Viscount Electronic on ebay (for repair)

[dragonser]

Hi,
just saw the following instrument on ebay.
Item number: 110659516399
Viscount Jubilleum 332   
seem there have been some problems with the cpu boards.......
maybe they are being a bit optimistic with the asking price ?
but it is a 3 manual instrument with pedals in nice physical condition.

regards Peter B

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

I would agree - very optimistic for what was a budget brand to start with, and now is probably virtually life expired (15 years or so being the average life of most electronics).  It may be possible to get it working again - or use the console for something else.

Every Blessing

Tony

[Barry Williams]

I would be interested to knoqw where the figure of fifteen years life expectancy for an electronic comes from.  I know it cannot be from the  'Organ Building' magazine, for the figures reported there are only the average time the electronic instrument has served in a church before being replaced, not the life of the instrument.  Many go on to serve elsewhere.

My experience has been that electronics last very much longer than fifteen years, though I saw that one instrument (a 'Gem', I think,) was advertised on the Viscount Website as 'parts no longer available'.

Barry Williams

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

It is based on the average time before replacement in Organ Building, plus expected lifetime for consumer durables (about 10 years) and experience.  Obviously, some electronic instruments will last longer - I have a 1970's "Combo organ" here which still works, but one church I know had an expensive digital piano that only lasted 3 years - and parts (they were told) are not available (I did give them contact info for a couple of other technicians, but AFAIK they now have a cheap home keyboard).  It's just a working average to use for assessing lifetime costs - and the fact that this Viscount had failed after 13 years adds to the evidence - granted, the failure might be repairable - but what else will fail in the near future?

By the same token, the work of some pipe organ builders doesn't last. 

Every Blessing

Tony

[Barry Williams]

"By the same token, the work of some pipe organ builders doesn't last.  "

Yes, and some of the new tracker actions have been the worst culprits in this.  One well-known place has had three tracker actions in twenty two years and I recall difficulties with a church in Chiswick where the new tracker action, installed at the behest of the Diocesan Organs Adviser against the advice of the organ builder, was replaced a few years later by electro-pneumatic action.
Numerous examples could be given of pipe organ failure.

As far as the figures reported in Organ Building go, one must be very careful, for these are emphatically not figures of failed electronic instruments, but reports of replacement by pipe organs.  I think that those details started with records kept by The (late) Reverend BB Edmonds.

My experience has been that electronic 'organs' generally last a lot longer than fifteen years - I wish they did not! 

It is only fair to report that my wife and I owned three electronic instruments from 1982 to 1996. (All Johannus -  is the plural 'Johanni'?) and each is still working well.  They were analogue organs.

Barry Williams

[David Pinnegar]

Dear Barry

I think you're comments about longevity of electronics are interesting as is also your comment about analogue instruments. I fear that digital instruments will be much more susceptible to total failure one day . . .

Best wishes

David P

[Barry Williams]

Dear David,

Thank you for your response.

Several organists have commented to me that they find analogue instruments better for practise than digital instruments.    I am aware that the old analogue Allen Organs are much sought after by professional organists for private rehearsal.   A past president of the Johannus Corporation told me that the analogue Johannus are better for private practise than the (more accurate) digital instruments.  I recall the old Copeman Hart analogue instruments and found them very impressive, whereas the 'Bradford' type mechanisms used in latter years seem tonally very poor by comparison.

There must be something in this.

Best wishes,

Barry Williams

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

Analogue instruments have - in the main - the advantage of the tuning not being locked (except where there's only one TOS (Top Octave Synthesizer) chip - plus the sound tends not to be as sterile - maybe (definitely) not as accurate, but usually musically satisfying.  Those analogue organs that use separate generators for each note (free phase) rather than frequency dividers are probably the best.  Colin Pykett's analogue organ is pretty impressive - but lacking the proper starting and ending transients that are easy to do in sampling (but not so easy in the Bradford/Copeman-Hart systems).  Analogue Allens & C-H's use free phase generator systems, as do some other makes that were respected in their time.  Some of the more recent analogue organs are problematic, as they used specialized IC's that are now obsolescent and difficult to source, making repair problematic or impossible economically - and I can see the same fate befalling some early digital organs in the near future as well - for much the same reasons.  The earlier analogue jobs, based around standard electronic parts, can usually be repaired without too much trouble.

I still think it's a pity that electronic musical instruments went, in the main, down the route of copying existing instruments rather than exploring different tonal territory - still, they have their uses as practice instruments, etc.

every Blessing

Tony