Organ matters - Organs matter!

Hi Patrick

I'll add my welcome too, and also my thanks that you bought the Compton and have happy plans for it. If you are going to have corrosion issues you can do worse than a Compton action, hopefully it will all respond to a bit of TLC. Looking forward to seeing your progress pics!

I will admit that I too was interested, indeed got as far as placing a bid on it, specifically because it is a 2-rank Miniatura. In 1948 Compton introduced the model 348 Electrone which was a 'pipeless' simulation of a Miniatura 2, the only attempt they made to recreate electrically a particular model of organ pipe-by-pipe. I have one of the few surviving fully functional 348s and was fascinated by the idea of being able to play the two side by side for comparison! If you are curious about how your organ would look in electrostatic form, you can see a 348 on my website:
http://www.electrokinetica.org/d8/3/5.php
Good luck with your Miniatura website too, there are enough instruments out there for it to be well appreciated!

Lucien

This can be an interesting challenge for organs installed in locations where they can only rarely be played. A few cinema organs, in particular, are located in commercial venues where no official venue time is available for the organ except during performance. One instrument that comes to mind, which we are supposed to keep in full working order, is used on average once per year. And of course that is a unit organ with 2,000 pneumatics, some of which can only be exercised by thumping away at the fat solo reeds on 25" which you can't do in the middle of the night in a residential area.

It would be very handy if the actions all had separate winding. Then we could program the electronic transmission to start the blower up every morning, run through every note on every stop 10 times and shut down again, but with the wind to the pipes cut off at the ventils.

Lucien

Thanks for your interest and encouragement Alex, I will try to keep the momentum up and add a page or so per week, although I fear even at that rate it will be a long process! I'm trying to track down a pic of the CL72 in the meantime...

Lucien

Thanks for the link, I hadn't realised that blower makers were included on the NPOR. From those dates it seems they were not in the business very long after all. What I really need to track down is a copy of Elvin's 'Organ Blowing, its history and development' which I couldn't find anywhere last time I tried. Will have another search tonight, as it must surely mention Rockingham.

FWIW I have a Rockingham here in the workshop, hardly 'colossal' but 10 feet long in total nonetheless, for a 5hp 20" 3-stage job it's big and heavy by modern standards. A remarkably small fraction of its internal volume is given over to impellers, and none at all to diffusers!

Lucien

Please can anyone point me in the direction of historical information on the Rockingham Engineering Co. of Thornton Heath and /or their blowers. I believe that they were in the organ blowing business fairly early on, however they seem to have lost out to Watkins & Watson and their contemporaries possibly due to the latter's more modern and technically superior design of blower. Does anyone have any background on P.W. Rockingham (who seems to have been an electrical engineer) or his eponymous company? So far all that has come to light are adverts from the 20's / 30's  and incidental references in a few books, such as Whitworth.

It was the latter reference that first aroused my interest in the marque, when I was perhaps 10 years old. At that time I was only familiar with the Discus and Duplex blowers. There was mention of 'the colossal Rockingham equipment at Liverpool (IIRC)' and as an enthusiast of big old electrical plant I imagined it would be quite something to see if it survived, given the size of the instrument.
TIA
Lucien

Rather an obscure question but somebody might just know...
Around the late 60s, Compton marketed a home spinet organ with the model number CL72. This should arouse suspicion, because it's just not like an ordinary Compton model number. The 72 could be an allusion to 1972 as many Compton numbers included two digits of the launch year, but it doesn't seem to marry up. More surprising yet is that the voicing is controlled by drawbars. To the best of my knowledge, no other Compton product had drawbars. So... was the CL72 a rebadged electronic made by someone else, and not a Compton Electrone at all?

BTW anyone interested in Compton Electrones can find lots of new material on my site at http://www.electrokinetica.org/d8/1/index.php

Lucien

QuoteMs. Williams said. "But really, I love knowing that many people would not be hearing an organ anywhere else."

This is a crucial point that is too often overlooked by organ enthusiasts, who would hear organs wherever they happened to be. Town-hall organs have an outreach capability that is difficult to harness from within the church or cathedral setting. We have tried for example, with widely varying results that defy explanation, to bring this idea to Southampton Guildhall and its multi-function Compton that is seemingly just right for the job. A number of groups of people with no prior interest in the organ had a chance to discover its music in a way that would not have been possible in a different environment.

FWIW, Carol Williams played there not long ago, with a varied programme that seemed to have a good cross-sectional appeal. The finale could scarcely have failed to make an impact - I was in the relay room at the moment she hit the Tutti piston to round off with Widor's Toccata and the whole thing lit up like a firework display. When I returned to the auditorium I found that the entire audience had been blown to the back of the hall and were just picking themselves up. San Diego councillors presumably recognise the value in being able to broadcast these dynamics in a public setting, in a way that recorded music even now struggles to imitate.

Lucien

It's being done by HWS, my involvement in the project being the electrics as I've worked with Peter's team before on conservation of electric action. I expect even the diehard tracker enthusiasts here will agree that a nearly-unaltered example of Hope-Jones-designed action deserves to be returned to working order as it has survived with much of the original wiring, stop switching, magnets etc (except for what was modified in 1923). So it's a matter of using original materials and where there is damage and parts are missing, identifying the most likely original circuit configurations, just as it is for the pipework in most organs.

Lucien

At the moment there is no work underway due to the venue's busy schedule, the contract is being undertaken by an organ maintenance firm though. Great to see people are interested in the old beast and thanks for your offer AOC! I first met the organ while installing the stage lighting rig 15 years ago, I didn't at that time expect that it would ever be resurrected...

Lucien

Upper Norwood pipework, about half of which was H-J in origin, has gone in three directions although many of the H-J ranks have stayed together. These are destined for a house organ to be built with a predominance of H-J material, including salvaged actions.

Battersea is not yet ready for recitals, as the overhaul is to proceed stepwise. The first phase involved a complete rebuild of the Great division which was the most seriously deteriorated. The Solo, also located in the main stage-left case, received attention at the same time. A wind supply was re-established, rubbish and builders' debris removed from the organ, and 'first-aid' work undertaken to reconnect broken windlines etc, to allow the Gt. to be played and the other divisions to be evaluated.

Lucien

I fear we have drifted far from the orignal topic! Whitworth and Miller were generally rather complimentary about H-J and what they wrote on the subject deserves scrutiny. Colin Pykett has invested some effort in taking these older references to pieces. More trustworthy than the polarised and exaggerated viewpoint of the time, however, is the present-day evidence of functioning H-J-type action. Granted that instruments such as Hartlepool and Battersea were not built by Hope-Jones, therefore do not reveal shortcomings from inferior materials etc, yet Battersea contains many details that are closely modeled on the patents, etc. and might be considered representive from a technical design aspect which was HJ's proper contribution to the craft. In short, it works rather well. Had Audsley seen the state of some of the original 1899 work at Battersea, unused for decades, trampled over by builders and filthy dirty, that played passably well when first reconnected in 2009, he might have hesitated to call it an unreliable technology.

Lucien

The decision to strike the first blow with the axe at Upper Norwood was a tough one. Frankly, the instrument had little to commend it as a historic example of H-J's work in its entirety, N+B having streamlined the tonal design in 1907, while every trace of original H-J electric action had been erased by H,N+B in 1936 and Walker in 1968. As for its value as an instrument to play or hear in its own right without regard to history, I cannot speak from personal experience because it had fallen silent before I first set foot in the church. Opinion seemed to be in its favour despite its eccentricities.

The relatively poor condition of the action and winding especially made it impossible to recommend as a plug-and-play relocation, however various enthusaistic takers came forward with interests in specific ranks. We earmarked a few ranks for storage at Battersea in case we found merit in the future in reverting some of the changes made there in a similar fashion by H,N+B, along with a few action parts as patterns and spares. My primary interest in Hope Jones being his electrical work, it is perhaps a blessing that Upper Norwood was not a conserved example of this, otherwise it might have followed me home.

Lucien

Quoteburnt organ magnet coils demonstrate why electricity and pipe organs should not mix

I will watch with interest while you try out my new tracker-action cinema organ. The keys are to be connected to the main trackerwork using 50-foot bicycle brake cables, to allow the console to rise freely on the lift. I contend that the damaged relays demonstrate why electricity and blundering idiots should not mix, as the burnout appeared to have been caused by someone applying a high voltage such as 240V mains across them.

Anyway, thanks for your kind comments David. I must admit that the website is now something of an anachronism - we've moved on rather a long way in terms of collection and planning since it was first launched in 2007 -  although this month should see some new material added. We plan to hold our first open-day in spring 2013, where there will be a full day's electrical entertainment for technical and non-technical visitors alike. We might be the only place where, in accordance with our aim of bringing together disparate threads of electrical engineering, you can see both kinds of toaster under one roof - the bread browning variety and the all-valve electric organ.

Lucien

Tony - go to www.electrokinetica.org and click the link to the forum. As for your Electroneless situation, just measure the available (or unavailable) space* and we will supply an Electrone to fit it.

Lucien

*Do not use in bathrooms

Hello David and thanks for the welcome.

Quotean untempered beast giving great crackling noises unpredictably

Isn't that the title of Leslie Bourn's original patent?

I will help with the Makin if I can, although I'm not familiar with that generation of Makin products specifically. I agree that there should be a few significant discrete-transistor jobs conserved along with all the little home organs that flourished on the affordability of that generation of technology. Hopefully the Lancaster instrument will not get modified too much for its new application.

QuoteHideous sounds but of a time, and as technology worthy of preservation

With some urgency it seems, being a highly endangered species due to the desirability of their components for unrelated applications. Anyway, to misquote Sigfried Giedion; 'To the historian, there are no hideous-sounding organs.'

Lucien

Hi Tony, thanks for the welcome - I've enjoyed reading some of the informative and entertaining  discussion here too. Regarding the Electrones group, it seems that the owner fell out with one or two other people over content they posted, then shut the group down to curtail further comment. I tried to make contact over the following weeks but never received a reply.

To fill the gap, I added an Electrone section on the Electrokinetica forum that will be the online meeting point when we get our physical museum up and running. Like the Multiply group but more so, there is little to discuss due to the lack of material out there. Just 12 posts so far, although a few former Multiply members have now signed up. Coming soon (I have been saying that for a year or more) is a whole section of my website devoted to the Electrone. Hundreds of pictures, brochure scans, technical analysis, allsorts. If I get some peace over Christmas it will be up by the new year.

BTW I can't recall whether you are still an Electrone owner yourself?

Lucien

Hmm. How and why did this Norwich appear in my workshop? Sure I don't know. Anyway now it's here I plan to rip out all the stupid old analogue spaghetti and use the console for a nice digital display it for comparison with my collection of Electrones. It's actually in quite good nick, a quick look over suggests it has not been hacked about too much. I haven't powered it up yet, there are a few minor things to sort out first.

Lucien

I'm pleased to say that both of these items have found homes, the bench going to a member of Hope-Jones' family. In fact a useful amount of material from this instrument (N13506) has been saved including all but one pipe rank.

Lucien

Having signed up a few weeks ago I thought I had better actually say hello!

My interest in organs started when just a few years of age. From the outset, it was divided between an enjoyment of the music and a fascination with the instruments themselves. Abiding memories from my early years include:
Sitting on someone's lap on the bench of a Wurlitzer electronic in wonderment at all the music he could get out of it.
Getting a harmonium for my 7th birthday.
Listening to Carlo Curley on his first visit to Alexandra Palace with the Allen.
My first attempt at playing a pipe organ at a school where my then piano-teacher (who had studied organ with George Thalben-Ball) taught organ too.

I took a few organ lessons in my teens, the content of which is now entirely forgotten, and tried to learn a little about organ-building in my spare time both by reading and by poking around inside local instruments. However before achieving a reasonable standard of playing, or learning enough of the craft to be useful at repairing, nor even being familiar with the standard repertoire and prominent artists, my interest in the organ began to wane. In truth it had always been overshadowed by an interest in electrical engineering and the history of electrical technology, also since being knee-high to a flautino. Predictably, I went on to study electrical engineering, work in electrical engineering, collect vintage electrical artefacts as a hobby, and generally be electrically obsessed.

Then one fateful day after a decade of only occasional brushes with the organ, mostly by way of repairing other peoples' Hammonds and electronics, I fell to wondering about Compton 'Electrone' electrostatic organs. A picture of Electrone tone generators seen in a book 25 years previously came to mind; now was the time to find an example to add to my collection of electromechanical stuff. Cutting to the chase, for better or worse I now have a collection of 25 electric organs, a commercial involvement in cinema organ restoration and conservation, and a generally rekindled interest especially in unusual electric actions. These days I can even knock out a semi-listenable version of Give My Regards to Broadway or Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, although I fear my best work will always be inside the back of the console, not sitting on the bench. Well, that's what the listeners tell me!

Lucien