Could typically electronic sounds be generated mechanically?

I was thinking about our history of music, came upon electronic music and started musing about all the possibilities of modulation and such.

I then thought back to a previous question of mine, "How might a purely mechanical 'voice' function?", and thought about Vocoders and similar synthesizers. Then I noticed that beat-boxers can create similar effects using a solely mechanical device and by it was motivated to write this question.

Would it be possible to have sounds found in modern electronic music generated mechanically? I'm looking for the following traits:

• Frequency adjustment
• Volume adjustment
• Synthesis, i.e. combining of multiple waveforms
• Filtering, i.e. volume adjustment according to specific patterns
• Flexible attack-decay-sustain-release
• Arpeggiation

A MIDI-like system needn't exist, i.e. existing sounds needn't be modulated during performances, they may all have been prepared prior to performance.

posted about 5 years ago

A Lambent Eye‭

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