Novachord + Solovox

About

The Novachord + Solovox bundle emulates two early electronic instruments that were precursors of modern synthesizers. Novachord is based on the revolutionary polyphonic instrument from 1939, while Solovox replicates a related monophonic keyboard instrument intended to provide organ-style leads. These exceedingly rare instruments set standards for tone generation and synthesis techniques that continue to influence today’s electronic instruments.

Manufactured by the Hammond company from 1939 to 1942 and debuting at the World’s Fair, the Novachord contained 163 vacuum tubes and over 1,000 custom capacitors. Its divide-down oscillator architecture combined full 72-key polyphony with an early version of analog subtractive synthesis. The Novachord’s architecture predicted the ADSR envelope, utilized a resonant band-pass filter, and included a vibrato unit. These now-familiar methods resemble designs adopted decades later in Moog and ARP polyphonic synthesizers.

Features

• Novachord + Solovox is a bundle of two individual instruments at one low price, provided as one download and installed in both standard DAW/host plugin and standalone formats.
• Complete MIDI control and DAW automation for all controls, with easy-to-use MIDI learn and mapping (Preset and Global)
• Cherry Audio's popular Focus zoom-in feature, as well as standard UI zoom and resize via drag
• Complete documentation available directly online from the instrument or in downloadable PDF format
• User-adjustable oversampling control
• 32 polyphonic voices, synthesized not sampled
• Three Resonators: a resonant bandpass filter network operating consecutively in low (400 Hz), mid (800 Hz), high (2000 Hz) frequency ranges
• Deep Tone setting for the tone generator signal, with a one-pole (6dB per-octave slope) lowpass filter with a fixed frequency of 160 Hz
• Brilliant Tone setting for the tone generator signal, with a one-pole (6dB per-octave slope) highpass filter with a fixed frequency of 2000 Hz
• Full Tone setting controls the amplitude of the dry (no filters applied) tone generator signal
• Tones routed in parallel to all of the filters, processed and then summed together to create a composite tone
• Attack knob with seven Attack/Decay/Sustain envelope options, from Slow to Fast, with sustain-pedal controlled release (approximately3.5 seconds)
• Depth controlled vibrato with two options: Vibrato I as used in the earliest Novachord models, and Vibrato II as used in later Novachords
• Reverb effect with Room and Hall algorithms to emulate the standard Novachord amp and speaker combo
• 56 presets covering Basses, Keys, Pads, and Strings, by Director of Sound Design James Terris
• Faithful virtual analog emulation of the monophonic 'keyboard attachment' instrument
• Combinable Bass/Tenor/Contralto/Soprano switches to set note range in octaves, like modern synthesizer footage settings
• First Voice and Second Voice two-pole bandpass filters with level controls and variable center frequencies of 400 Hz and 800 Hz, respectively
• Deep Tone setting for the tone generator signal, with a one-pole (6dB per-octave slope) lowpass filter with a fixed frequency of 200 Hz
• Brilliant Tone setting for the tone generator signal, with a one-pole (6dB per-octave slope) highpass filter with a fixed frequency of 2000 Hz
• Full Tone setting controls the amplitude of the dry (no filters applied) tone generator signal
• Adjustable Glide and fixed-rate Vibrato
• Mute control to filter harmonics from the oscillator voice
• Reverb effect with Room algorithm to replicate the standard Solovox amp and speaker combo
• Glowing vacuum tubes respond to the volume setting of each filter