Evgeny Sholpo

Evgeny (Eugene) Alexandrovitch Sholpo (1891–1951) was a Soviet inventor, musician, and pioneer of early electronic and optical sound technology. Born in the Pskov region of Russia, he became a leading figure in experimental sound research during the 1920s–1940s.
Sholpo is best known for inventing the Variophone, an early optical sound synthesizer that generated music by photographing drawn waveforms onto film and converting them into sound via photoelectric cells. Developed around 1930 in Leningrad, the Variophone could produce complex, polyphonic electronic music and was used in film soundtracks and experimental compositions.