Because the Yanni-keyboard wasn't enough (I pick this one up from customs tomorrow evening): I recently made a trip to Saratoga Springs, New York to acquire this legendary beast.
The Hammond Novachord is widely considered to be the world's first polyphonic synthesizer. It has 72 keys, generates tones via a vacuum tube based divide-down oscillator system, and equips each key with a VCA and an envelope generator. It has filters (albeit not voltage controlled ones.) It has about a hundred and fifty vacuum tubes on it, and each key in that keying mechanism runs on 270 volts (!) through palladium-based contacts. In short, it is a menace. This one is... is not in good shape, to put it bluntly. It is, however, complete save for one vacuum tube. This leaves me hoping that with a lot of love and more importantly a LOT of elbow grease, this will live again.
You can see someone else's restoration, and more importantly hear someone else's restoration, here.


