1938 Novachord: Into The Ether (80 Year Old Tube Polysynth!) by Hideaway Studio

A live improvisation recorded in front of 1938 Novachord #346 recorded directly from her generator chassis line output into modern chorus and reverb during testing following partial restoration back in 2009 at Hideaway Studio by D.A.Wilson. 346 is the only operational Novachord in the UK.

Celebrating her 80th birthday in 2018 - the Novachord was literally decades ahead of its time. It is an all electronic 163 electron tube (valve) 1/4 ton monster with 72 note polyphony, 72 tube VCAs with genuine polyphonic dynamics control, 12 free running master oscillators driving 6 octaves of the world's first divide down circuitry implemented in banks of tube monostables.

Capable of producing huge slowly decaying sustains, it has 6 free running LFOs acting on pairs of master oscillators and a basic centrally commanded polyphonic envelope generator on every key feeding a triple L/C formant resonator. It is probably the world's first commercial electronic polyphonic instrument to use the same "charge-transfer" method of envelope control/generation used in popular instruments many decades later.

1069 were built over a short period. It cost $1850 in 1939 - enough to buy three new cars or a small house. Sadly very few examples have thought to have survived, even less in playable condition, and less than 25 100% restored/rebuilt world wide.