Novachord samples

This is a segued montage of samples from the Hammond Novachord #346. The first section is raw Novachord presented in a style appropriate to the era ... eerie stuff reminiscent of early sci-fi films. This moves into a section of Novachord sounds sequenced from an Akai MPC5000 in the style of the 'Berlin' school of electronica (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, etc.) dissolving into a filtered drone using timbral sweeps modelled on the Novachord's 'Resonators' (which are switched but I can take liberties and make the transition variable and smooth).

100% Novachord taken from the sample set available at http://www.hollowsun.com and http://www.novachord.co.uk

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Hammond Novachord
• Novachord
• Hollow Sun
• 1930s
• synthesizer
• analog

[magicalbilly]

Must have sounded like something from another world back in the 40s.

i'm not suprised it didnt sell if i'm honest, can you imagine this music existing around the time of WWII?

stunning feat on engineering, it still sounds like you could play it on a record today.

[nuswolloh]

@magicalbilly

You CAN still play it on a record today - what you heard in that video are samples taken from a restored Novachord which are available to buy at my websites

[magicalbilly]

@nuswolloh i kinda guessed that.

i was more talking in the sence that the sounds it produces still sound fresh, for want of a better word.

either way it sounds stunning.

[nuswolloh]

@magicalbilly

Ah! Right. Sorry.

> "either way it sounds stunning"

Thanks! :-)

[nuswolloh]

@magicalbilly

But yes .... imagine this music existing around the time WWII! It would have given electronic music a 20 or more year kickstart. The trouble is (was) that the technology was that many years ahead of its time and people didn't have the musical ideas. For the most part, the Novachord was used to play organ or ragtime kind of ditties and popular tunes. In the 'related vids', there are a few examples of how it was used then - 'We'll meet again' for example.

[haloken14]

The dubstep of the 20's...

[ofjulius]

fantastic!

curious how it was sampled. mic'ed? or maybe, direct by rca connection?

[wetbobo]

@wetbobo Okay, so I couldn't wait. I Googled:-) So the Electronic Sackbut was more or less the predecessor of the Mellotron (recorded to tape audio that played back in a loop rather than one-shot). But it had a lot of very cool Hugh Le Caine designed electronics that allowed you to alter the sound, that even the Mellotron didn't have. Not to mention it was the birth of the modulation wheel! FUN bit of history, that!!!

Two very cool instruments, both worth everyone's time exploring.

[wetbobo]

@nuswolloh Absolutely FASCINATING videos (I just finished watching your walk-through video, under the hood). I'm just amazed by the entire thing. Question (I know, I know, a bit of Googling will answer this for me) but how does the design of this compare to that of Hugh Le Caine's Electronic Sackbut? It, too, was a product of the early 40s. Much more primitive sounding than the Novachord, to say the very least. Interesting to see two such great minds thinking alike, yet so different!

[tonewheeler76]

Goodness that thing is soooo awesome!!!

I had a Hammond organ Model "K" with serial no. #364 from 1935.

That baby was also very very special. I am kinda sad to have sold it, but at that time I wanted to have my first console Hammond with Percussion and everything. The early Hammonds really have something very special. Great stuff!

[DummkopfRadar]

what a lovely soud..

at 2,43, was there a phser in, or does the novachord reproduce without it?

[patsaxon]

Amazing to hear such sounds from this Hammnod Novachord! Wow, this instrument was really way a head of it's time! Too bad that Hammond could not gotten into synthesizers back then, as they would had been world famous, besides the B-3 organ. Back then, Hammond was attacked by AGO back then, which cost them so much money. Hammond would had been the very first for digital samping technology than Allen beating them to it?

[Scifimaster92]

The Novachord and the ANS are, without doubt, the first truly modern analog synthesizers.

[solerso68]

@thedjnk no, it doesnt sound queer, it sounds good.

[604psysutra604]

From 0:53- kicks ass! Wonderful warm sound!