What's crazy to me is that the Teleharmonium Mark I existed until it was scrapped in 1962. Why not one person in the decades of sound recording didn't bother to record it is a travesty!
For anyone curious to learn more about the Novachord as I am(and willing to read patent-ese), here is a (limited) selection of some of J.M. Hanert's (an engineer for Hammond) and Laurens' patents. Reading through them chronologically, it is interesting to watch the development of ideas incrementally. patents.google.com/patent/US2126682A/en?oq=2126682 , filed & granted 1938, appears to be the main patent for Novachord concepts, including discussion of how the frequency division is accomplished somewhat differently than other divider "organs", and discussion of why pentodes are preferable to triodes for the division. In the rest, with their use of "melody instrument", it can be difficult to distinguish if the technologies described within were meant directly for polyphonic instruments in some cases or not, but there seems to have been a lot of cross-pollination, and the language used for the discussion can be pretty fascinating. I will number rather than link the rest for brevity (with filing rather than granting dates, especially as WWII started to considerably delay issuance). 2221188 1938 vibrato/tremolo effects 2233258 1939 improvement on above 2276390A 1940 used a doubler, "playing of melodies...as distinguished from instruments on which chords may be played" 2301871 1940 "double touch" -- aftertouch for the application of vibrato 2310429 1941 elaboration on 2233258 discussing octave overtones 2500820 discussion of "chorus effect", and how to generate it in a rather complex manner And then some oddball things: 2357191 accompanying pedalboard with extensive discussion of envelope generators 2342338 synthesizing percussive melodic instruments (marimba, xylophone) 2254284 small instrument with a very peculiar keyboard arrangement 2432152 a drum synthesizer? 2543628 very extensive discussion of envelope generators -- and not aftertouch, but envelope control though the sensing of absolute key position (divided into finite steps) This list is not remotely exhaustive, as Hammond Instr. Co was granted about ~65 patents on their organs and synthesizer technologies between 1933 and ~1950. Hope anyone else finds this interesting.
Oddly enough Hammond revisited the divide down idea with the Hammond X66 organ. It was a tone wheel but had only 12 tone wheels for pitch references rather than 96
Hammond also did their "Monosynth" in about 1940 called the Solovox, which became the Monophonic division of the "S" Chord Organ and the F-100/"Extravoice" Organ.
John Hanert’s amazing tube work was also in the Novachord. While I love the Solovox, and have always wanted one, it is more of a “preset” device than a synthesis device, so I did not include it. There were many monophonic electronic instruments at that time, I just focused on some that were synthesis-based.
Something made entirely of tubes (that doesn't have metasonix in the name and therefore has actual reliable tracking), the Omnichord is probably the warmest instrument to have ever existed. Both sonically and physically.
There was a TV show a few years ago called Revolution. There was a living room scene which included an Novachord in the background. It would have been cool if someone actually played it.
A thought has just occurred to me. I own the Voce V3. Is there some way that I could hook it up to a full synth setup, 2 EG's Resonant filter filter mod a more realistic sounding chorus (detune), et al and fully polyphonic? or can this be done in a softsymtne with just the drawbars as the "oscillator(s)", or two sets of these, and the rest being the synth I would also package the hardware version differently, in a much more modern or futuristic case
Was Novachord 12 note polyphonic since it had 12 oscillators or could you play the same note from different octaves at the same time? In other words did the divider "eliminate" the original frequency while lovering it by an octave?
What defines polyphony is how many notes play, not how many oscillators the device possesses. Since in a divide-down keyboard all available notes play, it is "fully polyphonic," no matter how many oscillators are involved.
Without watching this over to see what I said, I'm going to guess that because I was specifically talking about the purpose of the vibrato circuits on the Novachord. The "LFO" parallel is a tenuous one to begin with in regard to this device. If you'd like to see me discuss the functionality of the LFO, I'd invite you to watch any number of the hundreds of videos I have here wherein I address LFO and its applications specifically.
Well, technically speaking wasn't the Vibrato on the Novachord more of a mechanical device and not an oscillator in the first place? I also gather that it generated a more complex type of Vibrato with multiple iterations of Pitch fluctuation that would be very involved trying to achieve with a single LFO.
It feels weird not talking directly to the camera always :p I feel like when professors talk to students that they know will not understand a single word of whatever they are saying XD
Imagine being a person who complains about unfounded expectations not fulfilled. There is zero "synth action" because this is a documentary about the concept of polyphony.
What's crazy to me is that the Teleharmonium Mark I existed until it was scrapped in 1962. Why not one person in the decades of sound recording didn't bother to record it is a travesty!
For anyone curious to learn more about the Novachord as I am(and willing to read patent-ese), here is a (limited) selection of some of J.M. Hanert's (an engineer for Hammond) and Laurens' patents. Reading through them chronologically, it is interesting to watch the development of ideas incrementally.
patents.google.com/patent/US2126682A/en?oq=2126682 , filed & granted 1938, appears to be the main patent for Novachord concepts, including discussion of how the frequency division is accomplished somewhat differently than other divider "organs", and discussion of why pentodes are preferable to triodes for the division.
In the rest, with their use of "melody instrument", it can be difficult to distinguish if the technologies described within were meant directly for polyphonic instruments in some cases or not, but there seems to have been a lot of cross-pollination, and the language used for the discussion can be pretty fascinating.
I will number rather than link the rest for brevity (with filing rather than granting dates, especially as WWII started to considerably delay issuance).
2221188 1938 vibrato/tremolo effects
2233258 1939 improvement on above
2276390A 1940 used a doubler, "playing of melodies...as distinguished from instruments on which chords may be played"
2301871 1940 "double touch" -- aftertouch for the application of vibrato
2310429 1941 elaboration on 2233258 discussing octave overtones
2500820 discussion of "chorus effect", and how to generate it in a rather complex manner
And then some oddball things:
2357191 accompanying pedalboard with extensive discussion of envelope generators
2342338 synthesizing percussive melodic instruments (marimba, xylophone)
2254284 small instrument with a very peculiar keyboard arrangement
2432152 a drum synthesizer?
2543628 very extensive discussion of envelope generators -- and not aftertouch, but envelope control though the sensing of absolute key position (divided into finite steps)
This list is not remotely exhaustive, as Hammond Instr. Co was granted about ~65 patents on their organs and synthesizer technologies between 1933 and ~1950. Hope anyone else finds this interesting.
Never knew the Hammond Organ was a Telharmonium, I guess I have always have loved the Telharmonium's sound!
Excellent historical explanation - thank you
Thank you, and thanks for watching!
Oddly enough Hammond revisited the divide down idea with the Hammond X66 organ. It was a tone wheel but had only 12 tone wheels for pitch references rather than 96
thanks for the info!
Hammond also did their "Monosynth" in about 1940 called the Solovox, which became the Monophonic division of the "S" Chord Organ and the F-100/"Extravoice" Organ.
John Hanert’s amazing tube work was also in the Novachord. While I love the Solovox, and have always wanted one, it is more of a “preset” device than a synthesis device, so I did not include it. There were many monophonic electronic instruments at that time, I just focused on some that were synthesis-based.
I’ve had the pleasure of Daniel Fisher showing me the Hammond poly synth and played it at SWEETWATER
Something made entirely of tubes (that doesn't have metasonix in the name and therefore has actual reliable tracking), the Omnichord is probably the warmest instrument to have ever existed.
Both sonically and physically.
Very informative and interesting to hear, thank you.
Hyped for the rest of the series!
This series has criminally small amount of views.
would love to hear more of this.
There was a TV show a few years ago called Revolution. There was a living room scene which included an Novachord in the background. It would have been cool if someone actually played it.
A thought has just occurred to me. I own the Voce V3. Is there some way that I could hook it up to a full synth setup, 2 EG's Resonant filter filter mod a more realistic sounding chorus (detune), et al and fully polyphonic? or can this be done in a softsymtne with just the drawbars as the "oscillator(s)", or two sets of these, and the rest being the synth
I would also package the hardware version differently, in a much more modern or futuristic case
Where can your original music be found? That closing song sounds great.
Thank you very much! I used to upload all of this to soundcloud, but once my soundcloud filled up, I didn't start another one.
very interesting
Thanks! :)
Yesssssss! :D
Been waiting for this!
LFO...Vibrato!!! Thank U
Why lust after analog filters when you can have a whole ass tube filter amirite fellas
Was Novachord 12 note polyphonic since it had 12 oscillators or could you play the same note from different octaves at the same time? In other words did the divider "eliminate" the original frequency while lovering it by an octave?
What defines polyphony is how many notes play, not how many oscillators the device possesses. Since in a divide-down keyboard all available notes play, it is "fully polyphonic," no matter how many oscillators are involved.
Technically an LFO can be used for Filter, Amplitude and Pulse Width as well as Pitch Modulation.
Thank God you told me
Of course you know. I don't know why you didn't tell them.
Without watching this over to see what I said, I'm going to guess that because I was specifically talking about the purpose of the vibrato circuits on the Novachord. The "LFO" parallel is a tenuous one to begin with in regard to this device. If you'd like to see me discuss the functionality of the LFO, I'd invite you to watch any number of the hundreds of videos I have here wherein I address LFO and its applications specifically.
Well, technically speaking wasn't the Vibrato on the Novachord more of a mechanical device and not an oscillator in the first place? I also gather that it generated a more complex type of Vibrato with multiple iterations of Pitch fluctuation that would be very involved trying to achieve with a single LFO.
An oscillator can't be mechanical? Aww, you're no fun.
Also, it sounds like you've been using really boring LFOs.
It feels weird not talking directly to the camera always :p I feel like when professors talk to students that they know will not understand a single word of whatever they are saying XD
Oh good. I was out of parts.
So it was not Albert Hammond?
Too much blah blah and zero synth action
Imagine being a person who complains about unfounded expectations not fulfilled. There is zero "synth action" because this is a documentary about the concept of polyphony.