Electronic Music Studios

Electronic Music Studios (EMS) is a synthesizer company formed in Putney, London in 1969 by Peter Zinovieff, Tristram Cary and David Cockerell.

In the mid-1960s Zinovieff had formed the electronic music group Unit Delta Plus with Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

While this proved unattainable in practice, the company nevertheless succeeded in manufacturing and selling the VCS3 for just £330, less than its nearest American competitor the Minimoog (which originally retailed for US$1495 when released in 1970) and far cheaper than Moog's modular systems, which cost thousands of dollars.

This matrix plugboard gave the VCS3 a high degree of inter-connectivity, comparable to that of much larger modular systems, and far greater than similar small synthesisers like the Minimoog.

Although EMS lost track of the instrument in 1983, it survived and in the United States,[6] until 2019 when musician Simon Desorgher sold it to the Goldsmiths College, University of London Electronic Music Studios.

The following year EMS released an expanded version, the Synthi AKS, which retailed for £420 and featured a sequencer and a small keyboard built into the lid.

EMS synthesisers and their London studios were used by many prominent rock and electronic artists including Pink Floyd (Meddle, Obscured by Clouds, The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall), The Who (Won't Get Fooled Again), BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Brian Eno and Roxy Music, Tangerine Dream (all early albums), Hawkwind, Tim Blake, Jean Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk and David Vorhaus (White Noise 2).

The EMS Synthi Hi-Fli analog multi effect processor was used extensively by Tony TS Mcphee of The Groundhogs and was used on the album SOLID in 1974.

This instrument, which he believes was the one featured in the "Every Picnic Needs a Synthi" press advertisement,[12] was fully restored by Robin Wood at EMS.