Tristram Cary | Music pioneer, 82

Tristram Cary, 82, a pioneer of electronic music who helped design one of the first portable synthesizers, has died.

He died in an Adelaide, Australia, hospital Thursday from surgery complications, said Stephen Whittington, head of music-technology studies at Adelaide's Elder Conservatorium of Music.

Mr. Cary was a codesigner of the VCS3 (Putney) portable synthesizer, which was embraced by London's musical avant-garde in the psychedelic 1960s.

The technology was taken to new heights in the 1970s by such artists as Pink Floyd, the Who, Roxy Music and Brian Eno.

Mr. Cary began tinkering with electronic music as a Royal Navy radar officer during World War II and invested heavily in a glut of electronic equipment that flooded the civilian market after the war.

He founded the electronic-music studio at London's Royal College of Music in 1967 and, seven years later, migrated to Australia to establish a similar studio at the University of Adelaide.

- AP