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An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the pump organ, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed into several types of instruments:
Thaddeus Cahill's gargantuan and controversial instrument, the Telharmonium, which began piping music to New York City establishments over the telephone system in 1897, predated the advent of electronics, yet was the first instrument to demonstrate the use of the combination of many different pure electrical waveforms to synthesize real-world instrument sounds. Cahill's techniques were later used by Laurens Hammond in his organ design, and the 200-ton Telharmonium served as the world's first demonstration of electrically produced music on a grand scale.
Meanwhile, some further experimentation with producing sound by electric impulses was taking place, especially in France.
— article on Rangertone, an early all-electric tonewheel organ between Telharmonium and Hammond organ
(United States) — invented in 1934,
marketed 1935
–1975 (as the tonewheel organs)
(2025). 9781135947965, Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135947965
One of the earlier electric tonewheel organs was conceived and manufactured by Morse Robb, of the Robb Wave Organ Company. Built in Belleville, Ontario, the Robb Wave Organ predates its much more successful competitor Hammond organ by patent and manufacture, but shut down its operations in 1938 due to lack of funding.
The first widespread success in this field was a product of the Hammond Clock Company in 1934.
— article on Hammond organ
The Hammond organ quickly became the successor of the reed organ, displacing it almost completely.
From the start, tonewheel organs operated on a radically different principle from all previous organs. In place of reeds and pipes, Robb and Hammond introduced a set of rapidly spinning magnetic wheels, called , which excite that generate electrical signals of various frequencies that are mixed and fed through an amplifier to a loudspeaker. The organ is electrically powered, replacing the reed organ's twin bellows pedals with a single expression pedal more like that of a pipe organ. Instead of having to pump at a constant rate, as had been the case with the reed organ, the organist simply varies the position of this pedal to change the volume as desired. Unlike reed organs, this gives great control over the music's dynamic range, while at the same time freeing one or both of the player's feet to play on a pedal clavier, which, unlike most reed organs, electronic organs incorporate. From the beginning, the electronic organ has had a second manual, also rare among reed organs. While these features mean that the electric organ requires greater musical skills of the organist than the reed organ has, the second manual and the pedalboard along with the expression pedal greatly enhanced playing, far-surpassing the capabilities of the typical reed organ.
The most revolutionary difference in the Hammond, however, is its huge number of tonewheel settings, achieved by manipulating a system of drawbar organ located near the manuals. By using the drawbars, the organist can combine a variety of electrical tones and harmonics in varying proportions, thus giving the Hammond vast registration. In all, the Hammond is capable of producing more than 250 million tones. This feature, combined with the three-keyboard layout (i.e., manuals and pedalboard), the freedom of electrical power, and a wide, easily controllable range of volume, made the first electronic organs more flexible than any reed organ, or indeed any previous musical instrument except, perhaps, the pipe organ itself.
The classic Hammond sound benefits from the use of free-standing loudspeakers called tone cabinets. The sound is often further enhanced by rotating speaker units, usually manufactured by Leslie speaker.
The Hammond Organ was widely adopted in popular genres such as jazz, gospel music, pop music, and rock music. It was utilized by bands such as Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and Deep Purple, among others. Occasionally the legs would be cut off these instruments to make them easier to transport from show to show. The most popular and emulated organ in the Hammond line is the B3. Although portable "" started to synthesize and displace the original Hammond tonewheel design in the 1970s, it is still very much in demand by professional organists. The industry continues to see a lively trade in refurbished Hammond instruments, even as technological advances allow new organs to perform at levels unimaginable only two or three decades ago.
The Orgatron was developed in 1934 by Frederick Albert Hoschke, after a Miessner patent. A fan blows air over a set of , causing them to vibrate. These vibrations are detected by a number of capacitive pickups, then the resulting electric signals are processed and amplified to create musical tones. Orgatron was manufactured by Everett Piano Company from 1935 to 1941. Following World War II and a business transfer, production resumed in 1945 by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company and continued into the early 1960s, including some models retaining the Everett name from 1945 to 1947.
In 1955, the German company Hohner also released two electrostatic reed organs: the Hohnerola and the Minetta, invented by Ernst Zacharias.
In the same decades, similar electro-acoustic instruments — i.e. electric-fan driven free reed organs with additional electronic circuits — were developed also in Japan. Magna Organ invented in 1934 by a Yamaha engineer, Sei-ichi Yamashita, was a multi-timbral keyboard instrument
This type of instrument was later re-commercialized: In 1959, Japanese organ builder, Ichirō Kuroda, built his first Croda Organ with each pair of constantly oscillating free reed and a microphone in the soundproof box, and installed at Nishi-Chiba Church in Chiba Prefecture.
Electronic organs were once popular home instruments, comparable in price to pianos and frequently sold in department stores. After their début in the 1930s, they captured the public imagination through the recordings of musicians such as Milt Herth (the first performer to record the Hammond Electric Organ) as well as recordings and film performances of Ethel Smith. Nevertheless, they were promoted primarily as church / institutional instruments during the Great Depression and through World War II. After the war, they became more widespread; for example, the Baldwin Piano Company introduced its first in 1946 (with 37 vacuum tubes).Home electronic organ models usually attempted to imitate the sounds of and/or Hammond organ, rather than classical organs.
Following the adaptation of solid-state electronics to organs in the late 1950s, the market for electronic organs began a fundamental change. Portable electronic keyboards became a regular feature of rock-and-roll music during the 1960s. They are also more convenient to move and store than are the large one-piece organs that had previously defined the market. By the late 1960s, the home organ market was dying while the portable keyboard market was thriving.
With the development of the transistor, electronic organs that use no mechanical parts to generate the waveforms became practical. The first of these was the frequency divider organ, the first of which uses twelve oscillators to produce one octave of chromatic scale, and frequency dividers to produce other notes. These were even cheaper and more portable than the Hammond. Later developments made it possible to run an organ from a single radio frequency oscillator. Frequency divider organs were built by many companies, and were offered in kit form to be built by hobbyists. A few of these have seen notable use, such as the Lowrey organ played by Garth Hudson. The design of the Lowrey's electronics made it easy to include a pitch-bend feature that is unavailable for the Hammond, and Hudson built a musical style around its use.
See also bellow patents: JP108664C, JP110068C, and JP111216C.
(granted 1934-11-28).
However, it seems difficult to achieve polyphony without intermodulation distortions with the technology of the 1930s. According to the additional patents
(granted 1935-03-26).
(granted 1935-06-19). and the reviews at that time, its later implemented design, seems to had shifted to a sound-colorization system using the (various) combinations of reed sets, microphones and loudspeakers.
See also: 1st CRODATONE (1959) photo, sound 1, sound 2
(1930s–)
On the other hand, the Hammond Novachord (1939) and other competitors selected the subtractive synthesis design using various combinations of , audio filter, and possibly frequency dividers, to reduce the huge number of oscillators, which was the bottleneck of the additive synthesis design. The heat generated by early models with vacuum tube tone generators and amplifiers led to the somewhat derogatory nickname "toaster". Today's solid-state instruments do not suffer from the problem, nor do they require the several minutes that vacuum tube organs need to bring the filament heaters up to temperature.
(1930s–)
Early electronic organ products released in the 1930s and 1940s were already implemented on frequency divider technology using vacuum tubes or transformer-dividers.
(1930s–)
Console organs, large and expensive electronic organ models, resemble pipe organ consoles. These instruments have a more traditional configuration, including full-range manuals, a wider variety of stops, and a two-octave (or occasionally even a full 32-note) pedalboard easily playable by both feet in standard toe-and-heel fashion. (Console organs having 32-note pedalboards are sometimes known as "concert organs".) Console models, like spinet and chord organs, have internal speakers mounted above the pedals. With their more traditional configuration, greater capabilities, and better performance compared to spinets, console organs are especially suitable for use in small churches, public performance, and even organ instruction. The home musician or student who first learned to play on a console model often found that he or she could later make the transition to a pipe organ in a church setting with relative ease. College music departments made console organs available as practice instruments for students, and church musicians would not uncommonly have them at home.
(1940s–)
During the period from the 1940s through approximately the 1970s, a variety of more modest self-contained electronic home organs from a variety of manufacturers were popular forms of home entertainment.
— guidebook for various electronic organs manufactured or imported in 1960s Japan
These instruments were much influenced by ' sounds and playing style, and often the stops contained imitative voicings such as "trumpet" and "marimba". In the 1950s–1970s, as technology progressed, they increasingly included automated features such as:
— an example of play with glide pedal on Lowrey Regency Organ.
See also: 1957 brochures of "Gulbransen Model B organ" on the page. )
— an example of play with ORLA Magic Chord (OMC) originated from Lowrey's Automatic Orchestral Control (AOC).
etc.)
etc.) and even built-in Cassette deck. These features made it easier to play complete, layered "one-man band" arrangements, especially for people who had not trained as organists. The Lowrey organ line of home organs is the epitome of this type of instrument.
''See also'':
are still sold today, , and many of their functions have been incorporated into more modern and inexpensive portable keyboards.
File:Wurlitzer Sideman drum machine (inside) front view.jpg|an earliest external drum machine, Wurlitzer Sideman (1957, inside) File:Rhythm selector on an electronic organ - DISCO ROCK (2010-01-16 13.57.24 by Kevin Simpson).jpg| built-in Rhythm selector File:Lowrey Magic Genie Organ - Bass, Lower, Magic Genie tongues.jpg|Automatic accompani-ment (bass & chord) on Lowrey Magic Genie File:Hammond Colonnade - manual 1.jpg|Arpeggiator buttons (in red, bottom-right) on Hammond Colonnade File:Go Ahead Girl, Putcha Diapason.jpg| built-in Leslie & Chorus controller File:Wurlitzer Model 4100 BW Rotating spectra tone speaker.jpg| built-in Leslie speaker on Wurlitzer 4100BW File:Wurlitzer 4022D Electronic Chord Organ - cassette recorder.jpg| built-in Cassette deck on Wurlitzer 4022D
On spinet organs, the keyboards are typically at least an octave shorter than is normal for organs, with the upper manual (typically 44 notes, F3–C7 in scientific pitch notation) omitting the bass, and the lower manual (typically F2–C6) omitting the treble. The manuals are usually offset, inviting but not requiring the new organist to dedicate the right hand to the upper manual and the left to the lower, rather than using both hands on a single manual. The stops on the upper manual were often 'voiced' somewhat louder or brighter, and user guides encouraged playing the melody on the upper manual and the harmony on the lower. This seemed designed in part to encourage the pianist, who was accustomed to a single keyboard, to make use of both manuals. Stops on such instruments, relatively limited in number, are frequently named after orchestral instruments that they can, at best, only roughly approximate, and are often brightly colored (even more so than those of ). The spinet organ's loudspeakers, unlike the original Hammond models of the 1930s and 1940s, are housed within the main instrument (behind the kickboard), which saved even more space, although they produce a sound inferior to that of free-standing speakers; some models had jacks for installing external speakers, if desired.
The spinet organ's pedal clavier normally spans only a single octave, is often incapable of playing more than one note at a time, and is effectively playable only with the left foot (and on some models only with the left toes). These limitations, combined with the shortened manuals, make the spinet organ all but useless for performing or practicing classical organ music; but at the same time, it allows the novice home organist to explore the challenge and flexibility of simultaneously playing three keyboards (two hands and one foot). User guides suggest playing the root note of the chord on the pedal. The expression pedal is located to the right and either partly or fully recessed within the kickboard, thus conveniently reachable only with the right foot. This arrangement spawned a style of casual organist who would naturally rest the right foot on the expression pedal the entire time, unlike classically trained organists or performers on the earlier Hammonds. This position, in turn, instinctively encouraged pumping of the expression pedal while playing, especially if already accustomed to using a piano's sustain pedal to shape the music. Expressive pumping added a strong dynamic element to home organ music that much classical literature and hymnody lacked, and would help influence a new generation of popular keyboard artists.
The original Hammond Chord Organs in 1950 are electronic instruments using vacuum-tube technology. In 1958 Magnus Organ Corporation introduced chord organs similar to an electrically blown reed organ or harmonium.
In 1957, a home organ manufacturer, Gulbransen, introduced the world's first transistor organ, Model B (Model 1100). Although it uses transistors for tone generation, vacuum tubes are still used for amplification.
And in 1958, Rodgers built the first fully solid-state transistorized organ for church, called Opus 1 (Model 38).
Other manufacturers followed.
In 1980, Rodgers introduced the first church organs controlled by , partially based on research at the University of Bradford. The university's "Bradford Computing Organ" has technological descendants in some European digital organs using synthesis technology today.
This style of instrument has also been popular with some classically trained concert organists preferring to avoid learning an unfamiliar pipe organ for every concert location, and wishing to perform in venues without pipe organs. Virgil Fox utilized a large Rodgers organ dubbed "Black Beauty" during his Heavy Organ tour during the early 1970s. From 1977 until his death in 1980, he used a custom Allen electronic organ. Carlo Curley toured with a substantial Allen Organ in the US and with an Allen in the UK. Organist Hector Olivera has toured with a custom Rodgers instrument named "The King," and Cameron Carpenter has recently begun touring with a custom 5-manual digital organ by Marshall & Ogletree.
Digital organs incorporate real-time tone generation based on sampling or synthesis technologies, and may include MIDI, and Internet connectivity for downloading music data and instructional materials to USB flash drive or media card storage. While much more complex than their predecessors, their basic appearance makes them instantly recognizable.
The best digital organs of the 2000s incorporate these technical features:
In 1990, Rodgers introduced software-based digital church organs with technology which connected multiple Digital Signal Processors (DSP) in parallel to generate pipe organ sound with stereo imaging. Sounds in other digital organs are derived from DSPs in either a sampled or synthesis type generation system. Sampled technologies use sounds recorded from various ranks of pipe organs. In synthesis systems, the wave shape is created by instead of using a sound sample. Both systems generate organ tones, sometimes in stereo in better systems, rather than simply playing recorded tones as a simple digital keyboard sampler might do. Marketed by Eminent BV, Wyvern, Copeman Hart, Cantor, and Van der Pole in Europe, synthesis organs may use circuitry purchased from Musicom Ltd, an English supply company. In the digital organ category, synthesis-based systems are rarely seen outside of Europe.
Many digital organs use high-quality samples to produce an accurate sound. Sampled systems may have samples of organ pipe sound for each individual note, or may use only one or a few samples which are then frequency-shifted to generate the equivalent of a 61-note pipe rank. Some digital organs like Walker Technical and the very costly Marshall & Ogletree organs use longer samples for additional realism, rather than having to repeat shorter samples in their generation of sound. Sampling in 2000s-era organs is typically done with 24-bit or 32-bit resolution, at a higher rate than the 44.1 kHz of CD-quality audio having 16-bit resolution.
Digital organs may also incorporate simulated models of swell boxes which mimic the environmental effects on pipes, pipe chest valve release, and other pipe organ characteristics. These effects can be included in the sound of modern digital organs to create more realistic pipe organ tone.
Digital pipe sound can include sampled or modeled room acoustics. Rodgers uses binaural and crosstalk cancellation processing to create real-time acoustic models, and Allen also uses room acoustics as part of the sound generation.
The data processing power of PCs has made personal organs more affordable. Software applications can store digital pipe and combine them in real time in response to input from one or more MIDI controllers. These tools can be used to assemble home-built organs that can rival the sound quality of commercially built digital organs at a relatively low cost. Images of Hauptwerk consoles, PCorgan.com; Hauptwerk's customer set-ups. For example, Canadian organ builder Artisan Classic Organ has a division called Classic Organ Works for supplying their parts to other builders and hobbyists. Many hobbyists build their own organs using PC software and additional hardware parts (e.g. manuals, pedal keyboard, touchscreen for stop control, studio quality monitors and subwoofer).
For hybrid organs that combine pipes and electronic sounds, pipes change their pitch with environmental changes, but electronic voices do not follow by default. The frequency of sound produced by an organ pipe depends on its geometry and the speed of sound in the air within it. These change slightly with temperature and humidity, so the pitch of an organ pipe will change slightly as the environment changes. The pitch of the electronic portion of a hybrid instrument must be re-tuned as needed. The simplest method is a manual control that the organist can adjust, but some recent digital models can make such adjustments automatically.
In contrast to frequency divider circuitry with only a few independent pitch sources, quality electronic church organs have at least one oscillator per note and often additional sets to create a superior ensemble effect. For instance, Rodgers Opus 1 featured eight sets of transistorized pitch generators. Even today, digital organs use software-based digital oscillators to create large numbers of independent pitch and tone sources to better simulate the effect of a large pipe organ.
Digital organs are a viable alternative for churches that may have a pipe organ and can no longer afford to maintain it. Some pipe organs, on the other hand, might be playable without major rebuilding for many decades. However the high initial cost, and longer lead time to design, build, and "voice" pipe organs has limited their production.
Most new digital church organs synthesize sounds from recorded pipe samples, although some model the pipe sound by additive synthesis. Modelling the sound is done by a professional organ "voicer", who finishes the organ in its location, much like the process of regulating and voicing a pipe organ. These organs also use high-quality custom-designed audio systems. The builders of both custom and factory digital church organs include the firms of Ahlborn-Galanti, Allen, Eminent BV, Johannus, Makin Organs, Rodgers, Viscount, and Wyvern Organs.
(1950s–)
By the 1960s, electronic organs were ubiquitous in all genres of popular music, from Lawrence Welk to acid rock (e.g. the Doors, Iron Butterfly) to the Bob Dylan album Blonde on Blonde. In some cases, Hammond organ were used, while others featured very small all-electronic instruments, only slightly larger than a modern digital keyboard, called . (Various portable organs made by Farfisa and Vox were especially popular, and remain so among retro-minded rock combos.) The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s saw increasing specialization: both the gospel music and jazz scenes continued to make heavy use of Hammonds, while various styles of rock music began to take advantage of increasingly complex electronic keyboard instruments, as large-scale integration and then Digital data technology began to enter the mainstream.
(1970s–)
An Eminent BV 310 organ was prominently featured on Jean Michel Jarre's albums Oxygène (1977) and Équinoxe (1978). The Solina String Ensemble was used extensively by pop, rock, jazz, and disco artists, including Herbie Hancock, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, The Carpenters, George Clinton, Eumir Deodato, The Rolling Stones, The Buggles, Rick James, George Harrison, and The Bee Gees.
(1971–)
Allen introduced the world's first digital organ (and first digital musical instrument commercial product) in 1971: the Allen Digital Computer Organ.
(1980s–)
Electronic organs are still made for the home market, but they have been largely replaced by the digital keyboard or synthesizer which is smaller and cheaper than typical electronic organs or traditional pianos. Modern digital organs offer features not found in traditional pipe organs, such as orchestral and percussion sounds, a choice of historical pitch standards and temperaments, and advanced console aids.
On most digital organs, several audio channels are used to create a more spacious sound. Higher-quality digital organ builders use custom audio and speaker systems and may provide from 8 to 32 or more independent channels of audio, depending on the size of the organ and the budget for the instrument. With dedicated high-power for the lowest frequencies, digital organs can approach the physical sensation of a pipe organ.
To better simulate pipe organs, some digital organs emulate changes of windchest pressure caused by the air pressure dropping slightly when many notes are sounding simultaneously, which changes the sound of all the pipes.
(1990s–)
A software organ system (Hauptwerk virtual organ)
In churches
Pipe-electronic hybrid organs (1930s–)
Early combinations of pipe organs and electronic technology (including the electronic tone generators, at later) were developed in the 1930s.
Electronic church organs (1939–)
The first full electronic church organ was built in 1939 by Jerome Markowitz, founder of the Allen Organ Company, who had worked for years to perfect the replication of pipe organ sound through the use of oscillator circuitry based on radio tubes. In 1958, Rodgers Organ Company built the first solid-state, transistorized church organ, its three-manual Opus 1.
Digital church organs (1971–)
Digital church organs are designed as pipe organ replacements or as digital organ console to play existing pipes. The differences in sound timbre between piped and digital instruments are debated, but modern digital organs are less expensive and more space efficient.
See also
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