Tools 4 The Inimitable Novachord en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novachord I am quite fond of the versions of Hammond organ you can find in "vintage" recordings, I´m even more pleased to hear it being used in more modern compositions; whether jazzy, proggy or just plain classic rock. Now, the Novachord ups the ante on that, it´s almost inperceptibly present in music overall, it´s original design pre-WWII and a real beast of wood, metal and ivory - it belongs in a cheesy film-set which did not succeed in procuring a church organ for the critter played by Bela Lugosi, or rather, it is the whistling, snarling noises the mechanical beast makes. You can make it sound real bleak, producing an atmosphere of acid-stained 19th century daguerrotypes depicting ghosts,wilting flowers and ephemera. That would be a fail with the conventional Hammond organs (because the Novachord is a Hammond) ; Electric, Edgy and Hoarse, I grant you that, but it would still sound warm, you could play a sky full of threatening skies, but through them would pierce a ray of sunshine and moonbeams. I am not saying you couldn´t have that with the Novachord, but it is clearly not what the range of 72 voices and endless twiddling reaches for. It´s made for the post-classical age. Take away the shell of hardwood and lacquer, you find a fully analogue synthesizer with 163 vacuum tubes and over 1,000 custom capacitors, it has 12 oscillators operating uniquely from any future contraption. Its features in the score of too many B-movies to number, and the original score for the Twilight Zone series. soniccouture/en/products/24-vintage/g21-novachord/ Soniccouture has made a full-sample instrument (virtual, based on the Kontakt sampler) of the original Novachord and added some adaptations belonging to the 21st century. I got one, what use would I have for that. I sometimes reach for it when I need inspiration. Hammond and Novachord competes for the same roles, and depending on what I aim for, they get specific parts, it´s either one or the other. I doubt I would fill a studio with Vox Continental, M-3´s and a Novachord, that is to say, as the physical "real" instruments they are - but it fits nice in virtual mode and takes only some minutes to configure to behave like I want them to before pressing a single key.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 09:53:54 +0000