The Organ Forum

I have an Allen ADC 2160 with only external speakers.  I want to place two of the four speakers at the opposite end of the room wired to the organ's antiphonal board.  I want to be able to play all speakers at once, just the mains, or just the antiphonals.  The organ has the resources to do this, I just don't know how to hook it up.  Also, I have a pair of presence projectors I'd like to add somewhere in the room, perhaps near the ceiling?  Can anyone offer advice, suggestions, hookup info., wiring diagrams etc?  I'd be most appreciative.  Thanks.  Allen Colson

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Allen

Once the rather un-pipe like novelty of being able to shift a fixed group of stops or divisions around the room wears off, you may find that the way to get the best "bang for your buck" with these organs is to split the audio into as many channels as possible, permanently.  If you have a card reader, that means 6, if not, four.  This achieves the best sound separation and ensemble.

As for how to do it, you just have to experiment.  That's what I did.  Make a note of the ADC mixer board's DIP switch setting before you change them.  I decided to have my great/pedal be unexpressed, as a pipe organ would be, so those 2 channels out of the tone generator (The thing with a mainframe-y looking RF shield!) completely bypass the mixer board.

 

So these CAN be divided into more channels.  I don't feel comfortable yet poking around with DIP switches ( I don't even know what they are).   I have a card reader, so I assume six channels are possible,  does that mean I need more amps?   Is the mixer board the thing next to the caged part with the voicing controls.  I assume the mixer board has all sorts of gray cables connected to it.  All of this brings to mind a lot more questions.

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Allen

Allen,

Just surfed onto this site.  I am going to have a great time here.  I also have a ADC 2160A and have done quite a bit of experimenting.  This organ has huge output potential.  In fact I was just surfing for a schematic or at least a block diagram of the audio mixer board.  It has twelve inputs and eight outputs with a large set of options. The tone generator makes six separate streams of audio.  The Audio mixer board mixes these six with swell, crescendo, tremulant and reverb to as many as eight outputs. 

My present configuration mixes the organ output down to two channels.  These drive the main left and right speakers and also feed a Yamaha DSP A-2070 which generates four more channels as surround sound using eight speakers in all.  This enables you to play the organ as standard or as if it were in any one of some 24 pre-programed halls from small to very large.

There are disadvantages to the above.  The main disadvantage is harmonic distortion.  I found it necessary to use good Allen speakers.  Even good audio speakers do not cut it.  The amplifiers must be very compliant and conservatively rated.  Even then it is possible to hear distortion when it is played loud with lots of stops.  The advantage is getting to practice in different big halls without having to go at odd hours and freeze your b** off.

See you posted about hooking on a Leslie.  Yes, you can hook up anything you want.  I am not a Leslie enthusiastic but you can hook one on if you want.  I would suggest you experiment with what you have first.  Your organ probably has two Allen tremulant modules which have wide adjustment range.  They can be adjusted to sound something like a Leslie if you like the heavy wow wow wow. 

 
 

Glad to find someone here who has a 2160 too.  I appreciate the information about the mixer board.  In addition to playing around with the mixer board I am about to make use of the Allen organ's MIDI feature.  Setting up a MIDI VPO using Haupwerk vs. 3.  I plan to use the Allen Organ as the primary controller.  The only disadvantage in that is that this implementation of MIDI in the Allen is early and only processes Keying signals. Currently I am looking for a way to interface the stop controls and expression shoes with the MIDI system.  

I have not had much luck with schematics or block diagrams for this.  I do have some literature and diags relating to voicing controls however.  Would love to have a breakdown of the mixer board components.  I am considering piping the output from the Hauptwerk program back into the mixer board so that I can take advantage of the expression shoes.  I will simply run it through the organ's sound system.  It would be nice to find another Allen mixer board to add to the console and dedicate all of its channels to the VPO.

I don't know much about sound systems yet, but I wonder if you may have an incompatibility issue relating to impedance.  I saw it written somewhere on this forum that Allen organs can't really be played through anything but Allen amps and speakers because of proprietary impedance values or something like that.  Someone tried to play one through the PA sound system in an auditorium and it just didn't work.   

I will be doing some experimenting with all of this and will post results about what works and doesn't work.  

Let me know if you try anything new or run across some good schematics and tech info on the 2160.  

 

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Allen

Please keep us posted on your progress, as we have an ?ADC2100? from1985 at church would like to break it out to the 4 channels if possible as opposed to the 2 channels that it is currently with 4 HC15's attached. We do not have a card reader or crescendo pedal, but the swell and great express separately.

Peace

 Chris

Chris,

As I understand it you have the option of making your instrument four channel by changing dip switch 001 on the audio mixer board to all off.  The four outputs would come out J512, J513, J514 and J515 on the right side of the same board.  You will need two more amps.

Another option would be to leave the organ as a two channel and generate the additional channels with a digital surround system. If you do this you might want to make it a six channel system by picking up two more speakers. These could be Allen's Presence Projectors for the sides. The surround system depending on what you used, could have the amps built in.

Which way you choose to go would probably be dictated by the size of your auditorium.  If it is large enough so that it generates its own acoustics, you probably would want to use the four channel.

If it is relatively small you probably would appreciate the broadening effect of the digitally generated surround.

Ken
 

Hi Ken.  Is the same treatment possible with the mixer board in the ADC 2160A.  I have a pair of presence projectors too and I have been having trouble figuring out where to hook them up?  Is there a special place in the console for the hookup.  I have found the Unirel board for the antiphonal speakers, but don't know where to hook up the presence projection speakers.  Allen

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Allen

I would just use the 4 channel option we have wonderul accoustics in our church, it sits about 120 people and has 15-20 ft cielings, with minimal carpet, no pew cushions. It should improve the sound greatly I would think by breaking out the channels from 2 to 4. This is stripped down organ to begin with, there are 5 generals preset by allen, no alterable card reader, and no crescendo shoe. I really despise it but there is no money to buy a new one, God Bless Allen country....   Do I have to use allen amps or can we use a standard 100w amp for each channel. I would like to use a pyramid 300w amp in stereo mode which would produce 150 watts at it's max setting.

Hi guys,

I have similar questions about my new ADC 420 at home. The pres. projectors are built in. I was wondering if I could record direct from the organ, without miking it. I have a Behringer Eurorack UB802 mixer that I normally run into an Audiophile USB interface and then do all my editing on a PC. Would the signal from the organ be too strong, so as to fry something, or would it be too weak?

jbird604 had mentioned to me adding external speakers, but he said I would need  speakers with some sort of limiting capacitor   so I don't burn them up with the bass frequencies. Would it work to run the organ through the mixer and then run the tape out from the mixer through my dad's stereo system (1 year old, REALLY crisp, clean, authentic sound, 2 JBL tower speakers). I thought that might be fun for the holidays, but I don't want to ruin some expensive equipment in the process.

Thank you, 

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Philip Fillion
1985 Allen ADC 420 at home
c.1962 Allen Theatre Compact at church-If you know of any classical church organ endangered by progress or the landfill, PLEASE PM me.

Allen,

Yes, I was speaking of the Audio Output board of an ADC 2160.  If you have a Univrel Bd you probably are two channel.  The board is well labeled.  The antiphonal speakers go to ANT SP1, Com 2 and ANT Sp 2, Com 2.  Hopefully everything else is wired correctly.  The comments of Circa 1949 apply.  Many installers skip this board and wire directly to the amp or take the signal out as low level and do their own processing.              Presence projectors are installed in combination with regular speakers.  They would not be adequate if used as the only speaker for a division.   

 

Chris,

Sounds great.  By all means use the amp you have.  Let us know how it comes out. 

 

Phillip,

Yes, you can record directly from the speakers.  Speaker level is too high for a regular input.  Use a 1K pot.  Wire its legs across the speaker and its wiper to your input.  Make sure your ground or com is carried though.  One side of the speaker is the com.  You will have to figure out which one.

And sure, use you home audio system to play back.  It will be good for low to moderate volume in a small room.

 

Ken

Thanks for the valuable infomation Ken.  By skipping the board, it means I can take the outputs from the tone generator (caged apparatus next to mixing boar) directly into an amp or my own external processing equip thus bypassing the mixer board.  There are six or seven gray RCA style cables connected to it and some sort of DATA line(which I will not touch).  This opens up so many possibilities.  I can see some experimenting taking place here.  Do you know if it is possilbe to add a second mixer board to the ADC2160 to permit additional channels under expression for use with Hauptwerk?  I'd like to get hold of a second  mixer board and perhaps some amps if there are any out there for sale. 

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Allen

I checked our organ today and found that there are only  2 rca jacks coming out of the cage where the audi jacks are labeled 1-6. Our lines come out of 5 and 6. Do I need to add RCA jacks to the board or will it not work?

Allen,

Unless, like Cir1949 above, you had a specific reason to do so,
you probably would not want to take the signal right off the tone generator.
You would loose swell and tremulant.

 

Chris,

You know, that does make sense.
These organs are basically two channel.
Crescendo adds two channels and the alternatives add two more.

So back to start and loose two turns.

You could generate more channels by digital surround.
This flys in the face of traditional organ but you might like the results.

 Ken

Just a quick note.  I agree it doesn't make sense to remove a channel from the mixer board unless you have a reason to do so.  However if you want 6 channel separation, you have to remove 2 as I believe the ADC mixer board doesn't truly have 6 in - 6 out capability. (I'm disregarding the reverb and subwoofer channels)  What I did was to route my alterable channels the way the great/pedal had been routed.  Now I can use the "great-pedal unenclosed" stop to control the alterables.  For a trompette-en-chamade like effect, you can unexpress it and use alterable F.  OTOH, you can get a wonderful lush effect by leaving it expressed and loading "Strings 16-8-4" and playing that along with the organ's celeste tuning feature.

However you only lose expression, not trumulant.  Now, if your organ has the gospel vibrato option, yes, you would lose that.  But the MADC2/MADC3 tremulant is generated directly at the tone generator by applying FM.  (that's why the speed control is in the cage)