My Favorite Synth is From ...1939(!)

[Keith Phillips]

I ran into this recently and fell completely in love with it. The Hammond Novachord.

http://www.synthtopia.com/news/05_12/images/novachord_before.jpg http://www.synthtopia.com/news/05_12/images/novachord_after.jpg
(Before and after restoration)

Apparently manufactured for a few years starting in 1938 and hitting the market in '39, it wasn't received very well by musicians. It was a technical nightmare and the parts were hard to come by because of World War II. Only 1,069 were produced, and they had nearly 200 vacuum tubes and over 1,000 capacitors!

A 72-oscillator, 72-note polyphonic synthesizer is pretty damn amazing for 1939! :shock: Way ahead of its time back then. They lacked fuses or proper grounding, so I am sure trying to restore one of these or to even attempt to operate an old one for testing is very dangerous.

This guy did an AMAZING job restoring the one above by replacing (literally) tons of components to working factory spec. The restored unit looks fantastic and sounds like a dream. :) I'm sure it sounds a bit different than an original unit *in* 1939, but, after 70 years probably none of the remaining original units work 100%.

http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/nova/intro.htm (Warning: a bunch of pictures)

I think it has to create some of my favorite sounds ever. Definitely worth a quick listen:

http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/nova/mp3/nova3.mp3 (2:34)
http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/nova/mp3/nova2.mp3 (1:32)
http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/nova/mp3/nova9.mp3 (3:13)

This is another one with the Solovox in it. Really nice.
http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/nova/mp3/solovox2.mp3

Enjoy.

[AlexHall74]

Wow. That is really remarkable! I'll check out those audio samples in a bit. This guy should make a sample CD of this synth to preserve it in some capacity that is longer lasting than the physical instrument.

[Keith Phillips]

This guy should make a sample CD of this synth

Yeah, on his page he said one is in the works, but it looks like it might have been posted a long time ago. I was planning on emailing him and asking him about it because I would definitely buy that CD ASAP.

[Keith Phillips]

I'm kind of surprised that Eric Persing & Company didn't fly down to see this guy and sample his rebuilt Novachord for use in Omnisphere. After all, they did sample a piano while on fire, so why not be the first to sample a Novachord too. ;) As far as I know, no working Novachord has ever been sampled before.

[Analog Warriors]

AMAZING SOUND ... blows my speakers - very deep and warm !

[Timo]

Wow. Just stumbled upon this thread, and listened to the MP3s. That is pure cinematic soundtrack right there, and then some!! Absolutely beautiful.

[Shambler]

amazing sound, even more amazing is how some of todays offerings pale in comparison to it despite the improvements in technology :o

[tricky]

Cant believe what i'm hearing this thing has monster Monster pad sounds, all it needs now is a midi interface.

[Hollowcell]

Has a very CS50-Vangelis-Bladerunner kinda feel to many of the sounds there. Very cool!

They really need to get samples taken, as they have many costly parts and seem just a little too hard to get hold of.

Nice find there Keith. :)

[Monobeat]

Incredible !!!!!!! Those pads make my hair stand on end. Very deep and emotional sound unlike anything I've ever heard.... thanks for sharing that.

[LivePsy]

This thread rears up the dangerous idea that the music you write is more important than the range of sounds you can make. Find a good bandpass pad and much of that sound is possible, but we wouldn't be posting "Preset A004 is all the pad I will ever need".

B

[waxahachie]

According to Wikipedia the first synthesizer is from 1876.


History




The first electric synthesizer was invented in 1876 by Elisha Gray (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray) [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthesizer#cite_note-elisha-0), who is best known for his development of a telephone prototype (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_telephone). The "Musical Telegraph" was a chance by-product of his telephone technology. Gray accidentally discovered that he could control sound from a self vibrating electromagnetic circuit and in doing so invented a basic single note oscillator. The Musical Telegraph used steel reeds whose oscillations were created and transmitted, over a telephone line, by electromagnets. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device in later models consisting of a vibrating diaphragm in a magnetic field to make the oscillator audible.

[LivePsy]

According to me, the first synthesizer was whichever machine provided independent and programmable control over pitch, overtones and volume. Electric and then electronic tone generators were around for some time, but synthesis started with voltage control analog computers or digital calculations into a DA converter. You get to pick who did that first, but Theremins, Trautoniums and other oddities don't count.

B

[waxahachie]

Interesting because the human body is a very complex machine and according to you description a fart is a synthesized sound, so according to you the butt is blow instrument or synthesizer or maybe is both?.

[LivePsy]

Can you control the fart's pitch, timbre and volume independently? If so, your arse is a synthesizer. You will find that these 3 elements of sound interact in most physical instruments, so that pitch or volume will affect timbre and the elements cannot be independently controlled.

I have no problem with a non mechanical or non electronic synthesizer, but your arse is no TI...

B

[waxahachie]

If the fart come juicy the pitch can change but anyways lets finish here this human analytic comparison for don't start a off topic.
Have fun dude and remember don't practice in public.