KVR Audio

Kraku · Post by **Kraku** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 12:57 pm

http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/Nova/intro.htm

Hmmm

Yummy!

Hovmod · Post by **Hovmod** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:10 pm

Looks like a lot of work.
Now if someone could make a free SE version...

jackson · Post by **jackson** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:54 pm

I listened to the samples from the site last weekend - that is one amazing sounding synth. I've honestly never heard anything like it.

Kraku · Post by **Kraku** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:16 pm

That thing sounds REALLY good...

jackson · Post by **jackson** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:24 pm

Well, I don't know if "good" is the right word! It's dirty and haunting sound is just mesmerising though.

This would probably be the only time I'd ever be interested in a sample collection from a synthesizer. I wonder if one of the few owners left has the inclination.

funkychickendance · Post by **funkychickendance** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:39 pm

Isn't that amazing...? No doubt in my mind that it's a synth, as the site says. And...1937?

I'm older than dirt (and not as clean), but that's ten years before my time...

What an amazing gizmo...it sounds absolutely beautiful.

And it's good looking, too. And what a pile of work, says a guy who thinks changing guitar strings is a major project!

/fcd

Hunter · Post by **Hunter** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:42 pm

Sounds amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzing.

Someone needs to make a vsti emu of that

jackson · Post by **jackson** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:54 pm

Physical modelling?

Shit, no computer outside of a science lab could do a model of that thing right now.

Hitchcock Bell · Post by **Hitchcock Bell** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 6:30 pm

I don't mean to rain on the parade, but the clips of the restored novachord don't really sound much like the novachord I've been listening to from old films and TV shows. It sounds great, yes, but it doesn't have that nasal "menace at midnight" quality that's the trademark of a novachord. To be honest, it sounds more like a Juno6 or a Solina string machine.

Maybe the restorer could post some more authentically vintage sounds from his machine if it can actually produce them. However, I'd guess that those original 1930s components are irreplaceable after all. Great try though. I wish him well with it.

jackson · Post by **jackson** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 7:05 pm

Hitchcock Bell wrote:it sounds more like a Juno6 or a Solina string machine.

You really think so, or did you just cite these two to make a point? The samples on his site sound like NOTHING I've heard out of a Juno or from various Solina recordings I've heard.

Sure, the replacement parts surely must have had a negative impact on the authenticity of the sound, but it's still an amazing unique sound.

riley4reason · Post by **riley4reason** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 7:27 pm

Wow! it sounds tremendous! No wonder he rebuilt it. I bet you could still buy absinthe back when these first came out.

james0tucson · Post by **james0tucson** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 8:05 pm

riley4reason wrote:Wow! it sounds tremendous! No wonder he rebuilt it. I bet you could still buy absinthe back when these first came out.

If it's really from '37, you could still buy *cannabis.*

But his specimen is probably from 1939 or 1940, Serial #1256.

I don't envy the guy who has to do this resto job. Just cleaning up the powersupply and amp on my M-100 was very not fun.

The detail that jumps out at me, is the wording of the name plate, "Licensed only for amateur and experimental use." Did they all say that, or was this particular Novachord loaned out or something?

Expecially in the early 40's and earlier, the company had no right to enforce that sort of control, unless the user had signed an individual contract with specific language.

Imagine if, say, a Korg Triton said that, and that the company meant it, and that to do anything non-amateur with it, you'd have to pay royalties to Korg?

funkychickendance · Post by **funkychickendance** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 8:19 pm

Hitchcock Bell wrote:I don't mean to rain on the parade, but the clips of the restored novachord don't really sound much like the novachord I've been listening to from old films and TV shows. It sounds great, yes, but it doesn't have that nasal "menace at midnight" quality that's the trademark of a novachord.

You may well be right, but on the other hand it does have plenty of the attributes of the genuine period sounds in the MP3s earlier in the site.

Saying it doesn't sound like some particular thing you might have thought was a Novachord isn't awfully convincing to me...here's why:

1. Maybe the majority of users (not that there were many to pick from anyway) preferred one particular cliched sound (or the movie people paying their bills did)

2. Lots of the other things you heard might have been produced by organs, or some other instrument. In one of the old MP3s, is it a Novachord or (the rather commonplace) theremin that does the high pitched whinnying? I don't know, I wasn't there (either)...

What TV shows from 1937-40, BTW?

/fcd

Hitchcock Bell · Post by **Hitchcock Bell** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 11:12 pm

The Outer Limits mp3s feature what I consider to be THE novachord sound. The accompanying wailing theremin type instrument you can hear is an electric violin with a ton of reverb and tape-echo on it (the E-violin stood in for the theremin many times for those 50s and 60s space shows - better control, and better, stranger sound too IMO).

I think the strength of a novachord in the modern world might actually be its "dated" and even "cliched" sound (cliched only in terms of its regular use in old SciFi shows - but it would be "new" today). Supplanting its innards with modern, spanking new components and drenching it in modern outboard FX is not quite the point of it. To me, it really does sound too much like a modern synth.

Having said that, if the guy posted some mp3s more in the spirit of the movie-novachord (cliches and all) just to prove that the new machine really can do it, and if he decided to release a sample CD, I'd buy it just like THAT. A novachord for Gigastudio? Yaaayy!