Vox Jennings Univox and Hammond Solovox tech and sound check!

YouTube Uploaded by sounddoctorin on Mar 4, 2011

"Bob Weigel of http://www.sounddoctorin.com leads us on tour inside and out of the original monophonic organ/synths. (With very simple synth features like footage selections and slow attack envelope on the Hammond) Actually the Hammond Solovox (produced from 1940 to 1950 nearly I hear) is a scaled down mono version of the 170 tube 500 some pound Hammond Novacord (Made in 1938!) Novacord was a full polyphonic divide down synthesizer like many transistor ones create in the 70's (Arp Omni etc.) Probably the most ahead of it's time musical instrument ever created.

The Solovox's tone cabinet contains the divider tubes and mixer tubes as well as a huge relay can that operates each time a key is hit. There are three relays that route signals for each of the three 'buss segments'. I said 'three buss' keyboard in the video but it's not three parallel buses but rather three single buss segments. 1 per octave. The footages are prearranged by those switches to be apportioned appropriately to the three buses.

THen after the relays properly route things from the high low and mid mixes, we go to the filters that are selected by the buttons beneath the keys. The capacitor ladder and mechanical vibrato are also housed therein with the knee volume lever that uses a set of resistances to gradually increment the volume.

We'd love to find more information on the Jennings unit if anyone has it! A schematic would be awesome!

The Univox has simplified things to get a great tube sound into a much smaller box by 1954. The keys are also much more playable! The short keys on the Solovox take some getting used to. Definitely some useful sounds!"