Hello from a new member

[Lucien Nunes]

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

[revtonynewnham]

Welcome Lucien

Glad to have you aboard.  I've seen bits and pieces by you on other web sites at various times - good to have another enthusiast for some of the more mature electronic organ technology.

Every Blessing

Tony
(one of the moderation team)

P.S.  Do you happen to know what's happened to the "Compton Electrones & Electrostatic Organs" group that was last seen on Multiply?

[Lucien Nunes]

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

[David Pinnegar]

Hi!

Welcome also!

My organopath followed much the same course as yours with introduction in early childhood and a succession of 3 harmoniums but followed by knocking down 4 walls and 4 ceilings to install a pipe organ at the age of 15 which taught me a lot about tracker mechanics, voicing and tuning.

However I also inherited a 1937 Hammond and so not only had a healthy respect for electroacoustics but also introduced me, no doubt in common with many earlier 20th century organists, to harmonic addition and harmonic structure of sounds . . . which is so important to registration of pipe organs too.

Electrones - there was one of those as now I understand knocking around school in my youth given by John Pilling no doubt as a precursor to him trying to replace the noble pipe organ. It was an untempered beast giving great crackling noises unpredictably when it wanted to and the belt drive system inside was fascinating in the way it could be manipulated by the tremulant . . .

Glad you got the Norwich. Hideous sounds but of a time, and as technology worthy of preservation. The efforts to which people have gone to put together large numbers of transistors and other components in the hopeless task of well imitating the classical organ deserve more respect than the derision they normally receive. To pretend that such efforts are a threat to pipe organs really is a phantom and pipe organ builders do the electronics trade a service by such a contemplation. It's for that reason that uninhibited discussion about electronics alongside real pipe organs is not only permitted but encouraged here. I regard electronics sometimes as a tool by which pipe organs can be explored and understood better by simulation and even experiment.

Perhaps if you have time and you feel like it, your expertise might be very helpful when it comes to working on the preservation of the Lancaster Priory four manual analogue Makin . . . The instrument should be maintainable by any school 6th form physics department and is a technology successful enough to have served 30 years and only now to be replaced by two pipe organs.

Best wishes

David P

[Lucien Nunes]

Hello David and thanks for the welcome.

an 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.

Hideous 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

[revtonynewnham]

Hi Lucien

Thanks - can you let me have the URL of your group sometime please.  I don't own a Compton - and never have, but I have played a fair few over the years and have quite a liking for them.  Maybe one day one will turn up - and I'll have space to house it!

Every Blessing

Tony

[pcnd5584]

I would also like to add my welcome to those of my colleagues.

I hope that you will enjoy your visits here - there is much to read and to discuss.

[Lucien Nunes]

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

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

Thanks Lucien

It's not only space that's an issue - there's also the practicality of getting such a heavy instrument up the stairs here - and the cost.  Maybe when I retire!

Every Blessing

Tony

[David Pinnegar]

Tony - go to www.electrokinetica.org and click the link to the forum.

Dear Lucien

What a tremendously wonderful site you have created and the work you're doing is so valuable.

For those who have not clicked the link yet, it's not at all all about electrones but really the whole history of electricity - even pipe organ relays . . .

For years I have collected light bulbs and have a dozen pre-1886 (Woodhouse and Rawson), Geissler tubes and various other bits and pieces. In the shed there is a Commodore Pet - which needs cleaning up - a selection of the early Macintosh computers and a 1967 Casio AL-1000 calculator - programmable with 19 steps with a ferrite core memory.

On your site the photos of burnt organ magnet coils demonstrate why electricity and pipe organs should not mix . . .

Best wishes

David P

[Lucien Nunes]

burnt 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