Novachord v1.0.2.21 WiN

Team R2R | 14 July 2023 | 31.9MB

PLATFORM: STANDALONE/VSTi/VST3/AAX(MOD)

Notorious Manufactured by the Hammond company from 1939 to 1942 and debuting at the World’s Fair, the Novachord contained 163 vacuum tubes and over 1,000 custom capacitors. Its divide-down oscillator architecture combined full 72-key polyphony with an early version of analog subtractive synthesis. The Novachord’s architecture predicted the ADSR envelope, utilized a resonant band-pass filter, and included a vibrato unit. These now-familiar methods resemble designs adopted decades later in Moog and ARP polyphonic synthesizers. Despite its historical importance, the Novachord did not enjoy commercial success. Although it resembled a standard organ at a glance, the front panel controls were not well-suited to the performance techniques of organists or pianists of the period. In addition, the numerous vacuum tubes were unstable, making the 500-pound instrument challenging to maintain. Production stopped in 1942 because of poor sales and parts shortages during the Second World War, with Hammond only manufacturing around 1,000 Novachords.