 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1937 |
| Founder | Jerome Markowitz |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
Key people | Steve Markowitz |
| Products | classical church organs (digital and pipes, also combined) |
| Website | www |
Allen Organ Company LLC builds digital church organs, home organs, and theatre organs. Its factory is located in Macungie, Pennsylvania.
Allen Organ Company was founded in 1937 and named after its birthplace, Allentown, Pennsylvania. The company was incorporated in 1945, after interruption by World War II. Since its beginning, Allen has been managed by the same family. Steve Markowitz, the current President, is the son of the founder, Jerome Markowitz. [1]
The company had its first patent in 1938. [2] Allen continued to advance analog tone generation through the 1960s with further patents. In 1971, as the culmination of a collaborative effort with North American Rockwell, [3] Allen introduced the world's first commercially-available digital musical instrument. Allen was responsible for the first three-manual electronic organ and the first electronic drawknob console. The first Allen Digital Organ is now in the Smithsonian Institution. [4]
Allen Organ Company added a manufacturing branch in England in 1969. [5]
The Quantum organ line uses a digital processing technique called the convolution reverb, a technique widely used in both software and hardware musical instruments.[ why? ] In Allen's implementation of the technique, the acoustics of the sampled room become an integral part of the organ's sound. An 8-second stereo convolution reverb requires about 35 billion calculations per second; Allen patented a technique to reduce the computation amount to about 400 million calculations per second. A digital organ that produces Compact Disc quality sound without convolution reverb would require only about 100,000 calculations per second for each sound. Quantum organs include about 4,000 times that capacity to create convolution reverb.
The Allen organ is a type of electronic organ that was created in 1937 and 1939. The Allen organ company was also responsible for creating the first transistorized organ in 1951. In addition to that, a new way of generating sound, by digital waves, for the organ was produced in 1971. This new technology, new at the time, is seen in many organs that are available now. [6]
Allen Organs created a handful of electric pianos in the 1970s and 1980s. Some are:
The Allen Organ Company factory building is located at 150 Locust Street in Macungie, Pennsylvania. It was originally an air conditioned textile mill that Allen's founder, Jerome Markowitz and Vice President purchased, they renovated the mill and moved organ manufacturing into around 1953. As the company grew, The International Sales Headquarters was built including Octave Hall (a room with adjustable natural reverb and rotating stage), teaching studios, a recording studio and the adjoining Jerome Markowitz Memorial Museum is located on Route 100. In the Museum, you can look at the development of Allen technology from tube analog organs from 1938 to the present, how an organ is made and the history and take tour of the museum. [5]
A digital synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses digital signal processing (DSP) techniques to make musical sounds, in contrast to older analog synthesizers, which produce music using analog electronics, and samplers, which play back digital recordings of acoustic, electric, or electronic instruments. Some digital synthesizers emulate analog synthesizers, while others include sampling capability in addition to digital synthesis.
Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means. Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and electric guitar.
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In music, the organ is a keyboard instrument of one or more pipe divisions or other means for producing tones. The organs have usually two or three, up to five, manuals for playing with the hands and a pedalboard for playing with the feet. With the use of registers, several groups of pipes can be connected to one manual.
The ANITA Mark VII and ANITA Mark VIII calculators were launched simultaneously in late 1961 as the world's first all-electronic desktop calculators. Designed and built by the Bell Punch Co. in Britain, and marketed through its Sumlock Comptometer division, they used vacuum tubes and cold-cathode switching tubes in their logic circuits and nixie tubes for their numerical displays.
KORG Inc., founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, they also manufacture guitar amplifiers and electric guitars.
An electronic keyboard, portable keyboard, or digital keyboard is an electronic musical instrument based on keyboard instruments. Electronic keyboards include synthesizers, digital pianos, stage pianos, electronic organs and digital audio workstations. In technical terms, an electronic keyboard is a rompler-based synthesizer with a low-wattage power amplifier and small loudspeakers.
The Telharmonium was an early electrical organ, developed by Thaddeus Cahill c. 1896 and patented in 1897. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was heard on the receiving end by means of "horn" speakers.
Rodgers Instruments Corporation is an American manufacturer of classical and church organs. Rodgers was incorporated May 1, 1958 in Beaverton, Oregon by founders, Rodgers W. Jenkins and Fred Tinker, employees of Tektronix, Inc., of Portland, Oregon, and members of a Tektronix team developing transistor-based oscillator circuits. Rodgers was the second manufacturer of solid state oscillator-based organs, completing their first instrument in 1958. Other Rodgers innovations in the electronic organ industry include solid-state organ amplifiers (1962), single-contact diode keying (1961), reed switch pedal keying for pedalboards (1961), programmable computer memory pistons (1966), and the first MIDI-supported church organs (1986).
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments:
The word "manual" is used instead of the word "keyboard" when referring to any hand-operated keyboard on a keyboard instrument that has a pedalboard, such as an organ; or when referring to one of the keyboards on an instrument that has more than one hand-operated keyboard, such as a two- or three-manual harpsichord.
Ikutaro Kakehashi, also known by the nickname Taro, was a Japanese engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He founded the musical instrument manufacturers Ace Tone, Roland Corporation and Boss Corporation, and the audiovisual electronics company ATV Corporation.
Rocky Mount Instruments (RMI) was a subsidiary of the Allen Organ Company, based in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, active from 1966 to 1982. The company was formed to produce portable musical instruments, and manufactured several electronic pianos, harpsichords, and organs that used oscillators to create sound, instead of mechanical components like an electric piano.
PAiA Electronics, Inc. is an American synthesizer kit company that was started by John Simonton in 1967. It sells various musical electronics kits including analog synthesizers, theremins, mixers and various music production units designed by founder John Simonton, Craig Anderton, Marvin Jones, Steve Wood and others.
An electronic piano is a keyboard instrument designed to simulate the timbre of a piano using analog circuitry.
Hugh Robert Banton is a British musician and electronic organ builder, most widely known for playing organ and keyboards with the group Van der Graaf Generator.
On classical French organs, the plein jeu is a principal-based plenum registration. It includes the Montres, Bourdons, Prestants and Doublettes and the Fournitures and Cymbales. The classical French organ also allows for a reed-based registration; the grand jeu, which used a loud combination of reed stops in homophonic sections of larger pieces or standalone préludes.
The history of home keyboards lies in mechanical musical instrument keyboards, electrified keyboards and 1960s and 1970s synthesizer technologies.
A reverb effect, or reverb, is an audio effect applied to a sound signal to simulate reverberation. It may be created through physical means, such as echo chambers, or electronically through audio signal processing. The American producer Bill Putnam is credited for the first artistic use of artificial reverb in music, on the 1947 song "Peg o' My Heart" by the Harmonicats.
The KC-1 was introduced in 1974 and was available with or without lighted push button voicing stops
The KC-2 was introduced in 1975
