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Lancaster Priory 4 manual Makin available to good home

Started by David Pinnegar, August 05, 2011, 04:15:17 PM

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Holditch

I can help during the day on Friday 20th if that is of any use.

I dont claim to be able to offer any expertise, but I can carry things and being from Manchester, Lancaster is not to far to get to

Please PM if you need me on that day

Best Regards


Marc
Dubois is driving me mad! must practice practice practice

AnOrganCornucopia

If anyone in Surrey/Sussex would be able to offer me transport to Lancaster, I'd be glad to help. MusingMuso also is a truck driver (in West Yorkshire) - I wonder if he could help?

JKenny

Hello, My school is looking for an organ for its assembly Hall and is just over the boarder in west yorkshire. something like this would be ideal.
Do you still need a home for it?

James

David Pinnegar

Quote from: JKenny on March 13, 2012, 08:59:36 PM
Hello, My school is looking for an organ for its assembly Hall and is just over the boarder in west yorkshire. something like this would be ideal.
Do you still need a home for it?

Dear James

YES! Interest has been expressed on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1265258549 ) from Carl Heslop who has a cinema venue in Newcastle which he is intending as an organ centre, which is very exciting. However, a school nearby, and possibly one where there is a physics department who might take an interest, could be a very convenient and educational use for it.

Jonathan Lane was planning to help out but can't that week. I am willing but its a big time commitment for me especially to come up from down south, but of course I'm happy to do so if needed, but if any recipient can organise the rescue and removal themselves without me time commitments at my end would find that very convenient!

As the console is built into an existing case which is to be preserved, its destination will need a console table to take the manuals and stop-jambs but I'm sure that such problems won't be insuperable.

If you would like to be in touch with the Lancaster team, please email me on antespam at gmail.com.

Best wishes

David P

Lucien Nunes

If for any reason you get stuck without a solution, give me a shout. The timing is very bad and I might be abroad during the move week, however it would be sad to see this destroyed for want of a bit of input. I am happy to give it a home, although this should be a last resort because my interest would be to conserve it as a working museum piece, rather than use it for concerts or services.

I have quite a bit of experience moving large old electronic kit and making it work again afterwards, so might be able to offer a bit of moral and technical support to whoever gets lumbered with the actual move, however I don't know the analogue Makin circuitry specifically. I hope it turns out to be possible to enlist the help of David Fetterman as he will work wonders on it I am sure.

Lucien

Barrie Davis

Hi

I am sure David Fetterman knows this organ inside out, I am sure he will give advice as he is a real gentleman.

Barrie

David Pinnegar

Hi!

I have received the following from the Lancaster Priory team:
Quote
An update on the Makin organ at Lancaster is now possible following
last nights project group meeting. Thank you to everyone for their patience
with us and I hope we can reach a solution which suits all concerned.

The week
beginning the 16th April is the best time for the Priory to remove the Makin.
The removal is central to a chain of events with the Organ Builders and to
alter their plans at this point is difficult and will have all sorts of knock
on effects for the project. I hope thats understandable and appreciate that all
involved are organising around these dates to find a suitable home for such a
lovely instrument.

We could suggest that the Priory people take responsibility
for removing the Makin and storing it until whoever can pick it up can make it
to Lancaster to take it away. If whoever wants it could organise for somebody
to be here on the sixteenth to record and photograph the removal so that it can
be reassembled correctly that would be the simplest way through this process at
the moment.

Could anyone in the region offer to do what is necessary on 16th? Or James, if the instrument is coming to you, could you afford to get Makin to send David Fetterman there for the day?

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar


revtonynewnham

Wish I could David, but health means that I couldn't do anything to help.

Every Blessing

Tony

David Pinnegar

Hi!

I have received a few emails indicating success together with a photo of the console on a stage surrounded by a group of very smiling young people. We hope that those involved in the project will keep us posted in due course and look forward to the opening recital.

This is an instance where the rescue of an electronic, in this case a very special one, will introduce a whole group of people to the organ as an instrument and hopefully will excite curiousity and desire for real pipe organs subsequently. The move was made possible by reason of a significant community spirit.

Various people at Lancaster report:

QuoteAll is well at this end. The
Makin is coming out smoothly so far and James Kenny and I are doing a trip to
Halifax today and one tomorrow in a project volunteers high top van. Everything
seems to be turning out for the best !.
Many thanks for all the help and
support in recycling such a nice instrument. Its great when a touch of
recycling comes together !!

Quotethank you to all involved in the recycling of the
Makin organ. It was a long shot to achieve this but was absolutely in keeping
with the spirit of an organ restoration project and I am delighted that we
managed to pull it off between us all.

QuoteI had a welcome telephone call from Charles yesterday evening, telling me of the great efforts that had been made yesterday to take the Makin out and despatch it to its new home.   I am very pleased that such a positive outcome has been achieved, and am most grateful to everyone who has made it possible.

As a footnote, it is probably cheaper for organisations disposing of electronics to do their best towards finding ways of re-use rather than environmental chargese for disposing of what can be regarded as hazardous materials!

Thanks especially to Marion Mclintoch, Lucy Reynolds, Ian Pattinson and Charles Wilson, who all tolerated my enquiries and then joined in with enthusiasm, Gordon Cooper (EOCS member) who went to do a logistical  evaluation and for James Kenny for bringing it as part of his enthusiasm to a place where it will inspire organism in the future.

Best wishes

David P

MusingMuso

We don't actually know where the organ has gone yet!

Would someone please enlighten us?

I'm interested, because if it has gone to Halifax, I'm only a few miles away and can duly report this fact to the members of the Halifax Organists' Association, of which I am a member.

MM

David Pinnegar

Hi!

I googled James Kenny and found
http://www.rishworth-school.co.uk/default.shtml

Hope he or someone will post photos onto a website somewhere of progress and hope that the rebuild goes well and that the HDOA will find it exciting.

It's probably going to be helped by having a bit of artificial reverberation added if it's in a school hall and I have had experience of this and especially providing transparent, unrecognisable speakers to hang around an acoustically dead space near invisibly so that reverb comes from all directions, naturally. I imported a large number of units from USA for this purpose and still have many spare.

Best wishes

David P

JKenny

I am pleased to say that the Makin is now being reassembled in its new home in Ludlam Hall at Rishworth School and shall be playable again within the next few weeks!

Barrie Davis

Hi

Good news indeed, would it be at all possible to have some photograhs of the project as it develops?

Barrie

dragonser

Hi,
pleased as well it is good news.any more info would be great.

regards Peter B

David Pinnegar

Hi!

Peter - we've missed you recently and it's great to see you in the land of the living.

James - it will be interesting to know what enthusiasms the instrument generates both in music and possibly in technology at the school and it's great to know the project is coming along fine. Hope you'll YouTube the installation and the inaugural recital too.

It will be great to hear from Lancaster Priory in due course about the progress of their pipe organs, to which the inadequacies of an analogue electronic have led . . . :-) and that's really the good thing about even an electronic, if a good enough one, to inspire.

For readers new to this forum, the importance of the ex Lancaster Priory Makin is that it was one of the largest analogue electronic instruments built still to be surviving and in working order. Most others have gone in the skip - which in the power of an instrument to inspire, is a terrible waste.

Best wishes

David P

Barrie Davis

Is the organ up and running in its new home now?

Best wishes

Barrie

JKenny

To keep a complete record on this project -

The school were unable to provide the funds to restore the Makin electronics nor have it rebuilt, so they offered it to me. I've now had the whole console converted to MIDI to use with Hauptwerk. As I am currently training for the Anglican clergy, I am hoping that it will be able to be used in the future for church music and training organists.

Many thanks to all who raised awareness of this organ's availability in 2012. It will be making music for many years to come!

Lucien Nunes

Thanks for the update and it's good to hear that you are getting some use out of it. The Lancaster organ came up in conversation with Hugh Banton about a year ago and we wondered what was going on. We were both puzzled that no-one had been in touch with him for help and advice in restoring it.

What has become of the original electronics? As with a pipe organ, the tone generators are the heart and soul of an electronic, so the organ you are playing is arguably a brand new (and much better) organ re-using the console, while the Lancaster Priory organ is wherever the original electronics are.