SOUND ON SOUND MAGAZINE
"A unique, highly varied collection of mysterious and atmospheric instruments, beautiful pad sounds and string patches witha sweet, singing high register and a weirdly romantic flavour."
Dave Stewart, Sound On Sound Sept 2010
"..THIS INSTRUMENT HAS HEART EVEN WHEN IT BLEEPS."
NEIL DAVIDGE, MASSIVE ATTACK
"I'd never heard of, let alone seen a Novachord before, I didn't quite know what to expect when I hit purchase, it was a leap into the unknown (although I've never yet been disappointed in a Soniccouture purchase).
I dislike fussy and plastic, self conscious and gimmicky 'modern' synths; this instrument has heart even when it bleeps. I used to spend hours trying to warm and add texture with amps and tubes, filters, mics, booths and assistants just to make a synth sit in the track and give it life; every Novachord patch feels matured straight out of the box. The 2039 'update' in no way compromises any of this; the additional features to the original are sympathetic and choice, as are the effects, giving the instrument a long life expectancy beyond the initial infatuation period."
.."The pads seem peacefully dreamy one moment and cast shadows of disturbance the next.."
"..as you keep listening to the presets and experiment with the various parameters, an instrument with a fascinating, slightly anachronistic, but also uniquely distinctive character emerges. The basses range from nasally bassoon-like to razorsharp and heavy, even sinister.
Among the lead sounds you find a mixture of soft and warm, distinctly penetrating and icy cold ones, along with wobbly singing saws. The organs exhibit quite some amount of psychedelia (e. g. early Pink Floyd and Egg), while the pads seem peacefully dreamy one moment and cast shadows of disturbance in the next, which would fit equally well in cinematic backdrops as in delectronic music. Among the string presets you can find warm, analogue-like sounds as well as those with Chamberlin- and harmonica-like qualities.
As you probably can tell, it is hard to give a pin-point summary of the Novachord, but a thought that kept occurring to me throughout my testing is that if today's modern synthesizers play in color, then the Novachord plays in black and white - a different expression, but with its own totally unique qualities."
Mats Grundberg, MM magazine Sweden