Protected Woofing

Now that I have 5 speakers upstairs (including the subwoofer), I like the sound of the organ even more than before. On the advice of a very gifted organ technician, I cleaned and protected the contacts on the bass tone generator cards, which appears to have solved the low bass volume problem once and for all - at least enough so that I had to turn down the bass amplifier volume or risk continuing to knock down eyeglasses resting on the ceramic clock in the next room (don't ask!).

Anyway, one key task was yet to be done - some sort of protective cover for the now completely exposed 15" speaker which was sitting in the stair well right about where something might fall if anyone tripped on the exposed speaker wires. The other speakers had covers, but the woofer did not.

So a few trips to my favorite hardware, home supply stores, and fabric stores gathered up the wood for a frame, felt for staple backing, some dowels and wood glue to put it all together, as well as some black speaker cloth from MCM Electronics nearly finished it. But I also wanted more protection than the speaker cloth could possibly provide, so additionally I purchased and stapled 1/2" square hardware screen (fairly heavy metal screen) behind the acoustic cloth. This way, most minor disasters will be avoided. It came out looking great! You can't even seen the metal screening behind the speaker cloth, but tomorrow will tell whether I can hear anything through it - or perhaps hear something I shouldn't (like rattles!). Oh yes, I used velcro at the four corners to hold the speaker grill frame in place.

Life is what happens

Well, I never was a good letter writer or diary keeper, and blogging is more or less just a public version of both, so there is really nothing unusual about the recent dry spell in postings here, but goodness gracious - 5 months? Let's just say that I have somehow managed to neglect this avenue of personal expression in lieu of other real-life adventures. And I promise to say something about my goal of memorizing In Dir Ist Freude. But more on that later.

I have not tired of the sound the Allen organ, and I have also managed to remain inspired by hearing great organ concerts - including one by Cameron Carpenter and another by Angela Kraft-Cross who played with skill and technique I will never hope to master, but to which I never tire of listening in admiration. Cameron blew our minds with his virtuosity and treated us to multiple encores at the Davies Symphony hall on May 2nd. Check out his YouTube videos or even better, buy his CD's. He just came out with his second CD/DVD combo ('Live', which includes video of the Earl King and Clockwatcher, the latter being my favorite of his own compositions to date). He is breathing a breath of fresh air into the organ world. He autographed the copy of 'Revolutionary' I bought that night, even posed for pictures with me. Very cool!

I heard Angela play beautifully on both her home church organ and at St. Mary's Cathedral, two totally different instruments with totally different ambience. The former is a Casavant and semi-reserved. The latter is a Ruffatti (if I recall correctly, the same as the organ at Davies symphony hall) and all the pipes are out there speaking 'in-your-face' with unparalled clarity. I much prefer the latter. And the inspiring interior of that ultra modern church is quite dramatic.

I have slowly been accumulating organ music from here and there as I find it - just received an interesting package of sheet music and books this week in fact. Some real classics including simplified versions of Bach's chorales created by Marcel Dupre for his students (including In Dir Ist Freude).

Meanwhile, I've managed to memorize In Dir Ist Freude (the full version) and actually recorded myself playing it and proudly sent the compressed video to my parents and close family and a couple of friends. One can always count on parents to be complimentary, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to play it for the world. Still so much to polish. I know this piece is supposed to be played full organ, but I've found a nice soft setting that I find quite charming and am thinking about recording it that way just for fun. It's a very joyful piece, but nothing says joyfulness has to be rambunctious or overwhelming with volume.

But that recording will have to wait a bit - I stubbed my toe quite badly a couple days ago, evidently worse than I thought and it's swelled up to the point where I worry I may have torn a tendon chipped a bone, so I think I'll be focusing on the manual keyboards for a few weeks.

In Dir Ist Freude

Surprising as it may seem, I was able to resurrect that seemingly beyond hope capture action integrated circuit which was so badly damaged by leaky NiCad batteries. Two days in 50% vinegar/distilled water, a good scrub with an old Sonicare toothbrush, a few minutes in Isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, and then 5 days of drying under a 100W flood lamp seemed to do the trick. That along with soldering a $16 cordless phone battery lead to the card to replace the old leaky ones. Oh, and removing and replacing an EPROM chip with somewhat dubious electrical contact with the mother ship. Now stop presets work again! Yea! I still have more 'fix-up' projects to do on the organ, but it's quite a rush to make one more step towards original condition.

So it is only appropriate that the first piece I am trying to learn after decades on hiatus from playing, is BWV615, In Dir Ist Freude. Bach's music is pure genius, and this is one of my favorites to listen to when played well. It always makes me happy. I only hope I can learn this short piece well enough to maybe post a sample of what the ADC-4900 organ sounds like. I'll let you know if I do.

Oh the joy! It works!

After weeks of searching, planning, worrying, and finally troubleshooting, my ADC-4900 Allen organ is now safely installed. Still stuff to fix, but it is now playing as well or better than it did in its prior home.

Like so many major changes in life, the significance of having my own personal, in home, practice organ is just beginning to sink in. None of those frigid early morning practice sessions I had in junior high, nor those stuffy, musty smelling practice rooms from high school. Maybe it's just furniture polish, but I even like the way this organ smells! I've already put in two practice sessions this weekend. The first in many years. This pleasurable luxury of a home organ is just one reality that has changed.

The other changed reality is what happens when you haven't played the organ for decades. Will my feet remember their intervals? Can my fingers remember how to substitute for each other or constantly get tangled? How rusty can one get and still recover, at least to where one left off?

Meanwhile, I have also explored the organ's features more deeply. I've noticed that the swell pedal actually changes the stop tone! Wow! This is a far cry from those old practice organs. I'd never confuse this organ with a pipe organ, but the expression pedal does make the organ sound a lot more like pipes in a real swell box than the old Baldwin practice organ or church Hammond organ where the expression pedals merely modulated the volume.

And MIDI works! True, it appears to be only Note-On, Note-Off (at least when plugged into my little Casio keyboard Midi-In port) but the organ does have some boxes labeled "Midi-Expression" hidden in the console innards, so maybe there still is some hope for Midi Expression. Time will tell.

3am and 68 hours of possession

OK, I should be in bed right now, but in reality, this blog should have been started oh, 10 years ago, or at the very very latest, 1 month ago when the search really became earnest. For the last three days my free time has been more or less obsessed with my latest project, the Allen ADC-4900. For years I have toyed with the idea of putting together a MIDI pedal board and keyboard for practice purposes, but setting it up seemed daunting. Feature creep set in and pretty soon I was looking a full 2 manual, hardwood console, factory made electronic organs. Drove many miles to see a $500 2 manual 1960's era Allen organ a few weeks ago.

But then I found this 3 manual beauty advertised online. Drove to LA (7 hrs) and discovered it had repair issues, but was playable. After some agonizing, I decided to go for it. It was delivered Monday at 7am sharp and both before and after that time I have been obsessed with finding a way to make it fully functional without going bankrupt. Once functioning, I plan to expand it using the onboard MIDI, which may or may not include expression (volume). Today's challenge was sorting out my options for technicians, parts, and service information, all of which appear to be highly guarded information for a 20 year old organ. Hopefully the effort will all be worth it in the end.

Depending on how much repairs are estimated to be for the current modules, I may be further ahead to scrap the internal guts and recycle the console as either a Phoenix rebuild or a Hauptwerks or jOrgan console. Either one will have superior sound, but using the current amplifiers may or may not be complicated given I do not have schematics etc.

Now that I have it and it does not play it is simply the most expensive piece of furniture in my home.