UK classics – Huggett’s legacy
Despite the fact that one of the most collectable synths ever created – the exquisite EMS Synthi – hailed from the United Kingdom, few electronic aficionados would ever cite the UK as a hotbed of inventive electronic instruments.
And this, dear readers, is a shame, as it overlooks the considerable contributions of one man whose name should be mentioned alongside the Moogs, Rossums, and Smiths that pepper the pages of synthesiser history.
That man is Chris Huggett. Huggett’s first contribution to the world of synthesis came in the form of the Electronic Dream Plant Wasp, a tiny black and yellow monstrosity with a twooctave, touch-plate keyboard. Designed with partner Adrian Wagner, the Wasp could be had for a couple of hundred quid – a pittance considering the instrument’s powerful architecture of dual oscillators, noise, multimode, resonant filter, LFO and a pair of envelope generators. Released in 1977, the Wasp had many endorsees including Vince Clarke, Nick Rhodes and 808-State.
After the demise of EDP, Huggett formed the Oxford Synthesiser Company, whose one-andonly product was the OSCar, co-designed with Paul Wiffen and Anthony Harris-Griffin. Another aesthetically unusual design, this offered a typical subtractive signal path, augmented by rudimentary additive synthesis that let users create custom waveforms using a quaint data entry system that consisted of entering values with the instrument’s keyboard. Released in 1983, it wasn’t a big seller, but still found its way into the charts courtesy of Stevie Wonder, Ultravox, and Jean-Michel Jarre.
Alas, OSC went the way of EDP, but that wasn’t the end for Chris Huggett, who later wrote the OS for Akai’s standard-setting S1000 sampler (the hardware of which was designed by another Brit, EMS’ David Cockerell), as well as many of its successors.
Eventually, he landed at Novation, designing the Supernova and contributing to the Bass Station and Peak.