(b Hamburg, 19 Oct 1909; d ?North Tonawanda, NY, 15 Jan 1987). American designer of electronic instruments and equipment, of German birth. He studied at the University of Hamburg and the Heinrich-Hertz Institut of the Technische Hochschule in Berlin. He pioneered a number of techniques that are now common in synthesizers and other electronic instruments. His first instrument was the Warbo Formant-Orgel (1937) in which he introduced the ‘assignment’ of notes on a partially polyphonic keyboard. Touch sensitivity was an important aspect of the monophonic keyboard of the Melodium (1938), developed with the assistance of Oskar Vierling, which also incorporated a pedal for vibrato control and a tuning-transposition knob. In the monophonic Melochord (1947), he pioneered the split keyboard as an alternative to the use of two manuals. A special two-manual studio version introduced the idea of a filter operated from one manual to control the timbre of notes played on the other.
From 1950 Bode undertook more conventional design work, including a series of electronic organs beginning with the Polychord (1950) and the Bode organ (1951); the latter was the basis for the Polychord III (1951), manufactured by Apparatewerk Bayern, and for the electronic organs made in the USA by the Estey organ co. from 1954. He also developed the Cembaphon (1951, an amplified harpsichord with electrostatic pickups), the portable Tuttivox electronic organ (1953) and the concert model of the Clavioline (1953). He emigrated to the USA in 1954, working as Estey's chief engineer, and in 1960 moved to North Tonawanda, where between 1960 and 1963 he designed a new model of the Wurlitzer electric piano.
In 1959–60 Bode developed a modular ‘signal processor’, which incorporated devices such as a ring modulator and elements of voltage control, and had some influence on the work of R.A. Moog and others. In 1963–4 he devised a frequency shifter and ring modulator which were originally manufactured by the R.A. Moog Co. Bode continued to design sound-processing modules, in particular a vocoder and an infinite ‘barbershop’ phaser; these and more recent models of the two earlier modules were manufactured by his own company, Bode Sound, in North Tonawanda. During the 1970s he also composed electronic music on tape for concerts and television commercials.
See also Electronic instruments, §I, 4(ii) and §IV, 5
‘Bekannte und neue Klänge durch elektrische Musik-Instrumente’, Funktechnische Monatshefte (1940), no.5, pp.67–75; simultaneously pubd in Funk (1940), nos.9–10
‘Mehrstimmige und vollstimmige elektrische Musikinstrumente’, Das Elektron in Wissenschaft und Technik, iii/6 (1949), 211–17
‘European Electronic Music Instrument Design’, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, ix/4 (1961), 267–9, 304 only
‘A New Tool for the Exploration of Unknown Electronic Music Instrument Performances’, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, ix/4 (1961), 264–6
‘Sound Synthesizer Creates New Musical Effects’, Electronics, xxxiv (1961), 33
‘The History of Electronic Sound Modification’, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, xxxii/10 (1984), 730–39
T. Rhea: ‘Harald Bode's Four-Voice Assignment Keyboard (1937)’, Contemporary Keyboard, v/12 (1979), 89 only; repr. with the following in The Art of Electronic Music, ed. T. Darter and G. Armbruster (New York, 1984), 59–62
T. Rhea: ‘Bode's Melodium and Melochord’, ibid., vi/1 (1980), 68 only
T. Rhea: ‘Harald Bode's Frequency Shifters and Vocoders’, ibid., vi/2 (1980), 86 only
J. Lee: ‘Interview: Harald Bode’, Polyphony, vii/Sept–Oct (1981–2), 14–17
H.A. Deutsch: Electroacoustic Music: the First Century (Miami, 1993), 17–19
HUGH DAVIES