[sdiy] New toy

[Ken Stone]

Quoted bits from email by marjan
>
>You probably got a "hi-end" product of air-organ family... Hohner
>and Bontempi (and some others) used to make lot these stuff.

A lot of home organs were done with reeds before electronics became a
viability. This one is no-doubt on the cusp of the technologies. 
One was used in the Siemens Studio For Electronic Music
http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/siemens/index.html

>I have a couple of small keyboards like that, without amp.

The amplifier-less ones are common enough, simply called "chord organs" over
in Australia. My folks first organ was one.

>next step was to
>house it from handheld to keyboard type, with simple motor
>acting like fan which blows air thru reeds and you open them
>with keys.

There is a significant difference here - the air paths are not controlled.

>Problem is that motor works all the time and when you're
>not playing it's hum is prominent and annoying. That's probably
>why they have "shielded" motor in that way in your organ, to
>minimise the hum, esp they are using amp.

Worse than that - all the reeds are going the whole time - what a din!

>wire them with electrostatic pickup? Crappy design needs such
>solutions. Erm, don't expect lush sounds from it, I wouldn't
>bother replacing the motor, keep the amp and use the keboard
>for something better. Unless it's valuable, but I doubt...

The sound is pretty good actually, for a period instrument. It doesn't sound
like an accordian. Mind you with the reed box not propperly insulated, it
does make one hell of a racket!

I patched a 12v d.c. motor into it to try it out.

I've stuck a coupld of shocking pictures of the business end of the thing on
my synth web page http://198.164.142.50/~cgs/organ/


Ken

>
>marjan
>
>
>me    : Marjan Urekar
>e-mail: urekar.m at eunet.yu
>s-diy : http://surf.to/marjansystems
>music : http://go.to/forcemajeure
>
>
_______________________________________________________________________
Ken Stone   sasami at blaze.net.au  
Modular Synth PCBs for sale <http://www.blaze.net.au/~sasami/synth/>
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