The Organ Forum

Yeh, Organgrinder.  It's analog.  Been burning a hole in my brain for years.  Combining eleven seperate electronic organs under one unified 3 manual console.  My theory is that each organ playing one stop will have a minimum of harmonic distortion.  The organs I am using in this is a large Hammond, Two Conns, one Lowrey, and seven Wurlitzers.  And as a friend of mine added.....yeh, and a partridge in a pear tree!

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....."next" is a four letter word. Jay999

Wow!  That's something like my cousin Taylor's "house" organ (described in another thread). Must be an incredibly powerful feeling to be able to play all those organs at once!

Any photos?

John

 

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Rodgers 890 at church.
Baldwin D422 at home.
Scads of old organs in the shop! H E L P !!!

Hi Jaybird.  I'm not sure about how powerful it will be.  Here's the scoop.  I live in a sub-division type neighborhood.  Can't afford a really nice Allen or Walker.  Not technically minded enough to plow into the new digital stuff, plus I did some sniffing out of the expense of putting together a Hauptwerk job, and they are not cheap either!  Being in the organ service business, I've got a lot of tooling and design aspects in my memory to be able to put together an electro-mechanical relay for the unification.  Plus, I've got a ton of used stuff that I've been putting back in the warehouse for my project.

While I could easily build a pipe organ, living in a sub-division means that you can't play it without disturbing the neighbors.  The one thing that I wanted to do with this instrument is be able to PRACTICE.  You know....be able to repeat and repeat and repeat a measure or phrase until I've got it right.  Don't want to be heard doing that and driving the neighbors crazy!  PLUS, the whole instrument will stand inside a two car garage space.  That space is also the listening space.  Pipe organs have to have a mixing space before they are heard.  If you listen to the music in the same room that the pipes first speak into, there's not much blend.  Pipes really need some real estate between their speaking and your hearing them.

What I plan to do is build a tone chamber just deep enough and wide enough to accomodate all eleven organs, standing at a 90 degree angle to the listener.  In front of that assembly will be shutters that are operated by an Organ Supply electric shutter motor, and connected to a common trace.  This will be the means of expression.  Each electronic organ will be left pretty much stock, as built, so the individual expression pedals on each organ will serve as a means to regulate the volume of each stop.  (Hopefully, I won't loose too much upper harmonic work if I adjust the volume rather soft).

The main console will play as any pipe organ console would.  Three manuals and pedals, cabled to the relay system, and from there to the individual electronic organs, where a direct electric (excuse me Wicks!) action will push on the individual keys.  The electronic organs will produce one manual stop each, and one pedal stop each.  The ranks would be Tibia, Concert Flute, Diapason, Solo String, Salicional Celeste, Gemshorn (or Dulciana), Trumpet, Clarinet, Orchestral Oboe, Saxophone, and Vox Humana.  There's really not much need for leslie speakers, because there are eleven seperate tremulants that can be individually adjusted for their best characteristic tremming.

Having said all of this....no, there are no photos yet.  This is still very much a dream instrument that I've pondered over for many years.  I have the Hammond, (an RT-2), I have the Conn 644 (Vox Humana), and I have two of the Wurlitzers (4500 series) for two of the jazzy stops.  I have the big console, with three replacement manuals.  The console is a 100 stop maximum double bolster job, built by Wicks.  I want to replace the manuals because the Moller keys are slightly longer on the faces, and the sharps are slightly wider on their faces.  My years at the Fox ruined me for playing any other keyboard and feeling really comfortable.

So there it is, Jaybird.  I'm probably crazy for taking on such a big project.  But there's plenty of junk residing in the warehouse to build it, and I've got a couple of really good electronic organ technicians here to keep the stops playing and staying in good shape.  So when I starting reading all those comments about Conn organs being crap, I did a double take.  I think Conn was about the only analog organ that had a decently close sounding Vox Humana on it.  The other Conn that I plan to use would be the Concert Flute stop.  Additionally, I plan to pull the pedal 16' Tuba off of one of the Conns to make the bottom two octaves of the Trumpet stop.  Can't remember if that Tuba is polyphonic, or if it will play 2 notes at a time.

Jay Mitchell....signing off as Jay999. 

 

 

 

 

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....."next" is a four letter word. Jay999

Jay999:

Hi Jaybird.  I'm not sure about how powerful it will be.  Here's the scoop.  I live in a sub-division type neighborhood.  Can't afford a really nice Allen or Walker.  Not technically minded enough to plow into the new digital stuff, plus I did some sniffing out of the expense of putting together a Hauptwerk job, and they are not cheap either!  Being in the organ service business, I've got a lot of tooling and design aspects in my memory to be able to put together an electro-mechanical relay for the unification.  Plus, I've got a ton of used stuff that I've been putting back in the warehouse for my project.

While I could easily build a pipe organ, living in a sub-division means that you can't play it without disturbing the neighbors.  The one thing that I wanted to do with this instrument is be able to PRACTICE.  You know....be able to repeat and repeat and repeat a measure or phrase until I've got it right.  Don't want to be heard doing that and driving the neighbors crazy!  PLUS, the whole instrument will stand inside a two car garage space.  That space is also the listening space.  Pipe organs have to have a mixing space before they are heard.  If you listen to the music in the same room that the pipes first speak into, there's not much blend.  Pipes really need some real estate between their speaking and your hearing them.

What I plan to do is build a tone chamber just deep enough and wide enough to accomodate all eleven organs, standing at a 90 degree angle to the listener.  In front of that assembly will be shutters that are operated by an Organ Supply electric shutter motor, and connected to a common trace.  This will be the means of expression.  Each electronic organ will be left pretty much stock, as built, so the individual expression pedals on each organ will serve as a means to regulate the volume of each stop.  (Hopefully, I won't loose too much upper harmonic work if I adjust the volume rather soft).

The main console will play as any pipe organ console would.  Three manuals and pedals, cabled to the relay system, and from there to the individual electronic organs, where a direct electric (excuse me Wicks!) action will push on the individual keys.  The electronic organs will produce one manual stop each, and one pedal stop each.  The ranks would be Tibia, Concert Flute, Diapason, Solo String, Salicional Celeste, Gemshorn (or Dulciana), Trumpet, Clarinet, Orchestral Oboe, Saxophone, and Vox Humana.  There's really not much need for leslie speakers, because there are eleven seperate tremulants that can be individually adjusted for their best characteristic tremming.

Having said all of this....no, there are no photos yet.  This is still very much a dream instrument that I've pondered over for many years.  I have the Hammond, (an RT-2), I have the Conn 644 (Vox Humana), and I have two of the Wurlitzers (4500 series) for two of the jazzy stops.  I have the big console, with three replacement manuals.  The console is a 100 stop maximum double bolster job, built by Wicks.  I want to replace the manuals because the Moller keys are slightly longer on the faces, and the sharps are slightly wider on their faces.  My years at the Fox ruined me for playing any other keyboard and feeling really comfortable.

So there it is, Jaybird.  I'm probably crazy for taking on such a big project.  But there's plenty of junk residing in the warehouse to build it, and I've got a couple of really good electronic organ technicians here to keep the stops playing and staying in good shape.  So when I starting reading all those comments about Conn organs being crap, I did a double take.  I think Conn was about the only analog organ that had a decently close sounding Vox Humana on it.  The other Conn that I plan to use would be the Concert Flute stop.  Additionally, I plan to pull the pedal 16' Tuba off of one of the Conns to make the bottom two octaves of the Trumpet stop.  Can't remember if that Tuba is polyphonic, or if it will play 2 notes at a time.

Jay Mitchell....signing off as Jay999. 

In some of my past weaker moments, I actually considered doing something like that. What I wanted was an Allen TC-4 to do the Great and Pedal, and a Rodgers, maybe a 220, to add a mixture and flute celeste to the Great and to supply the Swell voices.

Now I am working on converting a Rodgers 220 to digital, and am trying to decide how to combine several different organs digitally. I want Casavant sounds to play classical music, but also would like to be able to play a lot of gospel music, and some popular music. It's not easy to combine Neo-Baroque voices with thatre sounds, but I think it might work. Some 1850's Willis voices may form the bridge.

Good luck on your project. By the way, use the amplifier volume controls to adjust your stop levels, not the expression controls.

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Mike

owner of an Allen MDS317 and working
on a custom digital using a Rodgers 220
console. I play a forty rank pipe organ on Sunday mornings.

Jay,

That is just so awesome! I wonder if anyone has done such an elaborate setup before? I know that a few people have set up a grand piano or other mechanical instrument to be playable from an organ keyboard.

I've often thought that one could construct an organ using a number of ordinary Yamaha or Casio keyboards, letting each keyboard serve as a single stop. They could all be tied together with MIDI, avoiding the mechanical (direct-electric) components.

You'd need to preset a particular voice on each keyboard then devise a way to engage each one separately by means of a stop tab. Each keyboard could have its own high-quality amp and speaker system. Expression could be via MIDI or else the gain of the amps could be controled by a DC voltage from a common expression pedal.

Anyway, you've got an interesting project. Keep us informed.

Tay will be interested in your story, but his project is quite extraordinary.

John

 

 

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Rodgers 890 at church.
Baldwin D422 at home.
Scads of old organs in the shop! H E L P !!!

Hi Jaybird.  Yes, I considered MIDI years ago.  All the way up to the present Hauptwerk applications.  Unfortunately, money is a big road block to the persuit of such great sounds.  I got with my solid state supplier last year to see if I could afford a Hauptwerk set up.  By the time we got through estimating all the equipment (and time) the project would need, I would have had to mortgage the house to pay for it.  Not that my analog project is cheap either.  It costs a lot of money to buy and transport a good analog organ and have a technician attend to the age problems when you get it home.  My real weakness is a thorough grounding in electronics knowledge.  I read some of these guys messages about how they spend $3.99 on a few parts and come up with a mind bending solution that I've spent five hundred dollars consulting an electronics technician about.  So...for me, the analog set up is the only thing left.

I read with interest, your desire to merge the Rodgers instrument with the Allen.  Yes, anytime you try to blend "dark" sound with "light and bright" sound, you have to use a medium of "binding" sounds.  And then you also have to go into the light and bright sounds and take a tad of sparkle off the top harmonics too.  I wouldn't know how to do that in electronics.  In pipes, you'd start with the bright 4' and replace them with Spitz stops, (tapered bodies).  Then in the 2' and Mixtures, you'd reset the languids so they are slightly less efficient on the third harmonic (12th).  And so on.

Thanks for your suggestions, Jaybird.

Jay999

 

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....."next" is a four letter word. Jay999

Jay999:

Three manuals and pedals, cabled to the relay system, and from there to the individual electronic organs, where a direct electric (excuse me Wicks!) action will push on the individual keys.  The electronic organs will produce one manual stop each, and one pedal stop each.  

 

This is clearly a Herculean task. 11 consoles, each wired for one manual and pedals, that comes out to (assuming all 61 manuals, and 25/32 note pedals) 946-1,023 magnets, correct? And then a relay system to boot. It really sounds like an electromechanical work of art. 

 

 

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Nathan Wilcox

Hi Nathan,

The Hammond, 2 Conns, and Lowrey are keyed by direct electric magnets.

The Wurlitzers are all keyed by "ice cube relays".

The specs look pretty much like a theatre pipe organ:

Hammond: 85 notes, 8' thru 2' Tibia.

Conn 1.  73 notes, 8' thru 4' Vox Humana.

Conn 2.  85 notes, 8' thru 2' Concert Flute

Lowrey: 61 notes, 8' Clarinet.

Wurlitzer 1:  73 notes, 8' Diapason.

Wurlitzer 2:  73 notes, 8' Solo String.

Wurlitzer 3:  73 notes, 8' Solo String Celeste.

Wurlitzer 4:  73 notes, 8' Soft string.

Wurlitzer 5;  61 notes, 8' Trumpet.

Wurlitzer 6:  61 notes, 8' Saxophone (both manuals required for this sound)

Wurlitzer 7:  61 notes, 8' Orchestral Oboe (both manuals required for this sound)

From the pedal divisions of all these organs I should be able to come up with a decent sounding 16' Bourdon, 16' Tibia, 16' String,  Again, from others, I should be able to get 8' Flute, 8' Tibia, 8' String.

Oddly, the Pedal Solo unit on my Hammond RT has a 16' Bourdon that is remarkably similiar to a Wurlitzer lead resonator Diaphone.  So I will use that pedal stop off the Hammond.

I'll use the Wurlitzer "celeste" organ for my 8' Pedal string celeste, since it will already be celesting on the manual.

The Conn I will be using for the Vox Humana has a fairly authentic sounding 16' Tuba in the pedal. 

The Saxophone and Orch. Oboe stops incorporate several chosen stops played together on both keyboards of the Wurlitzers.  So those two organs will have a complex sounding stop as the result.  I'm amazed at how authentic these old Wurlitzer electronic organs can make such a complex reed sound! 

Each of the eleven organs has the capability of adjusting the speed and depth of the vibrato.  While the Hammond's Tibia will be fast and slightly deep, the Strings will beat with a shallow depth.  On the other end of the spectrum, the Saxophone beats slow, with a pronounced depth to it.  I'm expecting all those tremulants running together will make the organ sound just as spatial as a big instrument would.  Imagine, 11 tremulants!

For me, the relay is the easiest part.  At this point, I've pretty well settled on building a copy of a Moller unit relay.  If you've ever seen the keying system of a Moller organ (at the back side of the keys) you will see 61 chopper bars that move with the keys.  Inline with the chopper bars is a series of contacts that can be pulled into position so they will contact the choppers.  Each series of contacts is pulled "on" or "off" by a slide that the contacts run through.  This is the basis for a Moller relay, as well.  You just build a bigger 61 note chopper bar system, with twenty, thirty, or forty contacts to be pulled on and off.  That would make up one manual relay, complete with couplers.  You repeat this again for each manual division you have, plus a 32 note system for the pedal.  The whole thing is actuated by direct electric magnets.  Yes, it does take a lot of magnets.  I've been saving magnets from old organs I've rebuilt, and must have the better part of five to six hundred of them in the warehouse.  By the time I get the whole thing playing, there will be well over 1500 direct electric magnets, and several hundred "ice cube" relays.

The most expensive part of the project should be the 100 sams for the stops, 20 more sams for the couplers.  A great deal of the expense of building this is my labor.  If I live long enough, my weekends are a great time to get out in the shop and fabricate these parts.

With my past experience, I can bend wires, and screw screws a lot quicker than I can learn all there is to know about electronics.  But don't get me wrong.  I have a heck of a lot of respect for those guys that can work magic with a box full of electronic parts.

Best wishes for now.  Talk to you again soon.

Jay Mitchell.

 

 

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....."next" is a four letter word. Jay999