The most unusual musical instruments: Hammond organ, Vako Orchestron and Synclavier

    
We are continuing a series of materials about unusual musical instruments. This time we are talking about a seemingly rather traditionalist variety of them - keyboards.

    In our selection of unusual "keys" - Hammond's electromechanical organ, one of the early Synclavier digital synthesizers and Orchestron optical organ.

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    Photo by John R. Southern CC BY-ND

    Hammond Organ


    In the 1930s, this electromechanical body was designed by American engineer Lawrence Hammond. A few years later, he created the first Novachord polyphonic synthesizer in the world - but his name nevertheless tightly stuck to the electromechanical organ, which was used by various musicians, not just church organists: rock, jazz and blues performers, as well as gospel singers.

    An example of playing the Hammond organ

    Lawrence Hammond was a "serial inventor." One of his first inventions was Teleview, a technique for producing stereoscopic images for cinemas.

    The first show took place in December 1922. Hammond used the active principle of displaying 3D images (when images for the left and right eyes are shown alternately at very high speeds). Despite the fact that Hammond was not the inventor of this principle (the patent for it dates back to 1897), his Teleview was one of the first systems of its kind that the general public saw. With all the advantages of the technology, Teleview did not take root - the production of films and equipment of the hall was too expensive, and the viewing process was not very convenient (it was necessary to watch through a special device attached in front of each seat).

    In the 1920s, Hammond also worked with synchronous motors. His watches with an AC motor, working very accurately and silently, were so popular that Hammond eventually foundedHammond Clock Company , which soon grew to a large factory.

    Finally, in 1933, amid the Great Depression and the economic decline, Hammond began to think about other inventions - and decided to take on one of the orders for a musical instrument that could allow small churches not to spend money on an expensive organ. Hammond bought a used piano, took it apart and began experimenting with an electromechanical generator and various sound extraction methods.

    The basis of its body lay down with "phonetic wheels" - according to the principle of " Telarmonium, An earlier instrument of this kind. At the same time, the mechanism was relatively small, due to which the Hammond organ was much smaller than the traditionally huge brass organs with hundreds of pipes in different registers. At first, however, he created a much simpler instrument - an electric flute .

    In 1934, Hammond received a patent for his invention - in just three months. Henry Ford heard about his invention and tried to order six organs at once - so Hammond, who had not even begun mass production of his new mechanism, realized that he had found a gold mine. From the proposal of Henry Ford to help with the organization of production bodies Hammond refused.

    Due to some features of the construction, the sound of the organ had several drawbacks - for example, key clicks or the barely audible “overtones” of neighboring notes, which appeared because the adjacent tonal wheels influenced each other's pickups. Of course, they were rather the result of technical flaws, but over time they became part of the unique sound of the organ.

    In total, Hammond's company produced several models of the body, distinguished by some elements of the structure. After some time, organs appeared on the basis of electronic circuits. Classical model B-3 is now considered. Synthesizers and other sampling tools can imitate the Hammond organ, but many musicians still appreciate the original sound of the instrument.

    Hammond's organ was played by many legendary keyboard players and jazz performers - Rick Wright, John Lord, Jimmy Smith, Larry Young and others.

    John Lord plays the Hammond organ

    Synclavier


    Synclavir is more than just a keyboard instrument. In fact, this is one of the first full-fledged music workstations, with the help of which you can create turnkey electronic music - the replacement of an entire studio. With the help of Synclavier, you can synthesize music, create samples and engage in direct sound recording, so not only musicians and composers worked on it, but also, for example, sound effect designers.

    Another catchy feature of synclaves is the price. It varies from 20 to 200-300 thousand dollars, and the most expensive tool was sold for 500 thousand .

    Some features of the

    Synclavier Synclavier was developed by the American company New England Digital Corporation in 1977. Its history, however, began earlier - in 1972, during summer practice at Dartmouth College, students Cameron Jones and Sydney Alonso worked on software and computer hardware that would allow the latter to "produce various sounds and whistles."

    As planned, with his help, students of the composer and teacher John Appleton had to train their ears. Over the next four years, engineers continued to work on this task — the result was the ABLE computer. He was the first product released by New England Digital Corporation.

    This technology formed the basis of Synclavier I - the first model of a fully digital synthesizer of New England Digital Corporation. It was bought mainly by universities. With it, it was possible to synthesize sounds - he had no keys and a control panel yet. They appeared and became the hallmark of the next model - Synclavier II.

    The second model came out in the early 80s. Synclavier II is the very model that is now associated with the Synclavier. However, later the company made several more modifications - for example, in 1982 it improved the keyboard and added the ability to increase the polyphony to 32 voices.

    The synclavier version of the mid-80s is still consideredone of the highest quality standards. He was used by dozens of great musicians and musical groups (in many respects because only he could afford them). For example, many of the sounds in the legendary Michael Jackson Thriller and Bad albums were made with the help of the Synclavier, and Sting actively used it in the early stages of his solo career ( video ).

    Vako orchestron


    The optical organ Vako Orchestron had a rather interesting story. Initially, the technology (playback of pre-recorded sounds on optical discs) was used in a simpler Optigan model, intended for amateur musicians and produced by Mattel, a large American toy manufacturer. Optigan did not become commercially successful, and the technology passed to Vako, the company of David Van Koevering, one of the pioneers of electronic music, who had previously worked on the design and promotion of the Moog synthesizer.

    Covering planned to develop the Optigan technology at home and make Orchestron a full-fledged replacement for the professional Mellotron. And indeed, Orchestron had several important differences - for example, the sound recordings were looped back, unlikeeight-second mellotron sounds . Orchestron was smaller and lighter, moreover, the disks with sounds could be changed much faster than the magnetic tape of the mellotron. Initially, Orchestron had eight sets of sounds (violin, organ, flute, saxophone, brass organ, French horn, cello and chorus), but then several additions came out.

    Vako Orchestron features

    Orchestron has many interesting features. But his main problem was the poor quality of the photo-recording - in comparison with the sound quality of the magnetic tapes of the Mellotron, Orchestron still lost. A total of about one hundred instruments were created, and now about forty are known - they are in great interest from lo-fi fans.

    One of the most famous applications of Orchestron in music is the albums Radio-Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977) and The Man-Machine (1978) of the German band Kraftwerk.

    A Optigan, by the way, recently received a "second life" as an app for iOS.



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