polyphonic

Hollow Sun has announced plans for a new virtual instrument based on the rare and amazing Hammond Novachord – a polyphonic analog synthesizer released in 1939!

The Novachord is sort of the B3 of synthesizers – a huge, unwieldy beast that sounds like nothing else.

Unlike the B3, though, the Hammond Novachord has largely been forgotten. They were expensive, few were made, and few have survived because of their complexity.

The Novachord features divide-down oscillators and individual envelopes and LFO for each note. Yeah – this thing could do 72-voice polyphony in 1939!

Here’s an example of what this 70 year-old monster synth can sound like:

 

 Hammond Novachord [7:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Imagine if this technology had taken off!

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The Casio CZ-1000 is a vintage (80s) Phase Distortion Synthesis synthesizer, that’s basically a CZ-101 with full-size keys.

It offers 8-voice polyphony and a 49-key full-size keyboard. A two oscillator per voice option lets you get thicker sounds, but reduces the polyphony to 4 voices.

The CZ’s aren’t true classic synths, but they are reliable and offer a great vintage synth value.

If you’ve used the Casio CZ-1000 synthesizer, leave a comment with your thoughts! Read more…

In this rather awesome video, the guys from Blorp Corp help you get to know the Roland Juno 106 keyboard synthesizer.

B. Serrano has released Anubis, a free polyphonic software synthesizer for Windows.

Features:

• 16-notes polyphony
• 2 oscillators with X-Mod and Sync
• Randomizable ADSR
• Graphical modulation envelopes up to 32 stages
• 2 LFOs; host BPM syncable
• 1 multi-mode filter (same as Adonis 2); Randomizable
• 7×7 modulation-matrix
• Vibrato
• Tremolo; host BPM syncable
• Delay
• Chorus
• MIDI learn
• CPU friendly

If you’ve used Anubis, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Dave Smith Instruments has introduced a new multitimbral synthesizer, the DSI Tetra.

Tetra’s four voices feature a 100% analog signal path and four-part multitimbral operation with individual outputs per voice.

Tetra takes the sound and features of the DSI Mopho, multiplies them by four, and packs them in a box less than half an inch larger.

“We’ve been getting the message loud and clear from our customers that ‘smaller is better,’” said company founder Dave Smith. “All our recent products pack a lot of power and functionality into a small package—even the Prophet ’08, which is relatively small for a full-sized keyboard. We’d also gotten a lot of requests for a poly version of Mopho, our analog mono synth, which has been very successful. By following Mopho’s lead and paring the interface down to the essentials, we can keep the price low and provide excellent value. Everybody wins.”

The DSI Tetra retails for $799.

If you’ve used the Dave Smith Instruments Tetra, leave a comment with your thoughts! Read more…