Constant Martin (10 May 1910 – 16 June 1995) was a French engineer and inventor who perfected and successfully commercialised radio sets and most famously the Clavioline, a precursor to the synthesizer.
In 1943, he completed the construction of an electronic organ with independent oscillators and harmonic analyzers, which he presented at the Oratoire du Louvre, in the Hôtel des Invalides and at the Palais de Chaillot.
It was manufactured by Selmer in France and the United Kingdom, by Gibson in Kalamazoo, USA, and by Jorgensen in Düsseldorf, Germany.
From the early 1960s his electronic sounds could be heard introducing the time on Radio Europe 1, and the announcements at Orly Airport.
Nevertheless, for over thirty years, Martin had pioneered and revolutionised the manufacture of electronic instruments and demonstrated the possibility of producing a variety of sounds that could be used in many genres of music.