wind synthesizers on eBay, or even locally in a junk or pawn shop like Jorrit Dijkstra did, and have it repaired through Bill Bernardi, you might be asking yourself: What is this instrument going to sound like? Well, according to Lyricon owner and performer, Jorrit Dijkstra:<\/p>\n

The Lyricon is a beautifully made and fantastic sounding synthesizer (if in good shape!), with all the dynamics and accuracy of a saxophone or clarinet. It can produce fat and funky bass lines, whistling flute tones, dirty moog sounds and barely audible pitches with great dynamics.<\/p>\n

Source: Jorrit Dijkstra.com<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arguably, the Lyricon’s most famous recording was made by Tom Scott when he played the wind synth on Steely Dan’s 1977 hit, “Peg”4<\/sup>. And how many of you though that was a soprano sax? I gotta admit, I did for the longest time.<\/p>\n

Here is Tom Scott playing the Lyricon in its best impersonation of a soprano sax…<\/p>\n