Hohner Multimonica II Reed Organ / Monophonic Synthesizer

H

o

h

n

e

r

M

u

l

t

i

m

o

n

i

c

a

I

I

R

e

e

d

O

r

g

a

n

/

M

o

n

o

p

h

o

n

i

c

S

y

n

t

h

e

s

i

z

e

r

The Hohner Multimonica was one of the first mass-produced analogue synthesizers. It was probably developed as early as 1940, but only came onto the market in the late 1940s. The instrument was based on a design by Siegfried Mager (son of electronic music pioneer Jörg Mager) called the Mager-Straube-Kleinorgel, and the circuits were developed by Harald Bode. The Multimonica II was launched in 1953.

The Multimonica is a hybrid electronic-acoustic instrument with two keyboards, the lower one a 41-note harmonium played with wind tubes, the upper one an electronic monophonic sawtooth synthesizer. The instrument, housed in a black bakelite case, has a loudspeaker, a tube-generated electromechanical vibrato (circuits with Philips 13204 X, Philips EL41, Telefunken EF41 tubes in the Multimonica I and EL41; ECC40; EF40 tubes for the Multimonica II), 6 presets for the synthesizer, 2 switches for filtering and 3 switches for vibrato, and a knee lever for volume control. The Multimonica II has a loudspeaker and offers variants of overtone filtering. The electromechanical vibrato was replaced by a sophisticated design based on neon gas tubes. (Source: 120 Years.net)