ONDES AUDIO Catalogue N° 7 · Printemps 1977

Édition pour l'exportation · Paris XIe

ONDES 77

The tabletop synthesizer from the Rue de Charonne. Three voices of warm current in solid walnut and baked enamel — an instrument for rooms where the coffee is small and the ideas are long.

2 450 Fex-works · ≈ $540 in 1977

Écoutez — hear it Commander
Planche 01 — L'ouverture Trois oscillateurs · Filtre en échelle · Noyer massif Défilez ↓

Fig. 1 — L'instrument

Turn it in your hands.

Drag to rotate the machine. Rest on any control to read its purpose; press one and the panel will answer politely.

Faites tourner — drag

Planche 02

Architecture de la voix

Three oscillators,
disagreeing politely.

Each voice drifts a few cents from its brothers — the width of a hair, the depth of a chorus. The sum falls through a –24 dB transistor-ladder filter tuned by ear at the bench, is shaped by the amplifier, and leaves through a transformer that adds nothing but good manners. The ondulateur below the line bends whatever you let it touch.

Faites glisser le schéma →

Oscillateurs
0 — dérive ± 0 cents
Gamme
16′ — 2′, cinq octaves
Filtre
passe-bas, –0 dB / octave
Ondulateur
0,05 — 30 Hz, sinus / carré
Commande
0 V / octave
Sortie
ligne 600 Ω & casque
Châssis
noyer massif, acier émaillé
Masse
0,2 kg
Alimentation
220 V ~ 50 Hz, 14 W
Mise en chauffe
0 minutes, comme le café

Planche 03

Quatre humeurs

Press a mood.
The current does the rest.

Four drones, voiced at the bench and fixed like recipes. Press one to let it breathe; press it again to let it rest. The needle on the machine will tell you the truth about each.

Volume doux, réglé pour le salon. Headphones flatter it; neighbours forgive it.

Planche 04

Ce qu'en dit la presse

« Nous n'avons jamais entendu le courant électrique chanter ainsi. »

— Revue du Son, N° 43 · mars 1977

Henri Devaux wound transformers for Radiodiffusion Française for eleven years before he decided the radio was singing the wrong songs. He rented three rooms on the Rue de Charonne, hired two watchmakers and one organist, and began building the machine he could not buy.

Every ONDES 77 leaves the atelier with its filter tuned by ear — Devaux insists the last quarter-turn belongs to no meter ever made. The press agreed; the vague nouvelle was forty-three machines a year, and the waiting list learned patience.

Aged scan of a 1977 Revue du Son magazine page reviewing the ONDES 77 — headline reads 'ONDES 77 — la vague nouvelle', with a black-and-white photograph of the stage keyboard model.
The touring model — ONDES 77 Clavier — photographed for the Revue du Son bench test. The console model, ours, keeps the same voice in a smaller case.
An ONDES 77 synthesizer on a walnut desk in a sunlit Paris workshop, beside an espresso cup, coiled patch cables and handwritten waveform sketches.
L'atelier, Rue de Charonne, Paris XIe — 7 h 40

Planche 05

Bon de commande

2 450 Fex-works, Rue de Charonne · crating included

DélaiEleven weeks. Each filter is tuned by ear, and ears keep office hours.
GarantieTwenty-five years, transferable to your children. Bakelite outlives fashion.
LivraisonCrated in the same walnut as the end-cheeks. The crate becomes a record cabinet; plans are enclosed.
EssaiFourteen days in your salon. If it does not lower your pulse, return it — postage is ours, regret is yours.
Réserver le N° 0078

Serial N° 0077 remains on the bench — Devaux says it is not finished listening. Orders are honoured strictly in sequence; the ledger is kept in pencil, because ink presumes too much.

Macro photograph of a burnt-orange bakelite knob labelled FRÉQUENCE on the ONDES 77 cream enamel faceplate.
Détail — bakélite, série 77. The pointer line is a single brushstroke.