The Robb Wave Organ is an electronic organ invented in 1927 by Canadian inventor F. Morse Robb in Belleville, Ontario. It uses a unique type of tone wheel synthesis to reproduce pipe organ tones and is one of the first electronic organs ever made. [1] While not as commercially successful as its main competitor, the Hammond organ, The Robb Wave Organ predates the Hammond (and other competitors such as Conn and the Baldwin) in conception, patents, and manufacture and release for public sale. [2]
Frank Morse Robb began researching and developing an electronic organ. [1] He started with the theory that the best way to duplicate an organ tone was to start with a recording of the waveform and then find some way to recreate it electrically. [2] Achieving this, he demonstrated a small instrument in Belleville on November 4, 1927. The instrument consisted of 8 notes, each of a different tone quality. The notes were: C E F G G# A B C1. The tone quality could be modified by dial control. Robb filed patents for the organ on September 29, 1927 both in Canada and the United States, and received Canadian Patent No. 284183 on October 23, 1928, and United States Patent No. 1785915 on December 23, 1930. [3] Robb then produced a five-octave single manual organ in 1932, followed by the Model "K", a two-manual, 32 pedal note organ in April 1934. The tone generation portion of the organ was meant to be placed in a separate room from the organ console, thus minimizing the noise generated by the spinning motors and gears. [4] The completion of the Model "K" instrument precipitated a visit from Lady Flora Eaton, who then had Robb Wave Organs installed in both Toronto and Montreal Eaton's stores, where demonstrations were given to critics and the general public. [1]
The Robb Wave Organ Company was incorporated on September 21, 1934. Although there was good critical reaction to the organ, only 15 to 20 were ever made. Unable to find proper funding due to the depression, Robb shut down the project in 1938. [1] Only one organ survives partially intact, at the National Music Centre in Calgary, Alberta.
The Robb Wave Organ, so called because of its method of synthesis of pipe organ waveforms, is a tone wheel organ like the Hammond organ, but uses a different type of tone wheel. While the Hammond relies on a form of additive synthesis by adding the frequencies of several sine wave tone wheels together at different levels in order to create the harmonics of a particular timbre, [5] a steel tone wheel on the Robb Wave Organ contains the full waveform that is being recreated. This waveform has been carved from a picture of a pipe organ note that was played through an oscilloscope, showing the distinct waveform of that pipe organ note. [2] The particular organ that Robb used to record these waveforms was installed at Bridge Street United Church in Belleville, Ontario. [3] The only stop that does not use the waveform from this organ is the Flora 8' stop, which uses the sound of Lady Flora Eaton's voice for the waveform. Using twelve separate tone wheel shafts geared off of one axle and each containing several tone wheels of varying diameter and waveform pattern, Robb was able to use varying combinations of pickups around the tone wheels to create different sounding organ stops. The electrical signals generated by the pickups and the spinning tone wheels were then fed through a vacuum-tube amplifier to a loudspeaker unit. [1] The construction and layout of the two manuals and pedal board conform to the specifications laid down by the Royal College of Organists. This was to ensure compatibility of playing between the Wave Organ and a pipe organ. The stops on the organ are as follows:
Upper Manual Stops
Lower Manual Stops
Pedal Stops
Evidence from one organ reviewer, William Barnes, shows that he much preferred the attack of the notes on the Robb Wave Organ to that of a Hammond or an Orgatron (another electronic organ of the time, one that used reeds instead of tone wheels.) Barnes wrote, "I gained the impression that the "attack" of the tone was much more like that of an organ than either the Hammond or the Orgatron." He describes the tones as "good organ tones", and "a better Trumpet quality was obtained than I had heard on any other electronic." Barnes goes on to say that the Robb Wave Organ is at a disadvantage however because of its much higher price than the Hammond or Orgatron. [4]
Frederick Silvester played the organ at a Toronto Promenade Symphony Concert on July 30, 1936. The piece he played was Handel's Concerto No. 2. A reviewer from the Toronto Telegram wrote, "But the wonder of it was that an organ could be designed, as this one was designed, which would produce the remarkable body of tone revealed." [6]
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.
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre, volume, and construction throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have many ranks of pipes of differing pitch, timbre, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops.
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 synthesizer with a low-wattage power amplifier and small loudspeakers.
An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; each can be "on", or "off".
A tonewheel or tone wheel is a simple electromechanical apparatus used for generating electric musical notes in electromechanical organ instruments such as the Hammond organ and in telephony to generate audible signals such as ringing tone. It was developed by Thaddeus Cahill for the telharmonium c. 1896 and patented in 1897. It was reinvented around 1910 by Rudolph Goldschmidt for use in pre–vacuum-tube radio receivers as a beat frequency oscillator (BFO) to make continuous wave radiotelegraphy signals audible.
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:
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.
A manual is a musical keyboard designed to be played with the hands, on an instrument such as a pipe organ, harpsichord, clavichord, electronic organ, melodica, or synthesizer. The term "manual" is used with regard to any hand keyboard on these instruments to distinguish it from the pedalboard, which is a keyboard that the organist plays with their feet. It is proper to use "manual" rather than "keyboard", then, when referring to the hand keyboards on any instrument that has a pedalboard.
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.
Keyboard expression is the ability of a keyboard musical instrument to change tone or other qualities of the sound in response to velocity, pressure or other variations in how the performer depresses the keys of the musical keyboard. Expression types include:
The Realistic Concertmate MG-1 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by Moog Music in 1981 and sold by Radio Shack from 1982 to 1983 under their "Realistic" brand name. It was produced without some standard Moog features, such as pitch and modulation wheels, as a cost-cutting measure aimed at achieving a lower price for the consumer market. The synthesizer also featured a pair of pass-through RCA jacks, which allowed users to mix radio or records into the final live synthesized sound output.
Bourdon, bordun, or bordone normally denotes a stopped flute type of flue pipe in an organ characterized by a dark tone, strong in fundamental, with a quint transient but relatively little overtone development. Its half-length construction makes it especially well suited to low pitches, and economical as well. The name is derived from the French word for 'bumblebee' or 'buzz'.
Chorus is an audio effect that occurs when individual sounds with approximately the same time, and very similar pitches, converge. While similar sounds coming from multiple sources can occur naturally, as in the case of a choir or string orchestra, it can also be simulated using an electronic effects unit or signal processing device.
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.
Gedackt is the name of a family of stops in pipe organ building. They are one of the most common types of organ flue pipe. The name stems from the Middle High German word gedact, meaning "capped" or "covered".
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.
Casio's SDSynthesizers were a late-1980s line of analog synthesizers featuring a resonant filter. SD synthesis was traditional DCO-analog synthesis, with the main difference being that some of the SD waveforms' harmonic spectrums changed temporally, or dynamically in relation to the amplitude envelope.
Frank Morse Robb was a Canadian inventor and entrepreneur who resided in Belleville, Ontario. He is best known for his invention of the first electronic tone wheel organ, the Robb Wave Organ, however he has several patents to his name, in areas such as television, fuel draught carburetors, and for devices such as an 'Electronic Viewscope for the Blind'.