Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Hi Everyone...

With some intrepidation I decided to have a go firing up Novachord 346 for the first time in what turns out to be 8 years!

To my great relief, the now 82 year old quarter ton 163 tube beast came out of slumber with all 12 of her master oscillators in action and pretty much in the same order she was in last time!...

After some initial tests I made this recording consisting of one overdub of a plucked sustain over some sustained pads whilst occasionally moving some of her formant resonator controls. The recording was made directly from the line output of the pre-amplifier into delay and reverb but with no form of added modulation processing such as chorus or flanger. It still truly astounds me that an all electronic instrument originally on the drawing board in the mid 1930s can sound like this.. and even moreso over 80 years after she left the factory!!

Absolutely amazing. I HAVE to own one eventually. Every time I hear it - my spirit rises to new levels.
Thanks for posting.

Oh, that's divine Shame it never caught on...it'd have been fascinating to hear what some of the early 20th-century composers could've done with it.

I wish everyone put as much time into their creations as the engineers did on that thing!

Absolutely amazing. What's really funny is that, just last night, I searched this site for information on the Novachord just to see what I could find out about it, because I came across it while looking for information on something else a few days ago. And at that time, I remembered that a magazine called "Contemporary Keyboard" ran a series on vintage/prototype electronic instruments a long time ago -- perhaps around 1980 -- and one of the articles featured the Novachord. I find it very interesting to see what people could do with the technology available at the time, whether it's designing an electronic musical instrument, a computer, or entertainment/communications equipment.