No drawbars on a 1500. The 2000 Grand Theatre had them, and some of the Eminent and Solina range had sliders that effectively functioned as drawbars, if rather fiddly to operate on the fly.
Definitely worth looking at the older models if you're on a budget. :) You do have to watch the older, older ones though. Spares can be an issue with some - same with all electronic instruments. I personally don't like going back more than 10 - 12 years or so, but there are some nuggets out there t...
1) Some of the Wiki 'information' just plain wrong. (Wiki often is!) The page does not cite any sources but some of it is clearly taken directly from Frank Pugno's web page. Some of that is itself inaccurate. 2) This 'new' Thomas company is totally unrelated to the 'real' American Thomas Organ Compa...
The list is all about names not model numbers, so things like L100, X150, D85 or J71 (Jennings, of course!) etc are not included. Where an organ has a model number and a name, like Conn 643 Theatre or Hammond 2107 Concorde, only the name is on the list. Thanks for the Viscounts. On the list for addi...
Not 100% sure, but I think it's another biggie. BTW, the list got up to around 850 names, but I've already discovered a whole heap more that will have to be added in. The final winner for the most often used name turned out to be Carousel, used 6 time, closely followed by Prelude. So Lowrey still ha...
Hi all - but probably mainly Mike for this one! :) Over on Lowrey forum we were talking about Lowrey borrowing, or stealing, model names from other manufacturers. They've done it a lot in the past few years and their next model is Rialto, bringing back the name from the early 1960s Gulbransen. We wo...
I personally think they came of age 16 years ago with the vastly underrated MZ-2000. These two look good, though I'm not too sure about the blue colour. The sound quality is often hard to judge of videos but on the Kraft video, they've recorded it direct and I listened on studio quality headphones. ...
For those who love their old analogue organs from the 60s and 70s, I've just ripped this one from vinyl and uploaded it here: https://app.box.com/s/s59mhusqtsh8wgn8kef8h9unnfscq20t You can download the individual tracks from the LP and there's also a zipped file with the cover and the registration s...
We're singing from the same hymnsheet here! :) Yamaha's 6/8 styles, whilst being 12/8, do give that 2 to the bar feel you mention as the second half of the 12/8 bar is effectively the 2nd 6/8 bar of the pattern. And yes, it's something that's felt rather than counted. If players do want to count, th...
For the record, Yamaha's '6/8' styles are in fact '12/8' anyway. The beat counter goes 1,2,3,4 rather than the 1,2 that 6/8 would demand. So if you have a slow 12/8 piece then use styles like 6/8 Modern or 6/8 Orchestral, as well as the 12/8 Ballad, which is best left to 'What a Wonderful World' or ...
Simple time: No matter how many beats in the bar, they are always divisible by 2. Compound time: The beats are always divisible by 3. So, a bar of 2/4 would have two crotchet beats, divisible into two groups of two quavers. A bar of 6/8 would also have two beats, each one a dotted crotchet long, div...
Main issue - as it is with all things MIDI, including any virtual organs - is getting MIDI channels to match. The usual defaults should be: Upper-1, Lower-2, Pedals - 3 and Solo/Keysplit Lower - 4. Things like CC11, expression data usually sent from the volume pedal, sometimes needs to be on channel...
Kawai ultimately do control Lowrey's destiny, yes. But from the outset in 1988 when they took over, Kawai said that Lowrey was going to be run independently. OK, the internals of all Lowreys have been Kawai-made since then, but things like the voicing, style programming and cabinet design were initi...
Yes, I know that. My meaning is that I hope existing Marquee owners can upgrade if the organ has in fact been upgraded after only a few months in production. Roland did that several times with the Atelier series and Yamaha more recently with the Stagea, although that's after a long production run. W...
So what's 'new' from the Marquee that people spent a lot of money on last year? I can't see anything, and the EX5000 brochure is still the same. If they have upgraded it internally, I do hope they'll let existing owners update theirs at a reasonable cost - or no cost it they've only just bought one!...
Let me know the model number of the Soundblaster interface and I'll find out if it can store the Soundfonts, and if it does, I'll try to give you a step by step set of instructions for loading them. Once loaded, they stay loaded! Native's Vintage Organs is a good package and the sounds are superb, b...
Latency will always be a problem with Miditzer unless you can install a Creative Soundblaster soundcard that can load the Miditzer soundfonts into its own RAM. It then gives instant response. For all the others, you need that ASIO capable soundcard or audio interface. Get a good one with good driver...
If you're going to use virtual organs then what you 'drive' them with isn't too important. All most virtual organs want is note on/off, volume pedal data and hopefully programme change data from the preset pistons. Anything else may be a bonus, but most likely will be ignored! So what organs should ...
The two really awkward critters are the major and minor 6ths. Major - Days of Wine and Roses Minor - A day in the life of a fool / Carnival / Manha da Carnaval (all the same tune) or, if your reverse the notes, Love Story Some others: Octave - Over the Rainbow Flattened 5th/Augmented 4th (AKA triton...
This year's being cruel. After Alan and Brian, I hear that US star organist and teacher Bill Irwin has passed away. I'm sure some of us will know him or know of him through his regular connections with the Organ and Keyboard Cavalcade magazine and festivals. The big gig in the sky has another star n...
Another great has passed away. I think you all know how much I respected Brian as a musician, friend and colleague. He was one of my 'idols' from when I started out, whom I met and 'clicked' with straight away when he was doing a Gulbransen demo in Worthing one cold winter's evening in 1971. I didn'...
2016 looks like carrying on where 2015 left off, with the world losing yet more 'greats', in many different genres of music. Lemmy, David Bowie, and now Alan Haven. And we're only a couple of weeks in. I only met him a few brief times, he came across to me as a very nice guy. I sadly never got the c...
Reports on another forum say that Edna is in hospital following a heart attack. The shop is now permanently closed. I guess they're now just selling everything off.
It's been confirmed by suppliers in the USA, and it says 'Discontinued' on Roland's own international website, so we can take it as being true.
Maybe there's another, even better module on the way. Or maybe they think they've reached saturation point in what is a niche market. Only time will tell.
Yup, I think it's called the Marquee. Has less physical tabs but a much larger screen with virtual replacements for the 'missing' tabs! Those who have heard it say that it sounds good. Price? Somewhere between stratospheric and astronomic.
Aargh! I've been rumbled! :) Seriously though, they made me smile and they do cheer up the otherwise dull looking bins. All credit to the local council for not taking the usual heavy-handed 'let's catch the so and sos, and make them paint the bins black again'. However, after all the publicity, I th...