Loumavox, the forgotten, mysterious Synthesizer from Louise and Marc Voksinski (updated)

Loumavox, the forgotten, mysterious Synthesizer from Louise and Marc Voksinski from the 1960s , discovered by French students could be a synth history changer

Edit: “If a story sounds too good it is often not true”, this is how Hainbach reacted to my post on Instagram. I’m happy to agree. There are some weird points that I have not taken into account in this story early this morning and which give the whole thing a different color.

The website wavesandmind.org, which is given as the source in the documentary, does not exist. It was never registered. Strange indeed. Further, Hainbach says that Tom Whitwell (Music Modular) pointed out that the knobs are 3D printed. A very sophisticated technology for the 1960s.

It smells like a synth soap opera (fake story). It is not known who is staging the whole thing. Also super funny that a personality like J-M-J is onboard. As long as it is not fully proven, it remains a story, and a story can be true or fictional.

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Bob Moog with the Moog Modular (1964), Don Buchla with the Buchla Modular Electronic Music Sytem (1965), Peter Zinoveiff with the VCS3 (1969), Alan Robert Pearlman with the ARP 2500 (1970), Dave Smith with the Prophet-5 (1978). All Synthesizer pioneers who have strongly influenced electronic music and instrument design.

Musicians like Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre made these instruments popular and shaped the history of electronic music. But the real heroes are the geniuses behind these instruments. Without them the world of synths would be different. The synth history may, however, be expanded to include two previously unknown personalities: Louise and Marc Voksinski, the developers of the Loumavox.

Loumavox

Loumavox is a Synthesizer that no one knows. Until recently there were no pictures, no Wikipedia entry, no sound demo, no Hainbach documentary video… nothing. That changed suddenly by accident. Students from the agricultural high school in Courcelles-Chaussy/Metz (France) discovered by chance this synth beauty from the 1960s. It was developed by Louise and Marc Voksinki in the 60s, the time when Bob Moog, Don Buchla … were working on their first synths that made history.

Both French developers had plans to commericalze synth in big quantities. But this never happened because Marc Voksinski died in an accident in 1970. As a result of this incident, Louise decided to stop and never touch the project again. Thus the Loumavox was neither fully developed nor made public.

Almost 60 years later, students from France discovered this unknown vintage Synthesizer. They went in search of Louise and Marc Voksinski, the genius creators of this machine and wanted to find out who they are.

In addition to the people, the students also wanted to know more about the instrument. To this end, they talked to Synthesizer experts including Jean Michel Jarre, one of the pioneers of electronic music. And one who experimented and composed with synths at an early age.

Innovative

According to the synth expert the signal path is relatively classic with oscillators, filters, sequencer, etc. However, the instrument was superior to many available synthesizers at the time.

Very mysterious and ground-breaking in the historic context is that they found out that the Loumavox had functions that no one else hat at that time. Companies like Arp, Moog .. developed those much later for their instruments. Jean Michel Jarre said in the documentary:

“it was the AKS VCS 3, but I didn’t have any of the possibilities the Loumavox has…. the possibilities it has, which will be offered only way later with the Moog, ARP, etc”.

For example, the built-in low frequency oscillator can trigger the envelope generator at the same time as the sequencer. Yes, a sequencer is also included, which was very revolutionary at the time. And it sounds very rich and unique.

The discovery of this synthesizer would worth gold for the community if it’s true. Hopefully it’s not a PR campaign by a company is hiding behind this documentary. If not, it would be a historic synth moment. Not only because of the synth discovery but also because of the developers: Louise and Marc Voksinski. For Synthesizer world it would be a sensational find.

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