Well it's Tuesday here in NZ.
Been watching this traversty evolve at a local op shop/ recycling centre.
Nice Yamaha organ and this barsteds have cut the power cord off. Only about US$25.00. I'd buy it but it weighs a ton.
Really nice condition

 

Oh c’mon mate. 150kgs tops. Piano trolley, a trailer and a friend and it’s yours.

Funny coincidence though, I’ve just been offered an E3, the full console (2x 61note keyboards and 25-note pedalboard) version of that one.

 

I am always amazed at how cheap these organs go for, same place had a fully functional in like new condition Yamaha organ of a much later era with full electronic lcds and a million controls for $90.00, its astounding really.

 

Busy week. I meant to post this photo of the cat Tuesday, But I got busy when I got home. sorting through parts to see if I could find any more of the Omega 351. I have a lot of random watch hands and seem to keep finding them on the floor. Must have spilled a tray or box of them without noticing some time ago. The sweeping of the floor seems to knock them out of the tile grout. There is a riser next to the shelves across from the lathe desk with a 6CM or so gap between the floor and the shelf. I shined a black light under it and saw some glowing lines. Sure enough there were dozens of watch hands.

Anyway the cat has been taking to sitting next to my friend when he plays. This is the electronic virtual I work on, where the console (once connected to pipes) now play pipe sample loops.

While there are no watch parts on this floor. I am not sure the cat knows that. She seems to be looking for something. Every now and then she gets on the keys and is sounds something like the stargate sequence of 2001 a space odyssey, which is a classical piece by someone with a name like Ligeti.

Not quite sure how explain yesterday, as I went through the Landeron watches on trays seeing if perhaps the canon pinion got mixed up there via an iPhone magnet.

So easy to get distracted from one watch to the next, Why I do not like having more than one apart at a time. (Not counting the half dozen or more projects I got disassembled just waiting for the puzzle to be solved.

 

Hi. You have an Allen digital console?

A colleague has just offered me a Rodgers Trio. Without the Leslie cabinet unfortunately. It might mean sending the current upright back to work but I’m tempted. My old man had one about 30 years ago and it was a fine organ, for that style at least.

 

All I can say is……..WOW! I fell in love with an orchestral version of that almost 60 years ago. It is still a favourite! Thanks very much!

 

I have a Wurlitzer console which I added digital voices to. I just got some Allen speakers to try out on it. Finding the motivation has been a challenge. We have a collectors group coming this weekend. My interests are on the digital side of the system. Amps an speakers remind me of rollex watches. Only the expensive ones are what others seem to care about.

My friends have Rogers and Allen organs, which they use for practice work so I am fairly familiar with them. Especially the MIDI side of how the music is recorded and saved.

I meant to post this earlier in the week. There is a colnola in the background. The cat is in front of a Morton photoplayer orchestra pit organ, which is the other project I am working on. I have 10,000 MIDI files. Choosing which one to work with is a challenge.

 

I thought Tuesday was for Speedies?

 

I meant to comment on this post. where is your place based?
I was also curious about the player rolls for the organ. I knew there were rolls produced because I’d read about the famous Roxy Theater installation in NY in the 20’s where the foyer organ had a roll unit fitted. As a restorer of player pianos here in Melbourne I have a related interest.
Were the rolls particularly different in concept?

 

Near San Francisco. I am about 25 miles North East, and the Hall with most of the instruments is halfway between SF and Sacramento in the delta.

There are dozens of different player roll formats. Curiously most of the research comes from Australia. We probably have some mutual acquaintances then.

One of the larger Australian collections was purchased by Stanford University. The next academic conference will be down under. The last one was in Switzerland (what revived my interest in watches.) About 1/3 of the participants were from Australia.

Most of the roll playing formats are for piano. The idea was to capture the performance as accurately as possible. The air pressure measured digitally with literal binary weights. Efforts to study this use Bayesian estimators and phase locked loops. These are also the foundations of modern AI (also called expert systems.)

When dealing with pipe organs something called multiplexing is used. The same technology was used for early telegraph and telephone calls. Since this used a magnetic switch. These were called relays or switches. Such things can be quite complex. This is where I usually refer the interested person to look up the brothers Robert and Frank Hope Jones. If some of this sounds like network routers one is not too far off.

Skip ahead to Hedy Lamar. Paper tapes and rolls were used to log stock market results. Also telegraph conversation the machine that typed the flimsy delivered to recipiant. There were early terminals called teletypes. Such machine could also used to create form letters. They could also be used to encrypt codes. The enigma was such a device.

The center of this was Upstate New York. Wurlitzer was in North Tonawanda. That is where Frank Hope Jones settled and created his 'Unit orchestra.'

I have remains one of the player units, such as was used in the Roxy theater.



This is the vacuum switch stack. There was also a roll transport.

I used these parts in my Calliope. So like a parts movement these are no longer together. I used part of the vacuum stack in the instrument above in this thread.


The rolls are quite rare. Most were scrapped. Other manufactures used similar rolls. Here is one of the scales documented by Robert Morton which was a competitor to Wurlitzer.



This show some of the complex multiplexing. There are 105 holes on the paper. The instrument might have 800 inputs and 2000 outputs.

What rolls survived come from Death Valley. A place called Scotty's Castle. In the 1980s the rolls were copied and duplicate player units were created. A side effect of the duplication was to create MIDI files (which can be used as mastering rolls.) I have a set of these rolls.

Sometimes old instruments are found walled up in old mansion and theaters. They were quite popular with society ladies in the Guided age. With boom/bust such instruments were also exported to bring civilization to places where there were gold strikes such as California, The Yukon and Australia.

With modern systems this data can be played on emulators.

The Merry-Go-Round organs and Calliopes used a similar multiplexed system. This gave rise to the term "Includes all the bells and whistles." Amusement parks like D land and Knots berry farm resurrected these in the 1960s. There were a lot of smaller roadside attractions such as House on the rock. This tech also gave rise to the jukebox. All that multiplexed switching to drop the needle onto the records precisely. Interesting to think this is a form of AI. Some could even play violins!

I looked up to see what the AI breakthrough was early this week. No breakthrough. It is simply that we are at the critical predicted point where all these switches and relays can somewhat program themselves. It is still the same Bayesian estimators and phase locked loops.

Also interesting to consider that in the 18th century mechanical played music technology could be scaled small enough to fit into rings and watches. (using pinned barrels.) The common striking repeater watch mass produced in the 19th century. Even last year Omega did a variation with their Chronostrike or what ever it was called.

 

Thanks for taking the time for that excellent reply. Much appreciated.

There have been some superb collections here of which I have seen only a couple. Thirty years ago there was a collection in Warrnambool, a regional seaside town, in a museum of clocks and instruments called Time and Tide (I think, it was a while ago). That was one collection that got sold up and no idea where it all ended up. One of the cornerstone pieces was a Mills Violano. Not the best tone from a violin you’d ever heard, and accessing and tuning the 4 (?) octave piano harp was a mini nightmare as well.

in Sydney there was all the equipment from the Mastertouch Piano Roll Co. thousands of master rolls and a couple of piano-roll production machines there. Hopefully they ended up in the Powerhouse Museum collection but not sure of that outcome.

Professionally I haven’t moved much beyond restoring straight 85/8 note players although I own a Duo-Art. My mentor once started explaining the ins and outs of lock and cancel expression boxes and I think my eyes started glazing over. I’m guessing your player organs’ coding/pilot holes in your schematic work on that principal?

 

Yes.

There is active discussion on the mechanical music digest relating to the Mastertouch equipment in Sidney. This is all an active area of interest and research. In NY there is the Hershel Carousel Museum, which has some of the surviving production equipment.

The son of one of the so called inventors of the Computer named Charles Babbage emigrated to Australia. The powerhouse museum has some of the surviving pieces he kept. A lot of folk do not realize how much technology comes from that other hemisphere.

I call Mills Vialonoes 'cat torturing devices.' There is also the Hupfield phonolist vialano. Entirely pneumatic, with three violins.

We have an Ampico, and a lot of rolls.

 

Hmmm where can I join

 

The hall where the pipe organs are, was a former masonic temple. Not enough Masons these days to keep all the post WWII expansion lodges active. A group that excludes 75% or so of the population is not likely to succeed in the long run of things.

My desk is not too far from where the alter plinth once was. Good vibes there.

Perhaps some of the mysteries are only passed down by word. On the other hand all one had to do was to go to the library and find the printed ritual. Some of the player piano rolls also cover some of it. These days it is only an internet search away.

The clock group used to meet in a similar building in Cupertino. That is where I bought most of my watches. We would use the temple for the business meeting. The costume dances were also held in the social halls in some of the older SF Bay area temples. The Vampire ball was the most popular. Especially when we did crossover skits relating to Dark Shadows and I love Lucy. And there was a no host bar.

I have quite a soft spot for Masonry. Even if I trend atheist these days. I made up my own system Pantheistic poly-deism. Since deism is only one step from atheism ... The main tenant of Ptpd is that there are over 8 billion gods, one for everyone. Probably a lot more, there is a lot of dust in the light bubble we can observe.

I have known members of E. Clampus Vitus... Now there is a group what knows how to drink. If the stories are to be believed.

Some of the family are also members of the Bohemian club. Tried to get a tour of the pipe organ in SF. Now that is an exclusive group, although they do let women into the public areas of the building. Boys will be boys. Most of the stories I heard sound more like a frat party. Probably not all that different than a Ren Fair, or a Burning Man sort of thing. I blame it all on Noah.

The trick is that if one is not ready for the group. Then that person would probably feel out of place. Sort of how like when someone comes and asks about the watch they found, inherited, or want. When the answer is not what is expected , The person tends go off to other things that are more interesting.

 

Been busy with pipe organs the last few weeks.

Yesterday was a 'STEAM' festival sponsored by the local maker space. This used to be more steampunk, There is now a dual meaning to deal with the STEM students by adding Art back into Science Technology Engineering and Math. Some people think the a is for and as Art is considered a so called soft subject. Problem is that without the Art the other subjects have little meaning.



I brought two of my little crank organs. The one on the right I started 3 years ago. Have not done much with it as the events I was making it for got canceled when the pandemic started. Given changes in the world it is unlikely these things will ever be the same.

The week before we hosted a local mechanical music collectors club. I replaced the speakers on the pipe organ console in the basement. It is sounding a lot better with the new speakers.



This console came from the Hill Opera House in Petaluma. The theater now still exists and is called the Phonex. Carouso perfomed in the early 1900s. It is now a concert venue and has hosted a lot of contemporary shows with Big name acts. The inside walls are covered with Graffiti. Some question the usage these old movie theaters this way. Not sure is makes that much difference. The interest in this sort of thing is limited.

 

Reviving an old thread.