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Yep, I know it was a Musitron, but when I met Del in Grand Rapids Michigan he called it a "weird organ". Back then, anything that was keyboard driven and didn't decay like a piano was considered an organ.
When does "organ" stop and "synthesis" begin?
Notes
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When does "organ" stop and "synthesis" begin?
Notes
I would actually call Tonewheel organs an analog synthesized organ sound, because they are using some alternative means of tone generation than air blowing across pipes.
Doesn't make it a bad sound now, does it? 
And I really like that most of the synthesizer sounds I use today, are now syntheses of synthesizers! That is, they are digital emulations of analog electrical circuit generated tones.
When these became readily available about 10 years ago in the form of DXi and VSTi plugins, the world of 'analog synthesis' became much more readily available to the average Joe. Most of the 'real' analog synthesizers had been binned or bought up by collectors. So now I have an artificial minimoog and Arp 2600 that I use all the time, that if I tried to buy the real deal, would cost me many thousands for functional units.
I also have emulations (not sampled) of 73 Wurlitzer, Suitcase Rhodes, and Hammond B3 organs - which use the computer to simulate the circuitry of those electromechanical keyboards.
These cost me exactly zero dollars, and they way only as much as my laptop - perhaps the best feature of them altogether!
-Scott
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Quote:
To quote
"Runaway"/Del Shannon: The distinctive "organ" part was done on a one-of-a-kind instrument called a Musitron. This ancient, 3-octave, monophonic, tube-driven thing was actually a modified Clavioline, built by Max Crook himself (who played the part on "Runaway"). Check out the official Del Shannon web site for information on the Musitron and more than you ever wanted to know about "Runaway". Now you may run across this very interesting web site, Space Age Pop Music , which claims that it was an Ondioline (a similar instrument), but I believe it's incorrect - there's too much information available, from Max Crook himself among others, to believe otherwise. Also check out Clavioline.com for more than you ever wanted to know about this instrument and its cousins
Twas a wee little accessory that was designed to be bolted to the bottom of a Hammon organ, underneath and in front of the keyboard manuals. Probably the first use of miniaturized keys as well, the little thing was a single note synthesizer, all tube driven. Yep, monophonic. Only had a limited number of voices, likely because at that point in time the emphasis was still on trying to emulate known wind instruments.
The Hammond Tonewheel Organ is actually and ADDITIVE synthesizer, that's what those famous drawbars are all about.
Most if not all later technology analog synths are subtractive, BTW. Start with the biggest wave you can generate and then add various types of filtering to carve it to a desired sound. Two or more of these generators could typically be used in conjunction, one could be used to modulate the other as well.
--Mac
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Quote:
Quote:
To quote
The Hammond Tonewheel Organ is actually and ADDITIVE synthesizer, that's what those famous drawbars are all about.
--Mac
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Well, then. If I sit down at the pipe organ at my local church, and pull out flute stops at 16, 8, 4, and something-and-a-third feet, am I not performing an act of additive synthesis?. That would be before the sixties...
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Thank you, Sebastian Bach!
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Of course. Not only the venerable old pipe organ itself -- but the entire cathedral designed around it all went together to make those wonderful additive synthesis air powered actions into the experience.
(With the pipe organ, the term, "action" actually refers to the various ways the air was baffled at the bottom of each pipe in order to form the soundwaves, whereas today that word is typically used by keyboardists to describe the keyboard mechanism itself.)
--Mac
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Quote:
If I sit down at the pipe organ at my local church, and pull out flute stops at 16, 8, 4, and something-and-a-third feet, am I not performing an act of additive synthesis?.
Okay so let me toss a wrench in just because I can.
I would think when you pull the drawbars out, you are taking away from the sound that is "the whole", so would it not be subtractive synthesis?
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Eddie - no, Mac is correct that tonewheel organs are additive synthesis in action.
Subtractive synthesis works by filtering the waveforms that are generated by the oscillators.
Additive synthesis works by summing the wavforms that exist. The drawbars only modify the overall level of individual tones.
Subtractive synthesis starts with a complex waveform - in the old days, either a sine, squarewave, sawtooth, triangle wave or noise circuit. Then you filter out content in a frequency selective manner; effectively subtracting from an initial more complex waveform.
-Scott
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>>>...I would think when you pull the drawbars out, you are taking away from the sound that is "the whole", so would it not be subtractive synthesis?...>>>
I am thinking of a couple of very old organs that I have had the privilege to play. One in particular has no electrical parts. It has knobs called "stops." When I want to add pipes, I pull the knob with the name of the pipe-set that I want toward me. The knob slides toward me 3 or 4 inches. The knob is attached to a wooden dowel that is attached to cables. The cables physically open a set of vales and the valves allow air into the set of pipes I have chosen.
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Yes, Pipe stops are used to ADD pipe voices together, therefore the pipe organ uses Additive Synthesis. All sounds are combinative in the pipe organ.
--Mac
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Just read it -- back to the question: In the early sixties the Chantays used an electric piano. Here it is on the Lawrence Welk show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j09C8clJaXoGuido
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Quote:
Just read it -- back to the question: In the early sixties the Chantays used an electric piano.
Here it is on the Lawrence Welk show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j09C8clJaXo
Guido
Wurly 100, just like Ray.
Unfortunately, they didn't actually PLAY it in that "performance" -- what you hear is the studio recording, likely the record. That was common for TV presentation due to the perceived "problems" the old school TV audio engineers had with electrically amplified musics back then.
As with the acceptance of something new among musicians and audiences, new technologies often must wait for a new generation in order to ultimately be able to properly exploit them. I remember when three less-than-one-hundred-watts-each combo amplifiers was considered to be, "TOO LOUD" by a generation that loved to listen to an all-acoustic bigband easily generate twice as much in the way of SPLs.
At that point, prejudice becomes hopelessly entangled with perception, as it always does. The prime reason that I'm always saying that there is really no worse witness than the so-called eyewitness...
At the beginning of the 50's, Lionel Hampton started using the then-new fender Precision Bass in his bigband. Well, it really wasn't Lionel's first choice, but Wes Montgomery's brother happened along to fill the Bass slot and being a Guitar Player, took advantage of the real reason that Leo and the boys back at Fender developed the P-bass in the first place -- because a guitar player who happened to play with The Texas Playboys off and on told Leo Fender that if such an instrument were readily available that he, as a guitar player, could get more gigs by being able to double on bass. That player had apparently seen the earlier Rickenbacker solid body bass, and wanted one like it. Leo named it the "Precision" bass because it incorporated FRETS on the neck, which implied a preciase note aelection with less need for things like the Simandl fingering of the fretless acoustic bass violin.
Anyway, Lionel went on tour with that Fender Bass in the lineup instead of the "standard" upright acoustic bass, leading to the typical kind of questioning, denouncement and overall stupid writings of critics that always goes along with anything new or different.
One of the jazz critic writes of that era, Downbeat magazine or maybe Metronome, I forget, did review of the band with this new-fangled "electrical bass" instrument and wrote that it was able to play a full octave lower than the acoustic bass fiddle. He was dead wrong, of course, but forgiven IMO, as nobody in the jazz world had ever heard such clear sinewave bass notes before, along with the sustain that was hitherto a matter of chance.
And then there was a veritable plethora of hatred unleashed upon the use of electric bass in what these so-called "OPEN-MINDED" jazz musicians perceived to be "correct". Again it took the next generation to fully grasp the implications of that new technology, fuller sound, less cost at purchase, easier to learn to play, lighter in weight, smaller in size, important when considering portage problems -- and suddenly the upright acoustic string bass fiddle became the rarity with a bigband. For a time. Then it enjoyed a resurgence, of course. Ronny Reagan's Law applies there as well. If it moves, Tax it, if it continues to move, Regulate it and if it stops moving, Subsidize it. <g>
--Mac
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Quote:
And then there was a veritable plethora of hatred unleashed upon the use of electric bass in what these so-called "OPEN-MINDED" jazz musicians perceived to be "correct". Again it took the next generation to fully grasp the implications of that new technology, fuller sound, less cost at purchase, easier to learn to play, lighter in weight, smaller in size, important when considering portage problems -- and suddenly the upright acoustic string bass fiddle became the rarity with a bigband. For a time. Then it enjoyed a resurgence, of course. Ronny Reagan's Law applies there as well. If it moves, Tax it, if it continues to move, Regulate it and if it stops moving, Subsidize it. <g>
--Mac
I shared that same sentiment back a page or two; except for the Reaganomics part of it - but tagging onto that thought: how cool is it that the latest generation of upright players will likely get their inspiration from a woman - that being Esperanza Spalding, of course.
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Spalding be bad, bad, bad bass player a'right. Would like to see if there could ever be a meeting of Esperanza on bass, Terri Lyne Carrington on drums and Diana Krall on piano and vocals some day... If not hip to to Terri Lyne Carrington, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_exMEDF6ukg --Mac
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I think if Diana plays Elvis gets to sit in. He's got some good teaching from what should be a good source. I think many would be surprised to see how much music education many of the current people have under their belts.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Mac, probably going way off topic, but I had to follow through some other vids of Carrington - Interesting to see in this one https://www.youtube.com/user/terrilyncarrington#p/a/u/1/JdD3Bqr8e78 how she switches grip on her left hand stick and how she really uses the stick tip as a damper - never seen it that obvious before. Man I wish I could play drums.....
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And on topic, I had a Wurly piano, black plastic with screw on chrome legs. I think it had a volume and another knob that did a feedback thing. I bought it and carted it to a house in a bush camp I worked in for 6 years. 500 guys in a bunch of bunkhouses, the staff in ranch style houses, and at the end over looking a falls on the White Otter River I had a 3 bedroom house, complete with visiting bears. One day, while playing at the wurly, the youngest boy comes in and says, "Dad there's a 30 foot bear at the back door...", I said, "sure son," and kept playing. I hear a noise and go look and a bear is at the door, paw through the screen. Used an old 303 Enfield and the bear was dispatched. I had already hit it with a paint marker for bothering the camp and had permission to shoot.
You never want to hear the noise made by a dying bear, shot right in the heart, broken leg, turned around for about 10 seconds crying, and dropped. I got her in the back of the pickup and was going to take her to the taxidermist, but about 1/2 hour later there is a yearling cub standing beside her in the truck. The guy got a 2 for that day.
That piano played in a country band or 3, all the local bands were country. I did a celtic set one time and was told to get back to country.
Johnny Cash, Johnny Paycheck and a whole bunch of french canadian artists you'd never know.
Lots of memories in that old piano.
There were 2 mines there, and if you dropped it down the shafts you'd get an a flat minor.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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John,
My dad bought a WWII surplus British .303 Enfield that had been converted to carbine config for use by the British and Canadian Pacific Theater outfits as a jungle carbine.
They shortened tha barrel and then added a funnel-shaped tip that they labeled a "flash suppressor" at the end.
Killed many a Pennsylvania whitetail with that doggone thing, alas no bear, but it was a veritable flame-thrower when stoked with full loads. The barrel trim to carbine length was just too short to allow all the powder to burn.
First deer I ever hit with it, Pop always claimed that I really missed but the poor thing died of fright due to the long tongue of flame...
Later built a few modernized sport rifles based on the Royal Enfield. Funny thing about them was that they all seemed to stay more accurate with less cleaning. Those I built from Mauser actions were exactly the opposite temperament.
Back home in Pennsyvania and West Virginia, we typiocally had more than one miner go at a time, you were more likely to hear about severn flat five and worse. Like the flat minor diminished seven.
--Mac
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You used to be able to buy a 303 army surplus rifle for 25 bucks and a buck a box for ammo.
Now you have to have your wife say it's ok and yes that's you, pass a 3 day course, apply for a permit and wait 6 months.
And then go in the lottery for a moose/bear tag.
They will probably beg you to go deer hunting, they are hurting the ethanol production big time. And the insurance costs when they crash into your mini cause it almost looks like a whitetail...lol. Stupid bucks are getting ready as we speak.
I'm going grouse hunting this fall, just waiting for a call the leaves are down up at the cabin. Couple more weeks.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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I played a screw-on chrome leg Wurly for 4 years (well it was one of several that our choir had purchased from a local school music program kept on a 4014 GMC bus in the luggage hold). Kind of heavy but not not so bad that you couldn't haul it in/out at gigs. I don't know the model. I can say that I didn't think it was cool at the time from a sound standpoint. This was in the 80's when the thin clank of the DX-7 EP sound was THE electric piano sound in pop music.
Wish I had one of those Wurly's now! Choir probably gave them away - though I know the director of that choir now and I'm gonna have to check (note to self).
I played a suitcase Rhodes as the sort of 'mascot' in our pick-up jazz band in college. I saw 'mascot' because I didn't have the chops nor the knowledge of the other cats in the band but they wanted keys for 'Black Magic Woman' and the school let us use the suitcase Rhodes. I could read chord charts, so I was in. Soprano sax player in that band that could BLOW! Gotta check with a friend to see if he remembers his name.
No bear shooting stories while playing keys here.
Sound-wise, the Mr. Ray's plugins from GSi sound VERY much like old Rhodes and Wurly's - so much so that I don't miss the real deal all that much.
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Black lid, screw-on chrome legs, solid state, two 6X9 car radio speakers, that's a Wurly model 200.
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