Friday, August 21, 2009

1938 SYNTHESIZER

The Hammond Novachord. You've heard them, you just never knew what they were. It's a genuine polyphonic synth, with a bank of oscillators feeding serried ranks of dividers and clever wave-shaping/note-shaping circuitry and every active component is a great big ol' vacuum tube. "Ahead of its time" doesn't even come close.

...Amazing as it is, now consider the kind of dedication and talent it takes to restore one from "found in a garage" to "like new" and then play it!

4 comments:

  1. Amazing restoration job.

    Some of the music sounds a lot like some of the incidental music from Michael Mann movies.

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  2. Pretty spiffy! Having done similar jobs to several Amateur Radio receivers and transmitters, I *know* the amount of work it takes to strip something down to bare metal, and then rebuild it.
    At least I had complete, correct documentation to work with. This guy made his own as he stripped it down!
    Amazing work!

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  3. Cool. I remember reading about them, years ago, but had never seen any good pictures of them until your link. First time I got to play with a synthesizer was in the late sixties, when Dr Moog came out with his synthesizer. The Moog was a PITA to work with.

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  4. Pathologically cool. I'm a full-time electronics tech and part-time musician, so this pushes two of my biggest geek buttons. Simultaneously.

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