Technical Research Institute Inc. Orchestron "Your Instrument of the Future" 2nd ad, Synapse 1978

Technical Research Institute Inc. Orchestron "Your Instrument of the Future" half-page black & white advertisement from page 30 in the January/February 1978 issue of  Synapse Magazine.

I've always said there was an art to shrinking down advertisements. Whether you are going from a two-page spread down to one page, or, as happened here, one page down to a half. And in this case doing it twice since they had to shrink down the previous full page Viking Keyboard Systems advertisement as well.

Those two full page advertisements appeared side by side Keyboard Magazine, but that wasn't always the case with the half-pagers. In the November/December 1977 issue, the two ads appeared opposite each other on page 12 and 13, each on the far sides of the page, with CD reviews running down the other halves. But then, in the January/February 1978 and May/June 1978 issues, the two ads appeared on the same page.

The designer did a great job of shrinking down the ads. In fact, there is more white space now than there ever had been before!

In comparison to the previous Orchestron advertisement, only three pieces of content were left out. The first, rather insignificant piece was the last sentence of the ad-copy - "It is our desire to serve you.". Don't need it.

The second, more significant deletion was that of the price - "From under $2,500.00". But, considering that in an even more previous ad from 1976, that price point had been "From under $2,000.00", it may have been better to remove it all together since it seems that price was increasing considerably over time rather than decreasing like technology usually does.

The final piece of information removed was the call-out box from the top-right corner of the ad that explained who Dave Van Koevering was. This is what humanized the TRI/Orchestron brand - especially since Dave worked as a VP for Moog. They took out some good name recognition when they did that. But I agree, it did have to go to fit in the new, smaller space. 

As far as I can tell, this is the first Orchestron advertisement to appear in Synapse Magazine, although the previous company - Vako Synthesizer Inc. - had begun appearing much earlier in the "Listings" section of the mag under "Synthesizer Manufacturing". In fact, it continued to appear as Vako in this listing for quite a while, even though Dave Van Koevering had changed the name of the company to TRI quite a while earlier. Someone wasn't keeping up with the times at Synapse.

And speaking of confusing name changes, the first time these two ads appeared in the Nov/Dec77 issue, the companion ad for keyboard cases was stilled named Viking Keyboard Systems. There was even an Orchestron give-a-way contest in that issue under the Viking name. It was in the Jan/Feb78 issue that Dave Van Koevering changed the name of that company to Voyager Keyboard Systems and dumped the viking ship logo. 

And...and...  speaking of contests, by fluke I came across an earlier Contemporary Keyboard giveaway contest (#15) for an Orchestron from page 22 in the July 1977 issue. What is really cool about this giveaway is that CK does a great job at explaining more of the technology behind the Orchestron. More than I've seen elsewhere:

"The Orchestron operates on the principle of modulated light measured by photoelectric cells. A variable-area sound track is cut by a high-energy laser on a thin translucent disc. As the disc is rotated, a beam of light is modulated by the laser-cut soundtrack. This modulated light is converted into electrical impulses by photocells. These laser-cut recordings can be made of virtually any instrument and are played on the Orchestron's 37-note keyboard. This unit is supplied with five memory discs: violin, pipe organ, 'cello, flute and vocal choir. The pitch of the instrument is voltage-controlled and separate bass and treble boost circuitry is provided. High-impedance and balanced-line outputs are included. The duration of the laser-recorded sound is infinite, and the optical memory discs can be interchanged in seconds."

That info is GOLD! Someone needs to get that info in the Wikipedia page.   :)

Technical Research Institute Inc. Orchestron "Your Instrument of the Future" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1977

Technical Research Institute Inc. Orchestron "Your Instrument of the Future" full page black & white advertisement from page 34 and 35 in the July 1977 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

Although this is the third advertisement for the Orchestron, it has been more than a year since the last one appeared. And there's been quite a few changes during that time period.

The most obvious change is the company name. Technical Research Institute Inc. is now the company "committed to the development of a keyboard musical instrument that produces the sound of all acoustic & electronic instruments".

Sometime between the launch of the Model "C" series and the Model "D" series, the company either changed its name, was bought out or something. the fact that Vako has been wiped from the ad, but Dave Van Koevering's name still exists in the top right call-out box means that he must someone still be involved.

Some confusion must exist, because the Wikipedia page for the Orchestron has the Model "D" built under the company name "Viking Keyboard Systems" (apparently the new name of Dave VK's company) in 1975, and yet we know that Contemporary Keyboard's May/June 1976 advertisement for the Model "C" was still being sold under the Vako brand name.

But even if the company name had changed by then, this new advertisement clearly states that it's Technical Research Institute Inc. that is selling this instrument - not Viking.

There is obviously is a connection, because not only is "Viking Keyboard Instruments" mentioned in this new Orchestron ad, but this Orchestron ad is part of the centerfold spread, sharing it with none other than a Vikings ad (also scanned!). They even share the same address. But I'm a stickler for details... and just want to know how these companies were connected. I've sent an email off to Dave Van Koevering for an answer. Hopefully he will get back to me soon!

Other than the name change and some ad-copy changes, the two ads look very similar from a design point of view. But there is one thing that make me love this advertisement more than the last - THE WHITE SPACE! Just as I had hoped in my last blog post, continental drift had started to take effect, and you can see that as the different elements of the advertisement spread across the entire page, they also added in a wee bit more white space around the main title "Your Instrument of the Future". But it makes all the different from a readability perspective.

And, I love it!

End note: So, who exactly is Dave Van Koevering? He worked for Moog?

Yup. That call-out box in the top right-hand corner of the ad drops Moog's name and if you are at all familiar with Moog history, you will know his association. I found a good bio for Dave on the Moog Foundation's Web site, under 2012 MoogFest's "Moog is Now: Album Art"exhibit info:

"David Van Koevering is a lifelong colleague and friend of Bob Moog. He began working with R.A. Moog, Co. shortly before the Minimoog was first developed. When the Minimoog was released, and met with initial mild success, VanKoevering pioneered the sale of the instrument, opening the market from a few hundred instruments to several thousand. His marketing saavy, legendary within the industry, has led him to be referred to as the man who brought the Minimoog to the world.  The title of the event originates from a slogan that VanKoevering used in his marketing effort for the Minimoog in the 1970s."

Nice.

Vako Synthesizers Inc. Orchestron "Your instrument of the future" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1976

Vako Synthesizers Inc. Orchestron "Your instrument of the future" full page black and white advertisement from the inside back cover of the May/June 1976 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

This is the second, and much more well-known advertisement by Vako for the Orchestron. It's not without its own issues, but in my opinion a good deal better in terms of design when compared to the previous two-page ad.

First - the bad. Well... everything is a little squished together. Especially the top half. I purposely scanned the ad with all the room around the border to make the point that it really didn't have to be. It reminds me of that photo you would see in your junior high school science book with all the continents pushed together. And like that single land mass, I just keep hoping the different elements of this advertisement will follow the theory of continental drift and float their way across the rest of the page to create some killer white space.

'Cause if we got some white space added in there, we would definitely start to see Vako's new personality begin to emerge in the design. A high contrast look, big chubby black letters in the ad-title and highlighted text that mimicks the font used in the name of the instrument,  and... hey... wait a minute...

(flips through the magazine... ).

Look familiar? Here's an Oberheim Four-Voice advertisement from the FRONT inside cover of the SAME issue of Contemporary Keyboard.  The title font has a few more edges, but there are definitely some familiarities to be found when comparing the two ads.

When designing the look of a company's ads, it's important to find a personality that is unique and then keep it up in order to start building that familiarity between the reader and the brand. Rule of thumb is that if you can cover the logo and the name of the company in an ad, and people can still recognize the company the ad is for, you've done your job.

I'm not suggesting that one company stole the ad design from the other. I just find it interesting to see simlar ad designs develop early on in both Vako's and Oberheim's lifetimes. And from an historical perspective, following it through to see which company won this brand battle (ahem... Oberheim).

But, I have to go back to my original thought - everything is pushed together too tightly, and it keep's Vako's personality from properly executing. I think part of the problem was that call-out box in the top right corner. It kind of looks like it was an after-thought, slapped on to the page outside of the ad to help highlight it, but unfortunately resulting in the rest of the ad getting pushed together in order to fit within the confines of the page.

Don't get me wrong, that call-out box serves a good purpose, playing a pivotal role to help personalize and familiarize the company with readers by including a bit of history on Dave Vankoevering, the owner of the company. It actually contains some really nice behind-the-scenes info about his previous work in the distribution and marketing of synthesizers and his time with none other than Moog!

Speaking of which, I didn't want to spend the whole blog post talking about design, because the technology behind the Orchestron is kind of interesting. I had already taken a look at the Orchestron's Wikipedia page but there wasn't much there on the technology behind the machine. So I pulled out my tattered copy of Mark Vail's Vintage Synthesizers book to see what he knew about the company. There I found three or so paragraphs on the Orchestron in the chapter titled "It Came from the Music Industry" under the section "The Reign of the Proto-Sampler".

According to Mark, both the Orchestron and another instrument called the Birotron, were both instruments "designed to exploit the market [the Mellotron] created". The Birotron was created by Dave Biro, funded by Rick Wakeman, and used eight-track tapes to play back sound. It apparently never made it out of beta testing and only about 35 machines were ever created.

The Orchestron, in comparison, used "laser-optical encoding technology, somewhat like an analog CD" with sounds optically recorded that could then be read by a beam of light. Reading the ad I always got confused about how the heck digital laser CD technology could have made it into an instrument way back in 1976. But back then it was still analog.  LOL.

Anyways,  The sound disks were $110 bucks a piece, the size of phonograph records, and according to the Orchestron Wikipedia page, the highest fidelity came from the outside rings (maybe because the outer edge is spinning faster than the inside?).  A remote scanning unit to read the disks were apparently quite large, and they even designed multiple disk readers to allow for the layering of sounds!

Well, I gotta stop there and enjoy the sun for a bit. More on the Orchestron soon!

Vako Synthesizers Inc. Orchestron "The Instrument of the Future..." ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1976

Vako Synthesizers Inc. Orchestron "The Instrument of the Future..." two page black & white advertisement from page 32 and 33 in the January/February 1976 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

Like the Wersi Condor I blogged about last Monday, I don't really know much about the Vako Orchestron either. And when that happens, I immediately focus on design.

If anything, this advertisement's design is the *exact opposite* on the Condor.  And although "The Future" is literally written all over this advertisement, the design also seems the exact opposite of the future too. This was only the second or third issue of Contemporary Keyboard magazine, and Vako had chosen to come out of the gates swinging with a two-page advertisement with ad-copy focused on the future of technology. And what do they do, they slap the pictures of the instrument on what looks like pre-clipart of a scroll.

Don't get me wrong - I do get it. The ad-copy is all "It shall have..." and "Its name shall be..." - as if reading off a scroll from the ancient Roman times. But the design for such an advanced instrument just could have been so much more.

The best part of the design of this ad has to be the logo. Vako in that futuristic "V" symbol is great. As is the font used for Orchestron. Futuristic in a 70s sci-fi-kinda way. And, as we can see, Orchestron wasn't just the name of the instrument, it was the name of a division (however small) within the company. Interesting stuff.

After picking apart the design in my head a bit, I decided to find out a bit more about the company. Googling actually brought up a lot more than I thought. And with so much to choose from, I of course immediately focused on artists that used the instrument.

Not surprisingly, one of the most common artist reference is to Kraftwerk. According to many sources, including the Orchestron Wikipedia page:

"Florian Schneider bought an Orchestron Model A during their Autobahn tour in the USA in 1975. On the unofficial live album Concert Classics, recorded during their 1975 tour, the instrument can be heard. Kraftwerk have used the instrument on the albums Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express and The Man-Machine."

I found one photo of Kraftwerk performing in Zurich in 1976 on the Wikipedia page for Trans -Europe Express that pretty clearly shows Ralf Hütter (far left) playing an Orchestron (click on the photo to be taken to a larger one on Wikipedia). You can tell its an Orchestron by the distinctively-shaped side panel with the carrying handle. KVRaudio's forum has another photo where they point it out - but its partially obscured by what seems to be another keyboard.  Neat stuff.

There's even a YouTube video of someone playing some Kraftwerk on an Orchestron.

But the most common reference to an artist that used the Orchestron is Patrick Moraz from the band Yes, probably because his custom three manual Orchestron is featured  prominently in the advertisement. Again, according to the Orchestron's Wikipedia page, the image is that of "Model X" - a prototype specifically built for Patrick. According to the page, this keyboard was used on Yes's Relayer album (another Wikipedia link), and  the instrument broke and disappeared after being sent in for repairs. Huh.

I'll leave with this YouTube video of the full Yes album below.

Take a listen if its your cup of tea.

I'm on my second time through while I write this blog post.  :)