KVR Audio

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 1:58 am

Hi Steve,

I am completely mesmerised after hearing your Novachord Noodles demo on your web page. I have already come across Novachord, but can't remember where, was it Sound On Sound forums or was it KvR...Anyway.

These sounds are so beautiful (and the music itself)! Did you use your new samples on that demo page? I do hope that the sampling process will preserve every atom of the original sound.

I'm writing this as I'm listening to that first demo on a loop....I think I'm entering an alternative plane of existence now !

These sounds....I've got goosebumps all over...

http://www.hollowsun.com/shop/novachord

I will be following the progress of this sample library with great anticipation !

funkychickendance · Post by **funkychickendance** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 2:35 am

I recall a long KVR thread way back when (this particular?) Novachord was found and restored in the UK. But, i never guessed it'd sound as interesting as this...I'd assumed an organ-like sound, simply from a lack of imagination on my part, and by association with the inventor's other works of genius. Who knew it would be like the momma of analog synths at their creamiest?

I'm trying not to be such a Kontakt whore, but -- having just bought Komplete and upgraded to K4 -- i'll fo sho be buying this one when it's ready. It's good to see you folks stepping out into the light with this KVR forum...the CP70 is something else i will be picking up before 2010 is very old, too...

=fn<x>

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:11 am

It reminds me very much of these demos I got a long time ago from a site about Trautaniums.

But here's the site where those demos came from: http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/nova/intro.htm

And SOS forum talk: http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showf ... o=&fpart=1

I was particularly interested in this bit:

Using divide-down oscillators (the world's first?), the Novachord was fully polyphonic. These pass through resonators, hi-and lo-pass filters and a simple but effective envelope shaper.

I wonder Steve, if you can elaborate some more on the effect and the workings of this "simple but effective envelope shaper"?

hollowsun · Post by **hollowsun** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:14 am

funkychickendance wrote:I recall a long KVR thread way back when (this particular?) Novachord was found and restored in the UK.

I don't know that thread (link?) but if it was "way back" (define "way back"!), I doubt it's the same .... this is relatively new.

Cheers,

Steve

hollowsun · Post by **hollowsun** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:34 am

himalaya wrote:Did you use your new samples on that demo page?

'Novachord Noodles' is Dan playing the actual Novachord. The other two audio demos ('The First Samples' and 'Nova Berlin' ) are samples of the 'the beast'.

himalaya wrote:I do hope that the sampling process will preserve every atom of the original sound.

Oh! That's the intention.

I pride myself on presenting all this old stuff as unsanitised as is humanly possible ... like you have the real thing there in front of you, warts an and all. It's up to you what you do with it.

himalaya wrote:I'm writing this as I'm listening to that first demo on a loop....I think I'm entering an alternative plane of existence now ! These sounds....I've got goosebumps all over...

I've said it before but it's possibly worth repeating...

This is somehow something more than just sampling some old keyboard and selling it. From another site/forum...

"Hollow Sun's Hammond Novachord project could reshape our understanding of early electronic music and bring Hammond's pioneering work to a broad audience for the first time."

Which just about says it all as far as Dan and I are concerned!

Cheers,

Steve

Integratron · Post by **Integratron** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:37 am

Fascinating, unfortunately I'm unable to get the audio noodling.

hollowsun · Post by **hollowsun** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:47 am

HunterKiller wrote:I wonder Steve, if you can elaborate some more on the effect and the workings of this "simple but effective envelope shaper"?

I will (with diagrams) but just not right now if you don't mind - it's late and there's a pillow somewhere with my name on it!

More anon.

Cheers,

Steve

hollowsun · Post by **hollowsun** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 3:50 am

Integratron wrote:Fascinating, unfortunately I'm unable to get the audio noodling.

Are you using Internet Explorer 8 by any chance?

There are documented issues with that regarding certain Flash playback thingies.

Cheers,

Steve

HunterKiller · Post by **HunterKiller** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 5:28 am

hollowsun wrote:
HunterKiller wrote:I wonder Steve, if you can elaborate some more on the effect and the workings of this "simple but effective envelope shaper"?
I will (with diagrams) but just not right now if you don't mind

- it's late and there's a pillow somewhere with my name on it!

More anon.

Cheers,

Steve

You've got your own pillow brand!

Lucky you!

toine6 · Post by **toine6** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:38 am

Really really cool new information to me... He was WAYYYYYY ahead of his time. Incredible. I don't usually buy samples, but this is one I'm going to have to very seriously consider getting.

Or, maybe I can avoid the sample-set and get a deal on a Novachord off of Ebay

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:04 am

HunterKiller wrote:
And SOS forum talk: http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showf ... o=&fpart=1

Yes! That's the thread!

Since posting in that thread, I have totally forgotten about the Novachord, so I'm discovering it here again. Just as well!

HunterKiller wrote: I was particularly interested in this bit:

Using divide-down oscillators (the world's first?), the Novachord was fully polyphonic. These pass through resonators, hi-and lo-pass filters and a simple but effective envelope shaper.

Isn't it. When I think about it, it is really astounding, a proper synth all those years ago! What is more amazing is that one would expect the first synth of this kind to sound less than interesting, with perhaps some pure sine wave tones, some silly theremin effects and the like, but, no! This thing sounds lush, complex, delicate, and otherwordly all in one patch. And its sound is probably more relevant today than in the past.

galwaypark · Post by **galwaypark** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 11:11 am

Everything you have ever wanted to know about the Novachord, and then some:

http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewt ... 03&start=0

Very informative and interesting, with a lot of pics of the monster's guts.

funkychickendance · Post by **funkychickendance** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 2:12 pm

hollowsun wrote:
funkychickendance wrote:I recall a long KVR thread way back when (this particular?) Novachord was found and restored in the UK.
I don't know that thread (link?) but if it was "way back" (define "way back"!), I doubt it's the same .... this is relatively new.

Cheers,

Steve

Whatever it was linked back to that SOS thread and the discretesynthesizers site that HunterKiller ID'd above. Cool. Glad that this baby didn't submerge into historical obscurity, and that there'll be an actual commercial sample product for us sound junkies.

=fn<x>

Integratron · Post by **Integratron** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 5:59 pm

hollowsun wrote:
Integratron wrote:Fascinating, unfortunately I'm unable to get the audio noodling.
Are you using Internet Explorer 8 by any chance?

There are documented issues with that regarding certain Flash playback thingies.

Cheers,

Steve

Hi - I'm running Explorer 7 but now, come to think of it, I do recall getting a message to update my Flash Player and I didn't install.

Thanks for the heads up and I'll check it out.

HideawayStudio · Post by **HideawayStudio** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:03 pm

Hello All,

I've been lurking in the sidelines reading this thread with a grin on my face. If you haven't already put two and two together let me introduce myself....

My name is Dan Wilson, I purchased Novachord 346 from Marc Doty a few months ago in Seattle. Very sadly this amazing instrument decided to let go big time and filled Marc's house with thick acrid smoke shortly after the Sonic State Top 20 Weirdest Instruments video on the Novachord was released. This turned out to be due to the poor old PSU chassis (which was very advanced for a 1930's design) trying to drive it's main, active noise-cancelling, 270V DC HT line into a dead short for over half an hour due to a shorted decoupling capacitor in the preamp chassis. This was actually a typical failure for a Novachord - sadly it went unnoticed for such a long time that one of the three mains transformers actually set on fire. There is no fusing at all in this 1/4 163 tube beast and hence the PSU was a complete wreck.

I shipped Novachord 346 back over to my hometown near Bath in England at huge expense. The crate weighed 780lbs!!! The shipping charges alone came to over $1700 + $300 for a custom shipping crate!

I have spent the last 250 hours restoring this truly amazing instrument back to working order (yes that's my restoration thread at VSE) and, as you now, teamed up with Steve when the instrument burst into life and quite simply blew me away in terms of how it sounds. Just staggeringly amazingly, this example is now up and running with over 1500 of it's original passives in place - including over 1000 non polarised high voltage capacitors! It is one of less than 30 operational Novachords world wide and, more interestingly, may be the only one that has a working generator chassis is such an original state. This is therefore one of the only chances we will ever get to hear a Novachord as it did way back then. This is even more relavant when you think that the Novachord exceeded the frequency response of all available PA, speaker and recording methods of the era! In other words - you may have heard it live in near full range in those days but it never would have been heard in such glory via a recording or the radio.

I have removed the 346's PA chassis which is an early and rather poor design in comparison and have fitted a direct balanced line output to the preamp - it's mainly due to this modification that both myself and Phil Cirocco have revealed the true Novachord that lurkes within. And my hat off to Phil - his total rebuild was just an awesome task - even to an engineer.

Just staggeringly amazingly, the frequency response of the Novachord's main generator chassis is huge - this is just increadible for something designed over 70 years ago. It's a real testament to early tube designs and should be a lesson to all that tube designs, no matter how old, are - if well designed - capable of sounding very good indeed.

The Novachord was simply decades ahead of it's time - although I have a huge amount of respect for what both Robert Moog and ARP did for developing affordable synths I have certainly changed my view on just who invented the first commercial synth - in short, Laurens Hammond and his team were very talanted indeed!

If you have any technical questions, no matter how complex - feel free to ask as I've spent months clambering all over this beauty!!

The sampling project is extremely exciting - I am very happy to be working with a sound engineer as talented as Steve. I recorded over 1.2 Gbytes of raw digitial audio for Steve and the first few programs I've had back from him for testing have been just fantastic. In many cases we are sampling every note on the instrument for up to 8 seconds - ie. really letting it breath, as Steve often describes

Dan Wilson, Hideaway Studio.

Hammond Novachord - shockingly beautiful