After having become acquainted with Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky by 1955, by which time El-Dabh he had been experimenting with electronic music for ten years, they later invited him to work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in 1959 as one of the first outside composers there, where he would become one of the most influential composers associated with the early years of the studio. El-Dabh's unique approach to combining spoken words, singing and percussion sounds with electronic signals and processing contributed significantly to the development of early electroacoustic techniques at the center. Some of his compositions also made extensive use of Columbia-Princeton's RCA Synthesizer, an early programmable synthesizer. He worked there sporadically until 1961, creating various tape works, including at least two in collaboration with Luening. Other composers he had become acquainted with at Columbia-Princeton include John Cage, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein.