Back in the 1930s, there was a man called Laurens Hammond, an electronics engineer, inventor and innovator. At the age of 14, he had designed an automatic transmission mechanism for motor cars (which was rejected by Renault!) and later would invent, in 1922, a 3D movie playback system as well as a clock motor.
However, he is best known for the patent he took out in 1934 for a tonewheel organ which was to become, of course, the B3 and C3 and various other models.
In 1939, however, Hammond released something altogether different - the world's first polyphonic synthesiser.
Yes - you read that correctly ... a fully polyphonic synthesiser ... in 1939!!
Using divide-down oscillators (the world's first?), the Novachord was fully polyphonic. The oscillators pass through resonators, hi-and lo-pass filters and a simple but effective envelope shaper. What is particularly impressive is that the Novachord had LFOs and envelope shapers for every one of its 72-notes so that the instrument was TOTALLY polyphonic! This is actually very impressive as even string synths 40 years its junior such as the ARP Omni, Moog PolyMoog, etc., were paraphonic - i.e. all voices sharing a single LFO/envelope. This means that combined with the huge polyphony, six octaves and a superb sustain control, you can combine massive chords and arpeggios with no chance of note stealing. The electronic architecture that makes this possible is beautifully elegant too. It also has vibrato but not like the type found on analogue synths - instead, the modulation is polyphonic which imparts a rich ensemble effect to its sounds.
FEATURES:
* 44.1kHz/24-bit sampled raw with authentic deficiencies
* Kontakt 3.5
* Unique sounds from 1939
* Custom scripted panels for Kontakt with...
- 'Resonators' and filters to emulate the original
- FX designed to re-create classic sci-fi movie sounds
- Control of attack and release times
