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Novachord
The Novachord is an electronic musical instrument often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer. All-electronic, incorporating many circuit and control elements found in modern synthesizers, and using subtractive synthesis to generate tones, it was designed by John M. Hanert, Laurens Hammond and C. N. Williams, and was manufactured by the Hammond company. Only 1,069 Novachords were built over a period from 1939 to 1942. It was one of very few electronic products released by Hammond that was not intended to emulate the sound of an organ. History of production While production of the Novachord began in November 1938, it was first heard at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The Novachord Orchestra of Ferde Grofé performed daily at the Ford stand with four Novachords and a Hammond Organ. The first instrument was delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 30, 1940 as a birthday present. The Novachord was not well-suited to the technique of or ...
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Novachord Insides3
The Novachord is an electronic musical instrument often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer. All-electronic, incorporating many circuit and control elements found in modern synthesizers, and using subtractive synthesis to generate tones, it was designed by John M. Hanert, Laurens Hammond and C. N. Williams, and was manufactured by the Hammond company. Only 1,069 Novachords were built over a period from 1939 to 1942. It was one of very few electronic products released by Hammond that was not intended to emulate the sound of an organ. History of production While production of the Novachord began in November 1938, it was first heard at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The Novachord Orchestra of Ferde Grofé performed daily at the Ford stand with four Novachords and a Hammond Organ. The first instrument was delivered to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 30, 1940 as a birthday present. The Novachord was not well-suited to the technique of or ...
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Polyphony (instrument)
Polyphony is a property of musical instruments that means that they can play multiple independent melody lines simultaneously. Instruments featuring polyphony are said to be polyphonic. Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic or paraphonic. Synthesizer Monophonic A monophonic synthesizer or ''monosynth'' is a synthesizer that produces only one note at a time, making it smaller and cheaper than a polyphonic synthesizer which can play multiple notes at once. This does not necessarily refer to a synthesizer with a single oscillator; The Minimoog, for example, has three oscillators which are settable in arbitrary intervals, but it can play only one note at a time. Well-known monosynths include the Minimoog, the Roland TB-303, the Korg Prophecy, and the Korg Monologue. Duophonic Duophonic synthesizers, such as the ARP Odyssey and Formanta Polivoks built in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, have a capability to independently play two pitches at a time. ...
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Electronic Musical Instrument
An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is plugged into a power amplifier which drives a loudspeaker, creating the sound heard by the performer and listener. An electronic instrument might include a user interface for controlling its sound, often by adjusting the pitch, frequency, or duration of each note. A common user interface is the musical keyboard, which functions similarly to the keyboard on an acoustic piano, except that with an electronic keyboard, the keyboard itself does not make any sound. An electronic keyboard sends a signal to a synth module, computer or other electronic or digital sound generator, which then creates a sound. However, it is increasingly common to separate user interface and sound-generating functions into a music controller (input device) and a music synthes ...
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Synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be altered by components such as filters, which cut or boost frequencies; envelopes, which control articulation, or how notes begin and end; and low-frequency oscillators, which modulate parameters such as pitch, volume, or filter characteristics affecting timbre. Synthesizers are typically played with keyboards or controlled by sequencers, software or other instruments, and may be synchronized to other equipment via MIDI. Synthesizer-like instruments emerged in the United States in the mid-20th century with instruments such as the RCA Mark II, which was controlled with punch cards and used hundreds of vacuum tubes. The Moog synthesizer, developed by Robert Moog and first sol ...
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Subtractive Synthesis
Subtractive synthesis is a method of sound synthesis in which partials of an audio signal (often one rich in harmonics) are attenuated by a filter to alter the timbre of the sound. While subtractive synthesis can be applied to any source audio signal, the sound most commonly associated with the technique is that of analog synthesizers of the 1960s and 1970s, in which the harmonics of simple waveforms such as sawtooth, pulse or square waves are attenuated with a voltage-controlled resonant low-pass filter. Many digital, virtual analog and software synthesizers use subtractive synthesis, sometimes in conjunction with other methods of sound synthesis. Examples of subtractive synthesis A human example The basis of subtractive synthesis can be understood by considering the human voice; when a human speaks, sings or makes other vocal noises, the vocal folds act as an oscillator and the mouth and throat as a filter. Consider the difference between singing "oooh" and "aaah" , ...
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Hammond Organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated sound by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup, and then strengthening the signal with an amplifier to drive a speaker cabinet. The organ is commonly used with the Leslie speaker. Around two million Hammond organs have been manufactured. The organ was originally marketed by the Hammond Organ Company to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, or instead of a piano. It quickly became popular with professional jazz musicians in organ trios—small groups centered on the Hammond organ. Jazz club owners found that organ trios were cheaper than hiring a big band. Jimmy Smith's use of the Hammond B-3, with its additional harmonic percussion feature, inspired a ...
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Trautonium
The Trautonium is an electronic synthesizer invented in 1930 by Friedrich Trautwein in Berlin at the Musikhochschule's music and radio lab, the Rundfunkversuchstelle. Soon afterwards Oskar Sala joined him, continuing development until Sala's death in 2002. Description Instead of a keyboard, its manual is made of a resistor wire over a metal plate, which is pressed to create a sound. Expressive playing was possible with this wire by gliding on it, creating vibrato with small movements. Volume was controlled by the pressure of the finger on the wire and board. The first Trautoniums were marketed by Telefunken from 1933 until 1935 (200 were made). The sounds were at first produced by neon-tube relaxation oscillators Example of a similar early neon keyboard invention by Winston E. Kock (later, thyratrons, then transistors), which produced sawtooth-like waveforms. The pitch was determined by the position at which the performer pressed the resistive wire into contact with the ...
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Tolerances
Engineering tolerance is the permissible limit or limits of variation in: # a physical dimension; # a measured value or physical property of a material, manufacturing, manufactured object, system, or service; # other measured values (such as temperature, humidity, etc.); # in engineering and safety, a physical distance or space (tolerance), as in a truck (lorry), train or boat under a bridge as well as a train in a tunnel (see structure gauge and loading gauge); # in mechanical engineering, the Engineering tolerance#Mechanical component tolerance, space between a screw, bolt and a nut (hardware), nut or a hole, etc. Dimensions, properties, or conditions may have some variation without significantly affecting functioning of systems, machines, structures, etc. A variation beyond the tolerance (for example, a temperature that is too hot or too cold) is said to be noncompliant, rejected, or exceeding the tolerance. Considerations when setting tolerances A primary concern is to det ...
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Theremin
The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named after its inventor, Leon Theremin, who patented the device in 1928. The instrument's controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas which sense the relative position of the thereminist's hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume) with the other. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker. The sound of the instrument is often associated with eerie situations. The theremin has been used in movie soundtracks such as Miklós Rózsa's '' Spellbound'' and '' The Lost Weekend'', Bernard Herrmann's ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'', and Justin Hurwitz's '' First Man'' as well as in theme songs for television shows such as the ITV drama ''Midsomer Murders'' a ...
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Ondes Martenot
The ondes Martenot ( ; , "Martenot waves") or ondes musicales ("musical waves") is an early electronic musical instrument. It is played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin. A player of the ondes Martenot is called an ondist. The ondes Martenot was invented in 1928 by the French inventor Maurice Martenot. Martenot was inspired by the accidental overlaps of tones between military radio oscillators, and wanted to create an instrument with the expressiveness of the cello. The ondes Martenot is used in more than 100 orchestral compositions. The French composer Olivier Messiaen used it in pieces such as his 1949 symphony '' Turangalîla-Symphonie,'' and his sister-in-law Jeanne Loriod was a celebrated player of the instrument. It appears in numerous film and television soundtracks, particularly science fiction and horror films. Jonny Greenwood of the English rock band Radiohead is credited with bringing the ondes to a ...
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James Bernard (composer)
James Michael Bernard (20 September 1925 – 12 July 2001) was a British film composer, particularly associated with horror films produced by Hammer Film Productions. Beginning with '' The Quatermass Xperiment'', he scored such films as '' The Curse of Frankenstein'' and ''Dracula''. He also occasionally scored non-Hammer films including '' Windom's Way'' (1957) and '' Torture Garden'' (1967). Early years and World War II Bernard was educated at Wellington College, previously attended by Christopher Lee, who starred in many of the Hammer horror films Bernard scored. In an interview late in his life, Bernard recalled that in his mid-teens three of his favourite books were ''The Devil Rides Out'', ''She'', and ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''. While still a schoolboy, Bernard met Benjamin Britten when the composer came to consult the school's art master, Kenneth Green, about the stage designs for '' Peter Grimes''. Britten took interest in an inter-house music competition, and ad ...
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Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an American film production and distribution company owned by Comcast through the NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment division of NBCUniversal. Founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, and Jules Brulatour, Universal is the oldest surviving film studio in the United States; the world's fifth oldest after Gaumont, Pathé, Titanus, and Nordisk Film; and the oldest member of Hollywood's "Big Five" studios in terms of the overall film market. Its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. In 1962, the studio was acquired by MCA, which was re-launched as NBCUniversal in 2004. ...
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