Hi, fellow player folks.  I bought a Magic Organ Player on eBay a few
months ago, remembering them from electronic organ shows long ago.
The unit is labeled variously "Organmatic" or "Magic Organ Player".

It was built in the 1970s, I believe; at least I recall seeing one
wired to an electronic organ at a 1970s organ or music trade show.  It
plays 88-note piano rolls, with a clever bass note coupler to play the
lowest note of either of the bottom octaves as a pedal note on organ.

The nucleus of the device is plastic individual valves hot glue gunned
onto plastic sewer pipe.  Crude but clever.  The valves were done in
disastrous "Perflex" cloth and permanently glued shut.

I just finished sawing apart the individual clear plastic valves,
replacing the deteriorated vile "Perflex" inside with purple "Numalon"
left over from our Wurlitzer rebuild.  Tedious, messy, and the finished
result is nothing to look at, but then, this is not one of J. B.
Nethercutt's museum quality pieces of functional fine art.  I still
have to solder some wiring back onto some of the contact blocks, try
it out and trouble shoot it, but I think it will work.

The individual valves are mounted on plastic plumbing pipe with holes
for the valve stems drilled into it.  They were mounted with what
appeared to be adhesive from a hot glue gun, and I have remounted them
the same way.  The contact blocks are little pieces of printed circuit
board glued to the valves, tubed to the tracker bar.  The roll drive is
electric and seems to be in good working order.

Someone correctly noted that piano roll bass notes are usually an
octave higher than organ bass.  The contacts for the two bottom octaves
are wired, and tubed, so that either octave plays the 12 low organ
pedals, 16' CCC to BBB, but only the lowest note plays.  The contacts
cut off current to the higher notes so that lowering the notes an
octave does not produce the muddy sound of multiple notes in the lowest
octave.  Quite ingenious.

The beast is about 2-1/2 feet wide, 2-1/2 or 3 feet high, with the
spool box on top with a music rack in front when the spool box is
closed.  It is built to sit on, and drape over the back of, an
electronic organ with the pump hidden somewhere, I'm not sure where.
The machine is too small to contain the vacuum pump.

Comments, anyone?  Also, does anyone have any of these plastic unit
valves with the deteriorated Perflex guts that they want to sell cheap?
It couldn't hurt to have some extras.

Oh, and Robbie, I love getting MMD.  Keep up the good work.

Ken Rosen, Chatsworth, Calif.
pignwurli@hotmail.com