Rodgers Trillium organ custom three-manual console on a church. right top: a sound module for extra pipe and orchestral sounds. left top: a laptop PC for sequencing the organ.
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 immediate predecessor of the electronic organ was the harmonium, or reed organ, an instrument that was common in homes and small churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In a fashion not totally unlike that of pipe organs, reed organs generate sound by forcing air over a set of reeds by means of a bellows, usually operated by constantly pumping a set of pedals. The Harmonium used pressure, and the American reed organ or pump organ used suction. While reed organs have limited tonal quality, they are small, inexpensive, self-powered, transportable and self-contained. (Large models were made with multiple manuals, or even pedal boards; in the latter case, the bellows were operated by a leaver or crank on the side by an assistant, or in some late models an electric pump.) The reed organ is thus able to bring an organ sound to venues that are incapable of housing or affording pipe organs. This concept played an important role in the development of the electric organ.
Pipe organ
In the 1930s, several manufacturers developed electronic organs designed to imitate the function and sound of pipe organs. At the time, some manufacturers thought that emulation of the pipe organ was the most promising route to take in the development of an electronic organ. Not all agreed, however. Various types of electronic organs have been brought to market over the years, with some establishing solid reputations in their own niche markets.
The use of electricity in organs emerged in the first decades of the 20th century, but it was slow to have a major impact. Electrically powered reed organs appeared during the first decades of electricity, but their tonal qualities remained much the same as the older, foot-pumped models.
Thaddeus Cahill's gargantuan and controversial instrument, the Telharmonium, which began piping music to New York City establishments over the telephone system in 1897, predated the advent of electronics, yet was the first instrument to demonstrate the use of the combination of many different pure electrical waveforms to synthesize real-world instrument sounds. Cahill's techniques were later used by Laurens Hammond in his organ design, and the 200-ton Telharmonium served as the world's first demonstration of electrically produced music on a grand scale.
Meanwhile, some further experimentation with producing sound by electric impulses was taking place, especially in France. [citation needed]
One of the earlier electric tonewheel organs was conceived and manufactured by Morse Robb, of the Robb Wave Organ Company. Built in Belleville, Ontario, the Robb Wave Organ predates its much more successful competitor Hammond by patent and manufacture, but shut down its operations in 1938 due to lack of funding.[8]
The first widespread success in this field was a product of the Hammond Clock Company in 1934.[9] The Hammond organ quickly became the successor of the reed organ, displacing it almost completely.
From the start, tonewheel organs operated on a radically different principle from all previous organs. In place of reeds and pipes, Robb and Hammond introduced a set of rapidly spinning magnetic wheels, called tonewheels, which excite transducers that generate electrical signals of various frequencies that are mixed and fed through an amplifier to a loudspeaker. The organ is electrically powered, replacing the reed organ's twin bellows pedals with a single swell (or "expression") pedal more like that of a pipe organ. Instead of having to pump at a constant rate, as had been the case with the reed organ, the organist simply varies the position of this pedal to change the volume as desired. Unlike reed organs, this gives great control over the music's dynamic range, while at the same time freeing one or both of the player's feet to play on a pedalboard, which, unlike most reed organs, electronic organs incorporate. From the beginning, the electronic organ has had a second manual, also rare among reed organs. While these features mean that the electric organ requires greater musical skills of the organist than the reed organ has, the second manual and the pedalboard along with the expression pedal greatly enhanced playing, far-surpassing the capabilities of the typical reed organ.
The most revolutionary difference in the Hammond, however, is its huge number of tonewheel settings, achieved by manipulating a system of drawbars located near the manuals. By using the drawbars, the organist can combine a variety of electrical tones and harmonics in varying proportions, thus giving the Hammond vast registration. In all, the Hammond is capable of producing more than 250 million tones. This feature, combined with the three-keyboard layout (i.e., manuals and pedalboard), the freedom of electrical power, and a wide, easily controllable range of volume, made the first electronic organs more flexible than any reed organ, or indeed any previous musical instrument except, perhaps, the pipe organ itself.
The classic Hammond sound benefits from the use of free-standing loudspeakers called tone cabinets. The sound is often further enhanced by rotating speaker units, usually manufactured by Leslie.
The Hammond Organ was widely adopted in popular genres such as jazz, gospel, pop music, and rock music. It was utilized by bands such as Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and Deep Purple, among others. Occasionally the legs would be cut off these instruments to make them easier to transport from show to show. The most popular and emulated organ in the Hammond line is the B3. Although portable "clonewheel organs" started to synthesize and displace the original Hammond tonewheel design in the 1970s, it is still very much in demand by professional organists. The industry continues to see a lively trade in refurbished Hammond instruments, even as technological advances allow new organs to perform at levels unimaginable only two or three decades ago.
Electrostatic reed organs (1934–1964)
In the wake of Hammond's 1934 invention of the tonewheel organ, competitors explored other possibilities of electric/electronic organ design. Other than the variations of tonewheel organ design, for example, a purely electronic interpretation of the pipe organ (based on "additive synthesis" design) seemed a promising approach. However, it requires a huge number of oscillators, and these circuit scales and complexities were considered a technical bottleneck, as vacuum tube circuits of those days are bulky and unstable. Benjamin Miessner realized that a hybrid approach, using acoustic tone generators along with electronic circuits, could be a reasonable design for commercial products.
The Orgatron was developed in 1934 by Frederick Albert Hoschke, after a Miessner patent.[12][13][14] A fan blows air over a set of free reeds, causing them to vibrate. These vibrations are detected by a number of capacitive pickups, then the resulting electric signals are processed and amplified to create musical tones.[15] Orgatron was manufactured by Everett Piano Company from 1935 to 1941. Following World War II and a business transfer, production resumed in 1945 by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company and continued into the early 1960s, including some models retaining the Everett name from 1945 to 1947.
In the same decades, similar electro-acoustic instruments — i.e. electric-fan driven free reed organs with additional electronic circuits — were developed also in Japan. Magna Organ invented in 1934 by a Yamaha engineer, Sei-ichi Yamashita, was a multi-timbral keyboard instrument[17][18] similar to the Hoschke's instrument developed in the same year, although it utilized the microphones in the soundproof box instead of the electrostatic pickups. Initially the Magna Organ was designed as a kind of the additive-synthesizer that summing-up the partials generated by the frequency-multipliers.[19][20] However, it seems difficult to achieve polyphony without intermodulation distortions with the technology of the 1930s.[21] According to the additional patents[22][23] and the reviews at that time, its later implemented design, seems to had shifted to a sound-colorization system using the (various) combinations of reed sets, microphones and loudspeakers.[21]
This type of instrument was later re-commercialized: In 1959, Japanese organ builder, Ichirō Kuroda, built his first Croda Organ with each pair of constantly oscillating free reed and a microphone in the soundproof box, and installed at Nishi-Chiba Church in Chiba Prefecture.[24]
On the other hand, the Hammond Novachord (1939) and other competitors selected the subtractive synthesis design using various combinations of oscillators, filters, and possibly frequency dividers, to reduce the huge number of oscillators, which was the bottleneck of the additive synthesis design. The heat generated by early models with vacuum tube tone generators and amplifiers led to the somewhat derogatory nickname "toaster". Today's solid-state instruments do not suffer from the problem, nor do they require the several minutes that vacuum tube organs need to bring the filament heaters up to temperature.
Electronic organs were once popular home instruments, comparable in price to pianos and frequently sold in department stores. After their début in the 1930s, they captured the public imagination through the recordings of musicians such as Milt Herth (the first performer to record the Hammond Electric Organ) as well as recordings and film performances of Ethel Smith. Nevertheless, they were promoted primarily as church / institutional instruments during the Great Depression and through World War II. After the war, they became more widespread; for example, the Baldwin Piano Company introduced its first in 1946 (with 37 vacuum tubes).[25] Following the adaptation of solid-state electronics to organs in the late 1950s, the market for electronic organs began a fundamental change. Portable electronic keyboards became a regular feature of rock-and-roll music during the 1960s. They are also more convenient to move and store than are the large one-piece organs that had previously defined the market. By the late 1960s, the home organ market was dying while the portable keyboard market was thriving.
Frequency divider organs (1930s–)
Generalized schematic of frequency divider organs with transformer-dividers (in French)
Early electronic organ products released in the 1930s and 1940s were already implemented on frequency divider technology using vacuum tubes or transformer-dividers.
With the development of the transistor, electronic organs that use no mechanical parts to generate the waveforms became practical. The first of these was the frequency divider organ, the first of which uses twelve oscillators to produce one octave of chromatic scale, and frequency dividers to produce other notes. These were even cheaper and more portable than the Hammond. Later developments made it possible to run an organ from a single radio frequency oscillator. Frequency divider organs were built by many companies, and were offered in kit form to be built by hobbyists. A few of these have seen notable use, such as the Lowrey played by Garth Hudson. The design of the Lowrey's electronics made it easy to include a pitch-bend feature that is unavailable for the Hammond, and Hudson built a musical style around its use.
Console organs (1930s–)
A typical modern console organ (Johannus Sweelinck 35)
Console organs, large and expensive electronic organ models, resemble pipe organ consoles. These instruments have a more traditional configuration, including full-range manuals, a wider variety of stops, and a two-octave (or occasionally even a full 32-note) pedalboard easily playable by both feet in standard toe-and-heel fashion. (Console organs having 32-note pedalboards are sometimes known as "concert organs".) Console models, like spinet and chord organs, have internal speakers mounted above the pedals. With their more traditional configuration, greater capabilities, and better performance compared to spinets, console organs are especially suitable for use in small churches, public performance, and even organ instruction. The home musician or student who first learned to play on a console model often found that he or she could later make the transition to a pipe organ in a church setting with relative ease. College music departments made console organs available as practice instruments for students, and church musicians would not uncommonly have them at home.
During the period from the 1940s through approximately the 1970s, a variety of more modest self-contained electronic home organs from a variety of manufacturers were popular forms of home entertainment.[26] These instruments were much influenced by theatre organs' sounds and playing style, and often the stops contained imitative voicings such as "trumpet" and "marimba". In the 1950s–1970s, as technology progressed, they increasingly included automated features such as:
Glide (Lowrey organ in 1956)[28] — a foot-operated switch temporarily lowers the pitch by about a semitone, to simulate a slide on Hawaiian guitar or trombone.[28][29]
and even built-in tape recorders.[28] These features made it easier to play complete, layered "one-man band" arrangements, especially for people who had not trained as organists. The Lowrey line of home organs is the epitome of this type of instrument.
While a few such instruments[citation needed] are still sold today, their popularity has waned greatly[citation needed], and many of their functions have been incorporated into more modern and inexpensive portable keyboards.
Typical features on Home organs
an earliest externalRhythm machine, Wurlitzer Sideman (1957, inside)
built-in Rhythm selector
Automatic accompani-ment (bass & chord) on Lowrey Magic Genie
A Typical Spinet organ (Hammond TR-200) has two short manuals arranged with offset. Spinet organ's pedalboard spanned only a single octave.
Yamaha's first Electone organ, D-1 (1959), were based on a spinet model.
Following World War II, most electronic home organs were built in a configuration usually called a spinet organ, which first appeared in 1949. These compact and relatively inexpensive instruments became the natural successors to reed organs. They were marketed as competitors of home pianos and often aimed at would-be home organists who were already pianists (hence the name "spinet", in the sense of a small upright piano). The instrument's design reflected this concept: the spinet organ physically resembled a piano, and it presented simplified controls and functions that were both less expensive to produce and less intimidating to learn. One feature of the spinet is automatic chord generation; with many models, the organist can produce an entire chord to accompany the melody merely by playing the tonic note, i.e., a single key, on a special section of the manual.
On spinet organs, the keyboards are typically at least an octave shorter than is normal for organs, with the upper manual (typically 44 notes, F3–C7 in scientific pitch notation) omitting the bass, and the lower manual (typically F2–C6) omitting the treble. The manuals are usually offset, inviting but not requiring the new organist to dedicate the right hand to the upper manual and the left to the lower, rather than using both hands on a single manual. The stops on the upper manual were often 'voiced' somewhat louder or brighter, and user guides encouraged playing the melody on the upper manual and the harmony on the lower. This seemed designed in part to encourage the pianist, who was accustomed to a single keyboard, to make use of both manuals. Stops on such instruments, relatively limited in number, are frequently named after orchestral instruments that they can, at best, only roughly approximate, and are often brightly colored (even more so than those of theatre organs). The spinet organ's loudspeakers, unlike the original Hammond models of the 1930s and 1940s, are housed within the main instrument (behind the kickboard), which saved even more space, although they produce a sound inferior to that of free-standing speakers; some models had jacks for installing external speakers, if desired.
The spinet organ's pedalboard normally spans only a single octave, is often incapable of playing more than one note at a time, and is effectively playable only with the left foot (and on some models only with the left toes). These limitations, combined with the shortened manuals, make the spinet organ all but useless for performing or practicing classical organ music; but at the same time, it allows the novice home organist to explore the challenge and flexibility of simultaneously playing three keyboards (two hands and one foot). User guides suggest playing the root note of the chord on the pedal. The expression pedal is located to the right and either partly or fully recessed within the kickboard, thus conveniently reachable only with the right foot. This arrangement spawned a style of casual organist who would naturally rest the right foot on the expression pedal the entire time, unlike classically trained organists or performers on the earlier Hammonds. This position, in turn, instinctively encouraged pumping of the expression pedal while playing, especially if already accustomed to using a piano's sustain pedal to shape the music. Expressive pumping added a strong dynamic element to home organ music that much classical literature and hymnody lacked, and would help influence a new generation of popular keyboard artists.
Chord organs (1950–)
The first chord organ (1950 Hammond S-6). Array of buttons on left side are used to play chords.
Shortly after the debut of the spinet, the chord organ appeared.[32] This is an even simpler instrument designed for those who wanted to produce an organ sound in the home without having to learn much organ (or even piano) playing technique. The typical chord organ has only a single manual that is usually an octave shorter than its already-abbreviated spinet counterpart. It also possesses scaled-down registration and no pedalboard. The left hand operates not a keyboard but an array of chord buttons adapted from those of an accordion.
The original Hammond Chord Organs in 1950 are electronic instruments using vacuum-tube technology. In 1958 Magnus Organ Corporation introduced chord organs similar to an electrically blown reed organ or harmonium.[33]
Electronic organs before the mid-1950s had used vacuum tubes which tended to be bulky and unstable. This restricted attempts to extend features and spread their use into homes. Transistors, invented at Bell Labs in 1947, went into practical production in the 1950s, and their small size and stability led to major changes in the production of electronics equipment, in what has been termed the "transistor revolution".
In 1957, a home organ manufacturer, Gulbransen, introduced the world's first transistor organ, Model B (Model 1100). Although it uses transistors for tone generation, vacuum tubes are still used for amplification.[27] And in 1958, Rodgers built the first fully solid-state transistorized organ for church, called Opus 1 (Model 38).[34] Other manufacturers followed.
By the 1960s, electronic organs were ubiquitous in all genres of popular music, from Lawrence Welk to acid rock (e.g. the Doors, Iron Butterfly) to the Bob Dylan album Blonde on Blonde. In some cases, Hammonds were used, while others featured very small all-electronic instruments, only slightly larger than a modern digital keyboard, called combo organs. (Various portable organs made by Farfisa and Vox were especially popular, and remain so among retro-minded rock combos.) The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s saw increasing specialization: both the gospel and jazz scenes continued to make heavy use of Hammonds, while various styles of rock began to take advantage of increasingly complex electronic keyboard instruments, as large-scale integration and then digital technology began to enter the mainstream.
Allen introduced the world's first digital organ (and first digital musical instrument commercial product) in 1971: the Allen Digital Computer Organ.[38][39][40] This new technology was developed for use in home organs by North American Rockwell (project leader Ralph Deutsch) and licensed to Allen, which began using it for church organs. Allen later sued Rockwell and Deutsch, and gained sole rights to the digital computer organ technology.[38]
In 1980, Rodgers introduced the first church organs controlled by microprocessors, partially based on research at the University of Bradford. The university's "Bradford Computing Organ" has technological descendants in some European digital organs using synthesis technology today.
This style of instrument has also been popular with some classically trained concert organists preferring to avoid learning an unfamiliar pipe organ for every concert location, and wishing to perform in venues without pipe organs. Virgil Fox utilized a large Rodgers organ dubbed "Black Beauty" during his Heavy Organ tour during the early 1970s. From 1977 until his death in 1980, he used a custom Allen electronic organ. Carlo Curley toured with a substantial Allen Organ in the US and with an Allen in the UK. Organist Hector Olivera has toured with a custom Rodgers instrument named "The King," and Cameron Carpenter has recently begun touring with a custom 5-manual digital organ by Marshall & Ogletree.[41]
Modern digital organs (1980s–)
A modern electronic organ (YamahaElectone STAGEA ELS-01). Though it resembles a 1950s spinet organ in appearance, its digital tone generators and synthesis modules can imitate hundreds of instruments.A modern digital combo organ using DSP technology (Nord Electro 2).
Electronic organs are still made for the home market, but they have been largely replaced by the digital keyboard or synthesizer which is smaller and cheaper than typical electronic organs or traditional pianos. Modern digital organs offer features not found in traditional pipe organs, such as orchestral and percussion sounds, a choice of historical pitch standards and temperaments, and advanced console aids.
Digital organs incorporate real-time tone generation based on sampling or synthesis technologies, and may include MIDI, and Internet connectivity for downloading music data and instructional materials to USB flash drive or media card storage. While much more complex than their predecessors, their basic appearance makes them instantly recognizable.
The best digital organs of the 2000s incorporate these technical features:
In 1990, Rodgers introduced software-based digital church organs with technology which connected multiple Digital Signal Processors (DSP) in parallel to generate pipe organ sound with stereo imaging. Sounds in other digital organs are derived from DSPs in either a sampled or synthesis type generation system. Sampled technologies use sounds recorded from various ranks of pipe organs. In synthesis systems, the wave shape is created by tone generators instead of using a sound sample. Both systems generate organ tones, sometimes in stereo in better systems, rather than simply playing recorded tones as a simple digital keyboard sampler might do. Marketed by Eminent, Wyvern, Copeman Hart, Cantor, and Van der Pole in Europe, synthesis organs may use circuitry purchased from Musicom, an English supply company. In the digital organ category, synthesis-based systems are rarely seen outside of Europe.
Sampling
Digital sampling circuitry of the Johannus model 370 organ (built in 2015), producing the equivalent of 73ranks with 4temperaments.
Typical speaker array in a modern digital organ with high-power subwoofers.
Many digital organs use high-quality samples to produce an accurate sound. Sampled systems may have samples of organ pipe sound for each individual note, or may use only one or a few samples which are then frequency-shifted to generate the equivalent of a 61-note pipe rank. Some digital organs like Walker Technical and the very costly Marshall & Ogletree organs use longer samples for additional realism, rather than having to repeat shorter samples in their generation of sound. Sampling in 2000s-era organs is typically done with 24-bit or 32-bit resolution, at a higher rate than the 44.1 kHz of CD-quality audio having 16-bit resolution.
Surround sound
On most digital organs, several audio channels are used to create a more spacious sound. Higher-quality digital organ builders use custom audio and speaker systems and may provide from 8 to 32 or more independent channels of audio, depending on the size of the organ and the budget for the instrument. With dedicated high-power subwoofers for the lowest frequencies, digital organs can approach the physical sensation of a pipe organ.
Pipe organ simulations
To better simulate pipe organs, some digital organs emulate changes of windchest pressure caused by the air pressure dropping slightly when many notes are sounding simultaneously, which changes the sound of all the pipes.
Digital organs may also incorporate simulated models of swell boxes which mimic the environmental effects on pipes, pipe chest valve release, and other pipe organ characteristics. These effects can be included in the sound of modern digital organs to create more realistic pipe organ tone.
Digital pipe sound can include sampled or modeled room acoustics. Rodgers uses binaural and crosstalk cancellation processing to create real-time acoustic models, and Allen also uses room acoustics as part of the sound generation.
The data processing power of PCs has made personal organs more affordable. Software applications can store digital pipe sound samples and combine them in real time in response to input from one or more MIDI controllers. These tools can be used to assemble home-built organs that can rival the sound quality of commercially built digital organs at a relatively low cost.[42]
In churches
Pipe-electronic hybrid organs (1930s–)
Early combinations of pipe organs and electronic technology (including the electronic tone generators, at later) were developed in the 1930s.[43][44] Custom electronic organ consoles occasionally replace aging pipe consoles, updating the electrical control system for the pipes as well as adding electronic voices to the organ. Even large pipe organs are often supplemented with electronic voices for the deepest bass tones that would otherwise require 16- to 32-foot pipes.
For hybrid organs that combine pipes and electronic sounds, pipes change their pitch with environmental changes, but electronic voices do not follow by default. The frequency of sound produced by an organ pipe depends on its geometry and the speed of sound in the air within it. These change slightly with temperature and humidity, so the pitch of an organ pipe will change slightly as the environment changes. The pitch of the electronic portion of a hybrid instrument must be re-tuned as needed. The simplest method is a manual control that the organist can adjust, but some recent digital models can make such adjustments automatically.
Electronic church organs (1939–)
The first full electronic church organ was built in 1939 by Jerome Markowitz, founder of the Allen Organ Company, who had worked for years to perfect the replication of pipe organ sound through the use of oscillator circuitry based on radio tubes. In 1958, Rodgers Organ Company built the first solid-state, transistorized church organ, its three-manual Opus 1.
In contrast to frequency divider circuitry with only a few independent pitch sources, quality electronic church organs have at least one oscillator per note and often additional sets to create a superior ensemble effect. For instance, Rodgers Opus 1 featured eight sets of transistorized pitch generators. Even today, digital organs use software-based digital oscillators to create large numbers of independent pitch and tone sources to better simulate the effect of a large pipe organ.
Digital church organs (1971–)
2006 Johannus 'Rembrandt,' an example of a large digital organ
Digital church organs are designed as pipe organ replacements or as digital consoles to play existing pipes. The differences in sound timbre between piped and digital instruments are debated, but modern digital organs are less expensive and more space efficient.
Digital organs are a viable alternative for churches that may have a pipe organ and can no longer afford to maintain it. Some pipe organs, on the other hand, might be playable without major rebuilding for many decades. However the high initial cost, and longer lead time to design, build, and "voice" pipe organs has limited their production.
Most new digital church organs synthesize sounds from recorded pipe samples, although some model the pipe sound by additive synthesis. Modelling the sound is done by a professional organ "voicer", who finishes the organ in its location, much like the process of regulating and voicing a pipe organ. These organs also use high-quality custom-designed audio systems. The builders of both custom and factory digital church organs include the firms of Ahlborn-Galanti, Allen, Eminent, Johannus, Makin, Rodgers, Viscount, and Wyvern.
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated sound by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup, and then strengthening the signal with an amplifier to drive a speaker cabinet. The organ is commonly used with the Leslie speaker.
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.
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.
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).
Farfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy, founded in 1946. The company manufactured a series of compact electronic organs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Compact, FAST, Professional and VIP ranges, and later, a series of other keyboard instruments. They were used by a number of popular musicians, including Sam the Sham, Country Joe and the Fish, Pink Floyd, Sly Stone, Blondie, Suicide and the B-52s.
A pedalboard is a keyboard played with the feet that is usually used to produce the low-pitched bass line of a piece of music. A pedalboard has long, narrow lever-style keys laid out in the same semitone scalar pattern as a manual keyboard, with longer keys for C, D, E, F, G, A, and B, and shorter, raised keys for C♯, D♯, F♯, G♯ and A♯. Training in pedal technique is part of standard organ pedagogy in church music and art music.
Electone is the trademark used for electronic organs produced by Yamaha. With the exception of the top end performance models, most Electones are based on the design of the spinet electronic organ. Current models are completely digital and contain a variety of sounds, effects, and accompaniments, on top of the ability to store programming data onto memory devices.
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.
Bass pedals are an electronic musical instrument with a foot-operated pedal keyboard with a range of one or more octaves. The earliest bass pedals from the 1970s consisted of a pedalboard and analog synthesizer tone generation circuitry packaged together as a unit. The bass pedals are plugged into a bass amplifier or PA system so that their sound can be heard. Since the 1990s, bass pedals are usually MIDI controllers, which have to be connected to a MIDI-compatible computer, electronic synthesizer keyboard, or synth module to produce musical tones. Some 2010s-era bass pedals have both an onboard synth module and a MIDI output.
An expression pedal is an important control found on many musical instruments including organs, electronic keyboards, and pedal steel guitar. The musician uses the pedal to control different aspects of the sound, commonly volume. Separate expression pedals can often be added to a guitar amplifier or effects unit and used to control many different aspects of the tone.
A clonewheel organ is an electronic musical instrument that emulates the sound of the electromechanical tonewheel-based organs formerly manufactured by Hammond from the 1930s to the 1970s. Clonewheel organs generate sounds using solid-state circuitry or computer chips, rather than with heavy mechanical tonewheels, making clonewheel organs much lighter-weight and smaller than vintage Hammonds, and easier to transport to live performances and recording sessions.
A combo organ, so-named and classified by popular culture due to its original intended use by small, touring jazz, pop and dance groups known as "combo bands", as well as some models having "Combo" as part of their brand or model names, is an electronic organ of the frequency divider type, generally produced between the early 1960s and the late 1970s. This type of organ predated, and contributed largely to, the development of modern synthesizers. The combo organ concept, at least in the context of mass-production, is thought to have arisen from popular demand, when smaller home organs were seen in music stores. Combo organs were probably originally developed in the United Kingdom, based on the Univox polyphonic version of the Clavioline, and some models included the inner-workings of Italian-made transistor accordions. They were the brainchild of necessity for portable organs of simple design, mainly for use in these small groups. Combo organs ended up having a major impact on the music scene of the mid- and late 1960s, particularly on rock and roll of that era.
The Thomas Organ Company is an American manufacturer of electronic keyboards and a one-time holder of the manufacturing rights to the Moog synthesizer. The company was a force behind early electronic organs for the home. It went out of business in 1979 but reopened in 1996.
The Roland VK-7 is an electronic keyboard introduced in 1997 which simulates the sound of an electromechanical Hammond organ. Like other electronic musical instruments that emulate the sound of the electromechanical tonewheel-based organs formerly manufactured by Hammond, the VK-7 is referred to as a clonewheel organ. Currently it is replaced by the VK-8 and the VK-88.
The Gibson G-101 is a transistorised combo organ, manufactured in the late 1960s by the Lowrey Organ Company for Gibson.
The Lowrey organ is an electronic organ, named after its developer, Frederick C. Lowrey (1871–1955), a Chicago-based industrialist and entrepreneur. Lowrey's first commercially successful full-sized electronic organ, the Model S Spinet or Berkshire, came to market in 1955, the year of his death. Lowrey had earlier developed an attachment for a piano, adding electronic organ stops on 60 notes while keeping the piano functionality, called the Organo, first marketed in 1949 as a very successful competitor to the Hammond Solovox.
RIHA Adagio is a Dutch electronic organ with a built-in Leslie speaker and a fine wood finish. Similar to other RIHA organs, the Adagio was made by Benelux Musical Instruments, The Hague, the Netherlands. A fine member of those line of all-transistor Dutch organs that featured eight models in three console finishes - walnut, teak, and rosewood. All of them have standard features, including, but not limited to, pedal volume control, brilliance control, and reverberation. The Adagio is one of the once popular RIHA models, along with the Festivo, the Andante, and the Allegro.
The Korg CX-3 is an electronic clonewheel organ with drawbars that simulates the sound of an electromechanical Hammond organ and the Leslie speaker, a rotating speaker effect unit. The CX-3 was first introduced in 1979.
A digital accordion is an electronic musical instrument that uses the control features of a traditional accordion to trigger a digital sound module that produces synthesized or digitally sampled accordion sounds or, in most instruments, a range of non-accordion sounds, such as orchestral instruments, pipe organ, piano, guitar, and so on. Digital accordions typically encode and transmit key presses and other input as Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) messages. Most digital accordions need to be plugged into a keyboard amplifier or PA system to hear their sounds.
↑ "Pipeless Organ Turns Electricity Into Music". Popular Mechanics (September 1931): 374. September 1931.— article on Rangertone, an early all-electric tonewheel organ between Telharmonium and Hammond organ
↑ name=BushKassel2004> Bush, Douglas; Kassel, Richard, eds. (2004). "Electronic Organ". The Organ: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. p.164. ISBN978-1-135-94796-5. In most recent instruments the itmbres have been "samples" (digitally recorded) from existing pipe organs, or resynthesized from samples. (This technology was anticipated by electromechanical oscillators during the 1930s, in what can retrospectively be described as "analog sampling"; examples included the photoelectric LichttonOrgel and the electrostatic Compton Electrone, both of which featured waveforms derived from well-known pipe organs.)
↑ Brown, J. J. (1967). The Inventors. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited. pp.121–123.
↑ "一時代を畫する新樂器完成 濱松の靑年技師山下氏"[An epoch new musical instrument was developed by a young engineer, Mr.Yamashita, in Hamamatsu]. Hochi Shimbun (in Japanese). 1935-06-08. Archived from the original on 2012-03-12. Retrieved 2017-04-27.
↑ 新電氣樂器 マグナオルガンの御紹介[New Electric Musical Instrument – Introduction of Magna Organ] (in Japanese). Hamamatsu: 日本樂器製造株式會社 (Yamaha). October 1935. 特許第一〇八六六四号, 同 第一一〇〇六八号, 同 第一一一二一六号
↑ Junya, FUJINO (2020-02-12). "日本楽器製造の電気楽器「マグナオルガン」の理想と現実 ─楽音合成のメカニズム─]"[The Development of "Magna Organ" and Its Mechanism for Sound Synthesis: The Earliest Electric Musical Instrument of YAMAHA](PDF). Geijutsu Bunka Kenkyū (in Japanese). 24. Osaka University of Arts Graduate School: 69–89. ISSN1342-9086. 4.1 特許第 108664 号（1934 年 3 月 15 日出願 ... 当該明細書には「特許請求の範囲」として次の三点が列記されている。/ 1. 「適当なる機械的振動体例えば発音「リード」と「マイクロフォン」とを原音の演奏室への漏洩を阻止すべく構成せる音響的絶縁密閉室内に配置」 / 2. 「『ペダル』又は鍵盤に加うる圧力に依る音量制御及び前期『リード』群の制御を全て演奏室に設置せる『コンソール』により行う」 / 3. 「『マイクロフォン』電流の増幅回路の一部に適当の周波数変換機を接続して原動電流及之と適当倍率関係に変換せる振動電流に依る楽音を前記密閉室外に於て同時に発音」 See also bellow patents: JP108664C, JP110068C, and JP111216C.
1 2 3 4 5 6 "The Gulbransen Organ". TheatreOrgans.com. VintageHammond.Com. May 2006. In July 1957, Gulbransen introduced its first electronic organ. This was the Model B (Model 1100), a spinet that was the first transistor organ in the industry. It must be clarified that in these early transistor instruments, only the tone generators were transistorized. The amplifiers still operated with vacuum tubes (Rodgers produced the first all-transistor, or solid-state organ in 1958). / Gulbransen pioneered several innovations that became standard in the industry and are listed here: · First transistor organ · First self-contained Leslie speaker system · First Chimes stop · First Piano stop · First automatic rhythm (actually Seeburg, with whom Gulbransen eventually merged) · First automatic walking bassSee also: 1957 brochures of "Gulbransen Model B organ" on the page.
1 2 3 4 5 Frank Pugno; Bil Curry (2005-11-03). "Lowrey Organs". Electronic Organs (theatreorgans.com/hammond/keng/kenhtml/electronicorgans.htm). VintageHammond.Com. In 1956, the Glide, a foot switch located on the left side of the expression pedal, was introduced, permitting the effects of a Hawaiian guitar "glide", the smear of a trombone, the glissando of singing strings, and the effect of a calliope. The Glide dropped the pitch of the organ about a semi-tone and cancelled the vibrato. / In 1961, Lowrey's first home organ with a built-in Leslie speaker appeared as the Holiday Deluxe Model LSL. Automatic Orchestra Control, later renamed Automatic Organ Computer, came on the scene in 1963. / In 1969, Lowrey introduced the first built-in cassette player, a feature later abandoned by all manufacturers. / [Fig. 2] – Holiday Deluxe Model LSL See also: "Fig. 2".
↑ USpatent 3,358,070,Young, Alan C.,"Electronic Organ Arpeggio Effect",issued 1967-12-12, assigned to Hammond Corporation
↑ "Laurens Hammond". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2014. His later inventions included ... the chord organ (1950), on which chords are produced simply by touching a panel button.
"Up for sale are 3 Solina (ARP) Explorer I front panels. They are part of the very rare Solina C112S organ. ...". See also images: Image 1 shows front panel with three logos: "Solina", "ARP", and "EXPLORER I". Image 6 shows a circuit board with printed pattern logo "ARP" and texts "MADE IN U.S.A", "(c) 1975 ARP INST".
↑ Graham Hinton (2002). "EMS: The Inside Story - The Non-Products". Archived from the original on 2013-05-21. Retrieved 2009-08-24. The first digital sampler instrument may be implemented on EMS Musys (programming language) c. 1969, or EMS DOB (Digital Oscillator Bank) c. 1972.
↑ Hugh Davies (2006). "Electronic Organ". In Douglas Earl Bush; Richard Kassel (eds.). The Organ: An Encyclopedia. Psychology Press. p.167. ISBN9780415941747. Other inventions included Abbé Pujet's electroacoustic Orgue Radiosynthétique (1934, with thepipes enclosed in three chambers, each amplified by a microphone and loudspeaker);
SchoberArchived 2019-09-17 at the Wayback Machine From the 1950s to the 1970s, Schober produced a popular line of build-your-own organ kits. Models ranged from spinets up through AGO consoles.
Download MP3 files of a Makin digital organ, currently at Hammerwood Park in Sussex after serving a dozen years at Londonderry Cathedral, where visitors had said it was "remarkably effective". This has now been enlarged to 5 manuals using further electronic organ units known as expanders, often used to enhance pipe organs, made by Content in the Netherlands and Ahlborn in Italy.
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