Great walkthrough of the Sonas Philicorda, the first virtual Kontakt instrument from Samplephonics new imprint Sonas, with producer Rob Talbott.


Philicorda History

If it's not a Hammond, Vox or Farfisa on a 60's/70's recording, then there's a good chance that it's the Phili!  Developed in the 1960s by Philips (incandescent bulbs manufacturer) the Philicorda Combo Organ was built with military spec components, and with a much better sound than the Vox Jaguar, this offered more preset combinations, and adjustable spring reverb and vibrato, as well as 2 built in speakers.

The original Philicorda contains 2 sets of switches, the first set activating octaves and the second set activating different voices, which generate different harmonic attributes. The Philicorda uses what is called a frequency divider, which creates a high frequency waveform and then generates various sine waves below this frequency at different intervals.

These can then be activated using the VOX switches. Because the waves are generated at the same time they stay fully phase aligned with one another, which gives it a very solid, and distinctive sound.

About the Sonas Philicorda

This virtual instrument plugin is designed to work with Kontakt 5 (full version required) and comes with 6493 sampled waveforms, a 3D modelled interface and a highly versatile collection of on board effects, from a spring reverb impulse and leslie cabinet emulator, to full synthesiser LFO’s, filters, envelopes and chorus for those looking to take their sound further than the traditional organ.



This is the first Philicorda virtual instrument available that has every single vox and octave combination sampled individually, including all 217 Vox and octave combinations!

This unique virtual instrument not only faithfully replicates the true character of the original organ, but goes further to offer some extremely fat synth sounds that can be shaped into lush evolving pads, dense uplifting chords and driving basses and leads. The filter resonance and filter drive can be pushed into self oscillation to create some wonderful harmonic effects that accentuate the rich harmonic tones of the organ beautifully.

Check out the free demo here.

Enjoy!