Re: Midi Control for Organ; Digest 95.05.11
By Robbie Rhodes
In digest 9505011 Dave Clark asked for information about equipping his small street organ for Midi control. His keyless book reader scale is for 14 melody, 9 accomp, 5 bass, and 0 (zero) counter-melelody channels, for a total of 28 channels with no register controls. This format nicely matches the WurliTzer 125 scale.
Mike Ames and David Wasson, of Solana Instruments, 234 N. Cedros, Solana Beach, CA 92075, have performed several installations of Midi into organs, big and small. They would be happy to share their experiences with others, and provide sources for the electric valves and Midi circuit boards. Phone them at the museum on weekdays between 7:30 and 2:30 PM, Pacific time, tel: 619-481-1663.
(Wasson has 34-key small street organ he built from scratch, also with 5 bass channels, and everything runs on one 5-inch wind supply, including the keyless frame that reads book music made from cheap manilla folders. It is equipped already for Midi control.)
In Germany last Fall I saw several makes of new small handcranked street organs that all used the same electronic control system, in which the valves and electronics are powered from a 12-volt NiCad rechargable battery pack. Wind power is still from the hand crank. Most of the organs also had music roll spoolboxes, too, but the operator could alternatively call up songs from ROM memory modules, which were inserted much like a Nintendo TV game program.
Mike Ames said he thinks the little organs all use the same electronic system, and I just found an ad for the Deleika Organ Co. which suggests that Deleika is the producer of the "GEFI noba tronic" systems used in these small organs. Deleika offers complete organs of 20 and 26 keys (music roll and tracker bar reader), and fitted with 20, 31 or 44 pipes. By my reckoning the 44-key scale would be 5 bass, 8 accomp, 13 melody, 0 counter-mel, which is only slightly smaller than Dave Clark's organ.
The organs I heard had very quiet valves. Deleika offers 300 song files containing 500 songs from the 19th and 20th century. Many I heard were familiar tunes, 'tho I couldn't name them. As I recall the battery pack was good for a couple of hours of music.
One cute feature: the music plays faster and slower with your cranking speed, and slows to a complete stop when you quit cranking and the wind pressure disappears. Quite realistic.
If Deleika sells the components in a kit, their system is a fine way to instantly get a small street organ playing a BIG selection of tunes. The magnet valves they furnish could, with few extra components (a diode or two for each valve) also work simulataneously with the Midi circuit boards. For "information and demonstration at no cost" contact:
DELEIKA Drehorgelbau GmbH Frankenstrasse 7 74219 Mockmuhl-Auttlingen GERMANY tel: 06298-3434 fax: 06298-4434
-- Robbie Rhodes <rhodes@foxtail.com> 7 July 1995
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(Message sent Sat 8 Jul 1995, 02:58:13 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.) |
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