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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, NOVEMBER,
Electronic
Piano Pioneer
is Benjamin F. Miessner who
has spent a decade in its development
ENJAMIN FRANKLIN MIESSNER, president
of Miessner Inventions, Inc., Millburn, N. J.,
is probably more responsible for the cre-
ating and promotion of the electronic reproduc-
tion of music than any other one man in the
country. His has been a career -where inventing
has been turned into practical developments
which have been revolutionizing the reproduction
of music, as well as piling up substantial rev-
enue from royalties and the sale of patents.
Born in Huntingburg, Ind., in 1890. he has just
passed fifty.
INVENTED CAT-WHISKER DETECTOR
He started his career as a radio amateur while
in high school, from which he entered the U. S.
Navy as a radio operator. While in the Naval
Service he made his first patented invention, the
now famous 'Cat-Whisker Detector". During
this period from 1908 to 1911 he devised other
inventions, among which were an Earth-Inductor
Compass. Secrecy wireless systems and the
beginning of superhetrodyne radio reception. He
emerged from the Naval Service on his 21st
birthday, and immediately entered the employ
of John Hays Hammond, Jr., in Gloucester, Mass.,
in the development of radio control torpedoes.
During this period, from 1911 to 1913, he made
numerous basic inventions in radio. Among
these are tuned radio frequency amplifiers, the
superhetrodyne radio receiver, the photo-electric
exposure meter for photography, and numerous
electrical and mechanical devices for the radio
control of mechanism from a distance. One of
the most startling of these was an automatic
orientation mechanism or "Electric Dog", as it
became known, which would follow a beam of
light. He also published, the first of his many
technical papers. (In the Scientific American.)
To complete his technical education there fol-
lowed, until 1916, a three-year period at Purdue
University. During this period his extra-cur-
ricular activities included in part the writing of
a 200-page book, "Radio Dynamics", lecture
demonstrations before various engineering so-
cieties at Purdue, Chicago and Indianapolis, on
the control of distant mechanisms by radio and
light, and numerous articles for technical pup-
lications. Included also was the development
for his brother. Dr. W. Otto Miessner, of the
"Music Optigraph", a teaching aid for flashing
note groups on a screen, and the synthetic Ryth-
miphone, a device having somewhat the appear-
ance of an adding machine, which would beat
out any conceivable musical rhythm.
From Purdue he went back in 1916 to radio
work as an expert radio aid for aviation, U. S.
Navy at Pensacola, Florida. There he pioneered
aircraft, radio research and developments. He
produced a simple radio transmitter, utilizing
the ignition magneto, and requiring only a key
and trailing antenna; a speaking tube and noise-
excluding helmet for pilot-observer conversation
-which is still in use today; anti-noise and highly
directional microphones used then for aircraft
telephones and for submarine locations and now
used for directional studio microphones; and a
noise measuring instrument now known as the
Audiophone.
In 1917 he left the Navy to continue aircraft
radio for a manufacturer in New York until 1921.
B
During this period he developed long range re-
ceivers, produced the first unicontrol tuned radio
receiver which is now universally used, started
his development of battery elimination receivers.
musical field and Miessner developed some radio
phonograph combinations for Brunswick, urging
them to go into this field of manufacturing, but
they were uninterested.
Miessner then, as chief engineer, became asso-
ciated during the next few years with several
radio companies and seriously resumed his ear-
lier work on battery elimination. One of these
was the Miessner Radio Corp., which in 1925
introduced the first electrical receiver operated
from a lamp socket, but this venture failed and
he continued these developments first -with Wired
Radio, Inc., as consulting engineer; next with
the Sleeper Radio Corp., and then with the
Garod Radio Corp., where as chief engineer he
designed and produced the famous Garod all-
electric set. After months of phenomenal suc-
cess, this set encountered difficulties with filter
condensers supplied by another manufacturer.
Then there existed no adequate life expectancy
test and finally went into bankruptcy.
SOLD HIS RADIO PATENTS
Then followed a period of further develop-
ment with Splitdorf Radio Corp. During these
periods, beginning in 1922, Miessner was filing
patent applications on his battery eliminating
inventons, and in 1927 he began licensing the
radio industry under these inventions. By 1930
most of the industry was licensed and in that
year he sold all his radio patents numbering
about fifty to RCA.
Reinforced financially at that time and again
pressed by his brother Otto Miessner, he decided
to tackle the great problems of improvement in
musical instruments by the application of the
technique of electronics. In October, 1930 he es-
tablished his present laboratory in Millburn,
N. J. He set down all the likely technical routes
to this goal and began intensive work at once.
Benjamin F. Miessner
President, Miessner Inventions, Inc., Millburn, N. J.
BEGAN ON PIANO IN 1930
The first piano utilized magnetic pickups from
diminutive strings without a sounding board, and
and conceived the principles of frequency mod- with a much simplified action, and was housed
ulation and amplitude limitations, radio system in a spinet desk with a swell pedal and some
now coming to the fore.
variations of tonal coloring included.
FIRST ELECTRICALLY RECORDED RECORDS
The next instrument used was a new Wurlitzer
From 1921 to 1923 he established and con- Baby Grand piano purchased from the Griffith
ducted ..electro-phonographic ..research for ..the Piano Co. in Newark, N. J. The soundboard was
Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. in Chicago. There removed and magnetic pickups with amplifier
he devised the principles and apparatus for and speaker installed. It had a fine tone but
electrical recording and reproduction now in a too great continuity. Such artists as Harold
common use, multiple microphone pickup, acous- Bauer said its performance was a cross between
tially variable studios, and made the first elec- a piano and a harmonium, causing muddling in
trically recorded records both direct and from the rapid passages. This long continued tone,
radio broadcasts.
he had been told by musicians, was much to
It was during this period that his brother Otto be desired, and he obtained it by the use of a
was manufacturing the Miessner piano in Mil- rather rigid bridge.
waukee, and it was he who then suggested to
The next instrument used was a new Baldwin
Ben the application of radio amplification to the 7 foot grand. In this the soundboard was cut
piano, which had remained practically static in out between the ribs to greatly reduce its own
development for over 100 years. Preliminary ex- direct sound. A new and much simpler electro
periments and studies of the patent art were static pickup system had been worked out re-
made, but this work had to be left for active quiring only the flat head of a screw opposite
development until later in favor of the more the strings of each note instead of the previous
pressing problems of earning a living.
magnet and coil of the magnetic pickup. This
FIRST RADIO PHONOGRAPHS
type of pickup was used in three separate lines
The bottom dropped out of the phonograph in- across the strings to give large variations in
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dustry in 1922 and broadcast radio entered the