Realistic organ
2001-04-13 by Dharma Bummer
Hey everybody, I have no question today, just want to share a bizarre experience. Or, to be more accurate, an experience with a bizarre instrument. I recently won an auction on eBay for a Realistic - yes, Realistic as in RADIO SHACK - combo organ, and it arrived yesterday. By the end of the evening I had fixed just about everything that was wrong, which consisted of simple stuff like dirty contacts, a few dead diodes, and tuning. But what's really bizarre about this organ (besides the fact that it's RADIO SHACK!!!) is the oscillator architecture (is that a phrase?) of the thing... instead of an oscillator for every key, or an oscillator for every letter noted divided out into the different octaves, there's an oscillator for EVERY THREE ADJACENT NOTES with top note priority! Yes, you read right! If a particular oscillator controls, say, an adjacent C, C# & D, you can't play more than one of those particular notes at a time. If you try, it will simply play the highest one. Of course, in practice, this really isn't a big deal unless you like very atonal, artsy chords, as any interval over a major 2nd will be voiced properly. I just thought this was a really oddball, goofy way of doing things. Has anybody heard of a similar voicing scheme on a keyboard before? BaM __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/