Cherry Audio - Novachord + Solovox

Novachord + Solovox is a pair of Cherry Audio instruments recreating two of the earliest electronic keyboards: Hammond's polyphonic Novachord of 1939 and its monophonic companion, the Solovox. They're for anyone after vintage strings, eerie pads and wavering lead tones with a sound that predates the synthesizer itself.

The background

The Novachord debuted at the 1939 World's Fair with 163 vacuum tubes and over a thousand capacitors. It used divide-down oscillators for full polyphony, resonant band-pass filtering, an early form of attack, decay and sustain shaping, and vibrato: ideas Moog and ARP polysynths picked up decades later. It flopped commercially, and few survive in working order. The Solovox was a small monophonic keyboard designed to sit under a piano and add organ-style lead lines.

The sound

Soft, slightly haunted and very much of its era. Novachord's three fixed resonators and Deep, Brilliant and Full tone settings give strings and pads a vocal, period quality, ideal for film, soundtrack and retro work. Solovox is reedy and nasal, with glide and vibrato that suit woodwind-style leads. Neither is a modern all-rounder, and that's the appeal: there's nothing else quite like them in a plugin.

Features

• Novachord: 32 polyphonic voices, synthesised rather than sampled
• Novachord: three resonant band-pass resonators, Deep, Brilliant and Full tone settings
• Novachord: seven attack/decay/sustain envelope options and two vibrato types
• Solovox: monophonic voice with Bass, Tenor, Contralto and Soprano range switches
• Solovox: two band-pass voice filters, glide, vibrato and mute
• Room and hall reverb modelled on the original amp and speaker cabinets
• 106 presets (56 Novachord, 50 Solovox)
• Adjustable oversampling
• Full MIDI control and DAW automation

System requirements

• Version: Novachord 1.0.2, Solovox 1.0.3
• Mac: macOS 10.13 or later, native on Apple Silicon. AU, VST2, VST3, AAX and standalone (64-bit)
• Windows: Windows 7 or later, including Windows 11. VST2, VST3, AAX and standalone (64-bit)
• Quad-core CPU and 8GB RAM recommended
• Internet connection needed for activation

SOUND7 is an authorised Cherry Audio reseller. Digital delivery: licence activation code sent by email. See How to Activate Your Cherry Audio Plugins.

Demo