Introduced in 1940, the original Hammond Solovox was an oddity consisting of two parts - a keyboard assembly that was mounted directly beneath a piano keyboard, and a speaker cabinet containing the tone generation circuitry, amplifier, and speaker (utilizing a mere 18 vacuum tubes!). It was intended for pianists who wanted to add solo organ-style tones to their playing, and thus was strictly monophonic (i.e. one-note-at-a-time). Because the keyboard stuck out from the bottom of its “host” piano, its keys are tiny, kind of like a squashed Casio keyboard.
Along with the similar Clavioline and Ondioline, these lead-organ-under-piano instruments had their heyday through the 40s on up to sometime in the 60s. It's safe to say that the onslaught of compact transistor organs released in the 60s spelled their demise. This is kind of a shame, because the Solovox sounds super cool, and because we're suckers for anything old and keyboard-y, our DSP whiz pal Mark Barton shoved his super-accurate model in our faces and demanded we release it as a product, thus Cherry Audio Solovox was born!
Though it's a little different than operating a standard organ or synthesizer, Solovox is easy to use, and with a few useful added tweaks, it's surprisingly flexible.
Technical Assistance
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