Song of the Week: November 3 – “The Real Enemy”

I’ve been experimenting a bit this week with  third-party sample libraries for Kontakt and Reaktor, and I’ve discovered a few real gems. One is the Novachord ensemble for Reaktor, featured here in this week’s song of the week.

I have a bit of an obsession with the Novachord for some reason, possibly because of the mysterious sounds that come out of it. For those of you not aware, the Hammond Novachord, manufactured between 1938 and 1942, is one of the first polyphonic synthesizers ever created. It’s sound is lush and other-worldly, and playing just a single note on it could be a complete soundtrack to an episode of Dark Shadows.

Anyway, after tracking down my Novachord emulator, I whipped a quick little vinnette, loosely based on (of all things) the second installment of The Hunger Games…..largely because I was watching it while I had my Logic session open and was auditioning the presets.

In this track, I’m primarily using the Novachord ensemble: two instances, in fact….one for the chordal harmony, and one for the melody. I also layered it with another Reaktor ensemble, the old-school Soundforum Synth, and the Arturia CS-80.

As for some other interesting third-party synths, I highly recommend checking out some of the libraries offered by Hollow Sun (who have their own excellent Novachord library, as well as some very good Polymoog samples), Sonic Couture (some really cool RMI samples, a music box, another set of Polymoog samples, and other stuff), and Audio Genetics Lab (who has a free Magnus Chord Organ).