The man who gave harmonicas a boldly futuristic vision is lost to us. We’ve learned that Walter Müller, inventor of the MIDI wind controller Millioniser, died this month. Rock Erickson of Millioniser writes with the news, and updates us on plans to carry on with the Millioniser as well as to honor Müller’s memory. (See the groovy video from 1983 promoting this creation.)

I am sad to announce that Walt Miller (Walter Müller) Inventor of Millioniser (midi wind controller) has died in Switzerland on 10.13.2011. Millioniser introduces HIP™ Technology (Harmonica In Principal) which enables the user to sound notes via mouth position
rather than finger position.

(new site) http://www.millioniser.com

Walter’s family and friends visited him often and I will miss my dear friend. Walter was a famous harmonica player who entertained in
films, grand performances such as the likes of the Queen of England, and was also an inventor. Walter originated The Millioniser. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and condolences on the live site comment page –
http://www.millioniser.com/#!live-site-comments

– for Walt’s family and
friends. We miss you already, dear friend. You can learn more about Walt Miller by clicking the links with his name attached on the site.
It is being constantly updated so please feel free to contribute. Walter’s family, Ronald Schlimme Millioniser Engineer, and myself
will keep you posted of the new developments of Millioniser.

Walt Miller July 17
1927 – October 13 2011 RIP Dear Friend

My condolences to family, friends, and colleagues. And if there are any Millioniser players out there amongst the CDM readers, we’d love to hear from you.

Via comments from last month, more on the Millioniser (with videos):

Provided by Ronald Schlemme -Millioniser Engineer
The history of the Millioniser
The Millioniser is a harmonica wind synthesizer, invented by Walt Miller (Walter Müller).
From the idea to the Millioniser
The Milloniser was developed in a period of 5 years before it hit the market as the “Millioniser 2000”.
In 1979, Walter Miller together with Harald Blobel and Urs-Peter Studer developed a prototype which could control a Roland Promars analogue synthesizer. The first control unit was still quite bulky, but its functions were working exactly as expected. With this unit, the two records “Xmas and you” and “Perfidia” were produced.
In succession, a new control unit was developed by Urs-Peter Studer. This control unit was beautiful and elegant. It was intended for the use as a controller for a Promar Synthesizer. Unfortunately, the production was very expensive and complex. Because of this, Walter Miller was looking for a funding partner, which makes a redesign with its own synthesizer possible. At the same time he was looking for an engineer with experience in musical electronics.
In 1982, Ronald Schlimme of SM Elektronik AG joined the team. The first job was to implement a standardized interface to normal synthesizers. Further, different aspects of modulating the sound had to be explored. A Roland Modular System 100M, a Moog Prodigy and different additional devices like equalizer, exiter, hall, chorus and phaser were used for this. The results were truly striking. A violinist was baffled about the authenticity while listening to Walter Miller playing on the Millioniser prototype. Similarly amazed was a trumpet player who was working as an instrument maker for brass instruments. The Millioniser can control 8 octaves or in other words, from a tuba up to a piccolo trumpet.
In 1982/83, a polyphonic controller was developed, which could control a Roland Jupiter 4 synthesizer. The results were impressive.
Finally in September of 1983, the long awaited funding of the Millioniser company in London became a reality.
The development of the Millioniser
In October 1983, the development of the new Millioniser 2000 started and everything was redesigned. The team: Alex Bärtschi, Peter Benz, Walter Müller, Wolfi Peccoraio, Marcel Rothen, Ronald Schlimme, Urs-Peter Studer, Felix Thommen
Design, casing construction for the control unit and synthesizer, electronics, software, test software, manual, presets (sounds), prototype and production documents.
The design phase started in October of 1983 and in April 1984, four working Millionisers were presented in the Sheraton in Zurich and Hilton in Basel. From the idea to the finished product in only 5 months. Housing plastic design and zinc injection die casting were not an easy task for Urs-Peter Studer and Injecta AG.
Enclosure design by Walt Miller and Conran from London. The brilliant idea was to bevel the edge of the control unit, which gave it a slimmer appearance.
The very first single chip microcontroller from Motorola with analogue inputs were used for the control unit. Motorola advertised these chips with the slogan: “We produce the processor; you play the music on it”. We then sent a letter to Motorola Europe in Geneva with the note “We would like to play music on the chip, but unfortunately, they are not available”. We then got plenty of support by Motorola in the form of sample chips and the head of the department for single chip processors and one of the developers showed their interest and support by visiting The Millioniser Team in Basel.
Alex Bärtschi was the developer of the control unit electronics and software. Alex couldn’t understand why his calculations for the optocouplers didn’t match the results he observed. Then we found out that they have a memory effect. We then inverted the logic and all of a sudden it worked like a charm. The application engineer of Telefunken (the supplier of the optocouplers) was baffled when we explained that inverting the logic works better when sampled at 3000 times a second.
Rock Erickson is the original Millioniser tester from USA and played the first control unit which was white in color.
Ronald Schlimme was project leader and responsible for the Millioniser software and synthesizer design and implementation. The test software was written by Peter Benz and Ronald Schlimme. Everything was written in Assembler because the timing was critical. The engineering was finished in March 1984. Early in April, two presentations in the Sheraton (in front of the Sheraton in Zurich) and in the Hilton in Basel were held.
We sent 800 invitations and expected around 100 visitors. To our surprise, over 400 came!
The hall was very crowded and everyone was eager to see that which they had never seen before.
In April, the manufacturing documents and a prototype were sent to the producer in Cardiff, Wales.
In Closing: This whole development of Millioniser 2000 which is more complex than the modern PC of today took only 6 months from paper to production. Note, the engineering was without CAD software support. It was before the invention of the IBM-PC and the first CAD system had just been released.
I welcome any questions, comments, collaborations. -Rock

“It comes from tomorrow …but it’s here today.”

Well, now it is tomorrow. And yesterday’s tomorrow still looks futuristic. Try this test: show someone the video above for the Millioniser 2000, a MIDI harmonica designed by Ronald Schlimmer. Tell them this is a 2009 video designed to go viral, a fakery of 80s cheese. After all, the instrument itself looks impossibly futuristic. Surely this wasn’t really designed in 1979. Surely the close up thigh shots of the backup singer girls in the back are tongue-in-cheek parody.

Your friends will believe you. Of course, you’ll be lying.

It did indeed come from tomorrow – and speaking from tomorrow, I’d like my instrument back. The MIDI harmonica has sophisticated breath control, a compact form factor, clever controls for adjusting pitch, and — well, you know, all the goodness of the harmonica but with an easier pitch layout to figure out. From comments, we see that it does go well with our futuristic instruments, meaning you don’t have to get retro-sounding synths – you could get something more 2009-appropriate.

Rock Erickson -The first American called to Europe to play and record with Walter Mueller’s Millioniser 2000. Harmonica like in principal giving the end user complete control over synthesizer and midi functions with the sensitivity of your own breath. This instrument is a one of a kind powerhouse. The video starts off by showing the functions of Millioniser 2000 and then merges into the on stage video which was shot in London. Rick Fenn of “Lie For A Lie” Sony Music was the music director and lead guitarist along with Charlie Barret from The FIXX on bass. The Millioniser Breath Controller units that I’m currently using in the studio are breathing new life (literally) thru their capability to dynamically control some of the most popular software and rack synths ( Garritan Personal Orchestra, Roland Sound Canvas, Yamaha VL70 ect ) and samplers like SampleTank & Tascam Giga Studio ) in both the mono and polyphonic arena. If you have comments or questions please post here or email rock@millioniser.com

Oh yeah – and this all looks strikingly similar to the (less sophisticated) iPhone apps from Smule, featured in today’s interview.

All I know is, I desperately want one. And you might even be able to build one — the microcontroller inside, a Moto 68705, is the equivalent of what you can get very cheaply now.

Who were these forward-looking folk? According to Wim Dijkgraaf’s history of the instrument, you can thank Swiss harmonica player Walter Muller (“Walt Miller”), Ronald Schlimmer of SM Elektronik (that name should be familiar – think a lot of the sensors used in music projects now), and the good folks of Acorn Computers for assembly, who in turn had their own ahead-of-its-time products like the BBC Micro and the self-named Acorn. (The Acorn drove the original version of the Sibelius notation product now owned by Digidesign/Avid. Sibelius engineers swore they never got the performance out of Windows and Mac OS that they once had on the Acorn.)

Via our friend Elijah B. Torn and Matrixsynth.

Anyone out there who knows how to get this, yes, I want one. I’ll start working out and seeing if I can make my physique transparent, as that’ll help.

Lesson learned: tomorrow is yesterday.

Via comments: RA has more links, plus promising news that there may be indeed be a modern update of this instrument.

http://www.musicweb.ch/millioniser_2000.asp (long demo)
http://www.musicweb.ch/millioniser_geschichte.asp (sound demos and great pics)