Frank Morse Robb

by Jay Somerset

The next time someone’s expounding on the genius of Daft Punk and EDM, tell them this: electronic music may never have existed if it weren’t for Frank Morse Robb. The year was 1927, and while the word “synthesizer” wasn’t quite common parlance, the 25-year-old Morse had his pulse on all things electric. His Robb Wave Organ, which predates the successful American-made Hammond, was the first electronic organ capable of mimicking the sound of an acoustic one.

IN DEPTH

As a child growing up in Belleville, Ont., Frank Morse Robb spent his days imagining himself as an inventor. But not of the robotic kind; for Morse, it was all about sound. One of his first creations was a speaking tube that gave bobsledders the ability to hear each other as they plummeted down the hill. Barely out of boyhood, he devised an acoustically operated submarine bomb, which he offered up to the Brits as a wartime tool. (They declined.)

It was Robb’s fascination with church organs that set his creative mind ablaze. Massive and in constant need of professional attention, church organs were something you heard on Sundays; the idea of having a machine that could replicate the sound at home, simply plugged into the wall, seemed impossible.

Electronic music may never have existed if it weren’t for Frank Morse Robb.

Then, in 1927, readers of the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail opened up their papers to read about a 25-year-old Belleville boy who miraculously invented the first-ever pipeless ethereal organ. Much smaller than a “real” organ, the Robb Wave Organ involved a system of 12 shafts, one for each note on the chromatic scale. Each shaft had a mounted disc edged into the shape of a photographed sound wave that replicated the sound of a cathedral organ. Perhaps most surprising, it sounded good.

Robb obtained a patent and formed a company, delivering his electronic organ to nearby funeral homes and churches, as well as Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto. Then, Lady Flora Eaton, daughter-in-law of tycoon Timothy Eaton, came a-knockin’ and had the Robb organ installed in Eaton’s department stores in both Toronto and Montreal.

That’s when it hit: the Great Depression, the killer of dreams. Who could afford a luxury like an electronic organ at a time when bread was pricey? Robb persevered as best he could but by 1941, the Robb Wave Organ was taken off the market after just 16 units were built. Two years prior, a new organ had hit the market, the American-made Hammond; similar to Robb’s, it ended up becoming the industry standard, although some say it didn’t sound as good as the organ from Belleville.

But while his dream was crushed, Robb carried on. Ever the inventor, he went on to create new things, including a device for packing guns during the Second World War, and to reinvent himself. He turned his hand to silversmithing, and in 1955 he published a novel, Tan Ming, under the pseudonym Lan Stormont.