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Heavyweight player: Oscillators and frequency dividers controlled various sets of notes on the Novachord, which weighed a quarter of a tonne
The Hammond Organ is world-famous, with a distinctive sound that makes it instantly recognisable. But before Laurens Hammond invented this organ, he and his colleagues John Hanert and C N Williams created other groundbreaking electronic instruments – including the far less well-known Novachord.
Hammond was a mechanical engineer by trade – he even reportedly designed a system for automatic transmission by the age of 14. He studied at Cornell University in the US, and during the First World War was part of the 6th Regiment of Railway Engineers in France. After the war, he became chief engineer at the Gray Motor Company in Detroit, but his real goal was still to be an inventor.
In the 1920s, he branched out on his own, and spent some time working on clock motors, inventing the electric Hammond Clock. But it was not until the early 1930s, when he bought a used piano and dismantled it, that he started working on the concept of electronic instruments. One such instrument that he invented was the tonewheel generator organ. It proved popular, and many still exist.
Hammond then started work on another instrument: the Novachord. Arguably the first polyphonic analogue synthesiser, it weighed in at a quarter of a tonne. It had 169 vacuum tubes to generate sound on 72 keys, and six octaves, as opposed to the five octaves of an organ. A series of 12 master oscillators of fixed frequency controlled the top 12 semitones, and a series of frequency dividers controlled the lower notes. It featured an early version of the ‘attack, delay, sustain, release’ (ADSR) envelope that characterises popular modern synthesisers.
The instrument also had more than one vibrato, which led traditional organ players to comment that it was somewhat hard to play. With a synthesiser, the interesting sounds come from adjustments in the controls – an aspect that was, perhaps, difficult for traditional players to get used to.
The Hammond Company launched the instrument at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, where Ferde Grofe performed with four Novachords and a Hammond Organ: an ‘electric orchestra’. They showcased the breadth of sounds that the instrument could emulate.
Unlike other Hammond creations, the instrument did not sound anything like an organ. It was rather eerier in its timbre. Its palette is reported as ranging from “dense sustained string and vocal timbres to the sharp attack transients of a harpsichord or piano”. Writing in 1948, S K Lewer noted that “it does not aim at imitating any of the usual orchestral instruments, yet besides the tone colours peculiar to itself, it is capable of producing tones similar to those of a piano, organ, the woodwind, brass, and plucked and bowed strings. This versatility is due to the combination of a wide range of harmonic content and a flexible envelope control.”
Consequently, the Novachord featured on early horror, B-movie and science-fiction soundtracks, such as The Twilight Zone and They Came from Outer Space. But it was also used in classic films such as The Maltese Falcon and Gone with the Wind. It also appeared in songs from the period – including, somewhat surprisingly, Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again, which was billed as “Vera Lynn and Arthur Young on the Novachord”.
The instrument enthralled and delighted many, including Henry Ford and Franklin D Roosevelt, who received one for his birthday. However, the Novachord never really caught on. Manufacture of the instrument, which had begun in 1938, ceased in 1942. A shortage of parts and poor sales prevented it being built again after the Second World War. Only 1,069 Novachords were ever made.
The Novachord was indisputably a feat of mechanical and electrical engineering, but it probably suffered from appearing slightly before its time. Groundbreaking elements, such as its divide-down oscillator technology, were not investigated or implemented again until the 1960s.
Hammond went on to create the Hammond Organ, which proved much more successful. But his company’s work with the Novachord and other early electronic instruments paved the way for later synthesisers such as the Moog – which the Novachord predates by 25 years – and created a new soundscape in music.