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#1
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
These are both Craigslist freebies. (I also have a chance at a Wurly 4300, but I want more foot pedals and keys like on the 4500). The 4500 apparently functions properly, they just don't use it anymore at this church. The E200 works, but has some lost functionality (not sure the details). Which one would be "better" for playing Bach, a la E Power Biggs style? Thanks for any feedback.... |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
In article , Paul wrote:
These are both Craigslist freebies. (I also have a chance at a Wurly 4300, but I want more foot pedals and keys like on the 4500). The 4500 apparently functions properly, they just don't use it anymore at this church. The E200 works, but has some lost functionality (not sure the details). Okay, these are basically home organs, and home organs are pretty much a glut on the market because they were so severely oversold for so many years. For a long time, it seems like every family had one and now Aunt Margaret has died and nobody knows what to do with her organ. The E200 has drawbars which makes it look like a real Hammond. It's full of discrete stuff... I can't remember if the dividers are cmos or discrete. This is the "church version" of the E100 which means it's in a slightly nicer case. On all of these organs, more money went into the case than into the electronics really. The Wurlitzer 4300 is a little more primitive inside, all discrete and there was some germanium stuff in there too. It probably sounds more like a real Hammond, though, than any of the others. Because all of these organs were owned by little old ladies and kept in storage for years, expect vast amounts of deferred maintenance. Every switch and contact will need cleaning, every electrolytic (and there are LOTS of them) will need replacing. Guys buy them for ten bucks at yard sales and then find out that a tech will charge them a thousand dollars to clean it up and get it into reliable studio condition and they get angry. People will tell you they "work fine." They are lying, unless it has been recently rebuilt. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#3
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
On 4/18/2014 8:14 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Okay, these are basically home organs, and home organs are pretty much a glut on the market because they were so severely oversold for so many years. For a long time, it seems like every family had one and now Aunt Margaret has died and nobody knows what to do with her organ. The E200 has drawbars which makes it look like a real Hammond. It's full of discrete stuff... I can't remember if the dividers are cmos or discrete. This is the "church version" of the E100 which means it's in a slightly nicer case. On all of these organs, more money went into the case than into the electronics really. The Wurlitzer 4300 is a little more primitive inside, all discrete and there was some germanium stuff in there too. It probably sounds more like a real Hammond, though, than any of the others. Because all of these organs were owned by little old ladies and kept in storage for years, expect vast amounts of deferred maintenance. Every switch and contact will need cleaning, every electrolytic (and there are LOTS of them) will need replacing. Guys buy them for ten bucks at yard sales and then find out that a tech will charge them a thousand dollars to clean it up and get it into reliable studio condition and they get angry. People will tell you they "work fine." They are lying, unless it has been recently rebuilt. --scott Yes, that's true about the contacts needing to be cleaned, and all the electrolytics replaced. A guy on organforum.com mentions: "The E200 will need about 40 high voltage electrolytic caps to sound like new, (up to $3 each in some cases), the 4500 will need over 100 low voltage transistor caps with two at $4 and the rest about $.09 each." The only reason I'm considering picking one of these up is because I would be doing all the restoration electronics work myself, and I've had a life long love of the organ, and have never owned one before, and would love to have actual foot pedals to practice Bach organ pieces on, with the ultimate goal of being allowed to play a REAL pipe organ someday (or even being a PAID church organist? My sightreading needs work, but we can still dream, can't we? Haha! ) They pretty much agree on the organ forum that the 4500 will be a better approximation of German pipes for Bach. I suspect you may be right about the 4500 not being fully functional, but it didn't sound like the owner ever really played it. I'm supposed to try it out today....will keep you posted on what I find... |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
In article , Paul wrote:
These are both Craigslist freebies. (I also have a chance at a Wurly 4300, but I want more foot pedals and keys like on the 4500). The 4500 apparently functions properly, they just don't use it anymore at this church. The E200 works, but has some lost functionality (not sure the details). Which one would be "better" for playing Bach, a la E Power Biggs style? Thanks for any feedback.... Huh? A Hammond for Bach? A "Mighty Wurtilizer" (sic) for Bach? No, no, no, a thousand times now. Would you try to play Purcell's (Jeremiah Clarke's) Trumpet Voluntary on a Vuvuzela or a Kazoo? First of all, if you're going to play Bach, E. Power Biggs style, you might consider the actual instrument that Biggs chose to have built for the purpose. That is the Flentrop organ in the Busch-Reisinger museum at Harvard. Take a listen to Biggs playing Bach on the instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4pb_W_dSK8 These are sounds that you are not going to get out of a Hammond or a Wurlitzer, for the very simple reason that they weren't designed to do it. Here is a link to a description of the instrument, how it came to be, and a stoplist. http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/organ/organs.php I'll point out that it's a relatively small (27 ranks) instrument, with enough tonal resources to play other than Bach-era music. What it won't play are some of the 19th century French whoppers (Vidor, Franck) and later that required the (very different) tonal resources of Cavaille-Coll's instruments. Those require a solid reed pipes chorus (jeu des anches). There are electronic instruments far more suitable for learning your way around Bach, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, and the like. One that immediately comes to mind is Rodgers. Another is Allen. Now, by way of background: I was one of the "pick-up team" that Dirk Flentrop hired to erect the Busch-Reisinger organ in 1958. Listening to Flentrop, Biggs, Charlie Fisk (C.B. Fisk in Gloucester) Walter Holtkamp, and a bunch of others involved in the "Organ Renaissance" of the mid-20th century talk about organs was, shall we say, "educational." Later on, I did move to Oregon and worked for Tektronix, so had an opportunity to discuss what Rodgers Jenkins was trying to do with his instruments. When it comes to quality, Jenkins was ex-Tektronix, and probably a lot better prepared than others to build something really solid. I'm not so sure about Allen. I think if you want a good practise organ for the really classical organ literature you need a suitable instrument. Here's a used Rodgers that looks a lot more suitable: http://www.ebay.com/itm/REDUCED-Rodg...-/181379788474 Take a look at the stop list. Hank |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
On 4/18/2014 8:48 AM, Paul wrote:
On 4/18/2014 8:14 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote: Okay, these are basically home organs, and home organs are pretty much a glut on the market because they were so severely oversold for so many years. For a long time, it seems like every family had one and now Aunt Margaret has died and nobody knows what to do with her organ. The E200 has drawbars which makes it look like a real Hammond. It's full of discrete stuff... I can't remember if the dividers are cmos or discrete. This is the "church version" of the E100 which means it's in a slightly nicer case. On all of these organs, more money went into the case than into the electronics really. The Wurlitzer 4300 is a little more primitive inside, all discrete and there was some germanium stuff in there too. It probably sounds more like a real Hammond, though, than any of the others. Because all of these organs were owned by little old ladies and kept in storage for years, expect vast amounts of deferred maintenance. Every switch and contact will need cleaning, every electrolytic (and there are LOTS of them) will need replacing. Guys buy them for ten bucks at yard sales and then find out that a tech will charge them a thousand dollars to clean it up and get it into reliable studio condition and they get angry. People will tell you they "work fine." They are lying, unless it has been recently rebuilt. --scott Yes, that's true about the contacts needing to be cleaned, and all the electrolytics replaced. A guy on organforum.com mentions: "The E200 will need about 40 high voltage electrolytic caps to sound like new, (up to $3 each in some cases), the 4500 will need over 100 low voltage transistor caps with two at $4 and the rest about $.09 each." The only reason I'm considering picking one of these up is because I would be doing all the restoration electronics work myself, and I've had a life long love of the organ, and have never owned one before, and would love to have actual foot pedals to practice Bach organ pieces on, with the ultimate goal of being allowed to play a REAL pipe organ someday (or even being a PAID church organist? My sightreading needs work, but we can still dream, can't we? Haha! ) They pretty much agree on the organ forum that the 4500 will be a better approximation of German pipes for Bach. I suspect you may be right about the 4500 not being fully functional, but it didn't sound like the owner ever really played it. I'm supposed to try it out today....will keep you posted on what I find... Ok, I just checked the 4500 out. The E200 was already taken away. Unfortunately, I cannot honesty say that I liked the sound of the 4500 at all. I'm not sure this was because the electrolytic caps were dried out. All the keys worked except for one, but it just had that really chessy sounding casio-tone like sound, no matter which tabs I depressed. I shouldn't really try to compare it to my Korg X50, since that uses actual samples from real pipe organs, if I'm not mistaken. I know people convert these to MIDI, and then are able to trigger whatever sample they wish, but I'm sure that's a extremely large project I'm not sure I want to tackle at this point. It's tough, because the pastor said he'd be tossing it in the trash come next Saturday. It would be a shame, really. Maybe I'll pick it up for the $50-60 it will cost to move it, and just use it to practice foot pedal technique? Or do these organs always sound like **** when you first try them? Like maybe I need to spend more time with it, to figure out what I like? |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
On 4/18/2014 3:39 PM, Hank wrote:
Huh? A Hammond for Bach? A "Mighty Wurtilizer" (sic) for Bach? No, no, no, a thousand times now. Would you try to play Purcell's (Jeremiah Clarke's) Trumpet Voluntary on a Vuvuzela or a Kazoo? First of all, if you're going to play Bach, E. Power Biggs style, you might consider the actual instrument that Biggs chose to have built for the purpose. That is the Flentrop organ in the Busch-Reisinger museum at Harvard. Take a listen to Biggs playing Bach on the instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4pb_W_dSK8 These are sounds that you are not going to get out of a Hammond or a Wurlitzer, for the very simple reason that they weren't designed to do it. Here is a link to a description of the instrument, how it came to be, and a stoplist. http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/organ/organs.php I'll point out that it's a relatively small (27 ranks) instrument, with enough tonal resources to play other than Bach-era music. What it won't play are some of the 19th century French whoppers (Vidor, Franck) and later that required the (very different) tonal resources of Cavaille-Coll's instruments. Those require a solid reed pipes chorus (jeu des anches). There are electronic instruments far more suitable for learning your way around Bach, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, and the like. One that immediately comes to mind is Rodgers. Another is Allen. Now, by way of background: I was one of the "pick-up team" that Dirk Flentrop hired to erect the Busch-Reisinger organ in 1958. Listening to Flentrop, Biggs, Charlie Fisk (C.B. Fisk in Gloucester) Walter Holtkamp, and a bunch of others involved in the "Organ Renaissance" of the mid-20th century talk about organs was, shall we say, "educational." Later on, I did move to Oregon and worked for Tektronix, so had an opportunity to discuss what Rodgers Jenkins was trying to do with his instruments. When it comes to quality, Jenkins was ex-Tektronix, and probably a lot better prepared than others to build something really solid. I'm not so sure about Allen. I think if you want a good practise organ for the really classical organ literature you need a suitable instrument. Here's a used Rodgers that looks a lot more suitable: http://www.ebay.com/itm/REDUCED-Rodg...-/181379788474 Take a look at the stop list. Hank First off, that's a magnificent E Power Biggs link you posted, a recording I'm very familiar with, as I have the original vinyl record. I had no illusions a non-MIDI home organ was going to come anywhere close to the sound of these recordings...I just wanted something to practice on, so I could work towards the real thing. But as I stated in my other post, the 4500 sounded like absolute ****. I don't think this was because of dried out electrolytics. Some people convert these to MIDI, but then I might as well get the Rodgers you posted. I assume the sounds are sampled from real pipe organs on the Rogers? Are you able to load and trigger your own samples? |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
In article , Paul wrote:
Unfortunately, I cannot honesty say that I liked the sound of the 4500 at all. I'm not sure this was because the electrolytic caps were dried out. All the keys worked except for one, but it just had that really chessy sounding casio-tone like sound, no matter which tabs I depressed. Umm.... it's not a pipe organ. It's supposed to sound more like a Hammond than a pipe organ. "Cheesy Casio sound" to me indicates a tuning issue, since the most distinct thing I hear in the cheap Casio keyboards of the eighties is that the temperament is very odd. I shouldn't really try to compare it to my Korg X50, since that uses actual samples from real pipe organs, if I'm not mistaken. I know people convert these to MIDI, and then are able to trigger whatever sample they wish, but I'm sure that's a extremely large project I'm not sure I want to tackle at this point. That seems like a very silly thing to do, also. It's tough, because the pastor said he'd be tossing it in the trash come next Saturday. It would be a shame, really. Maybe I'll pick it up for the $50-60 it will cost to move it, and just use it to practice foot pedal technique? There are millions of these things out there. You can rescue one and learn to do board rework on it if you want. Or do these organs always sound like **** when you first try them? Like maybe I need to spend more time with it, to figure out what I like? They won't sound like a pipe organ, they aren't for that. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#8
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
On 4/18/2014 5:38 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
In article , Paul wrote: Unfortunately, I cannot honesty say that I liked the sound of the 4500 at all. I'm not sure this was because the electrolytic caps were dried out. All the keys worked except for one, but it just had that really chessy sounding casio-tone like sound, no matter which tabs I depressed. Umm.... it's not a pipe organ. It's supposed to sound more like a Hammond than a pipe organ. "Cheesy Casio sound" to me indicates a tuning issue, since the most distinct thing I hear in the cheap Casio keyboards of the eighties is that the temperament is very odd. I shouldn't really try to compare it to my Korg X50, since that uses actual samples from real pipe organs, if I'm not mistaken. I know people convert these to MIDI, and then are able to trigger whatever sample they wish, but I'm sure that's a extremely large project I'm not sure I want to tackle at this point. That seems like a very silly thing to do, also. It's tough, because the pastor said he'd be tossing it in the trash come next Saturday. It would be a shame, really. Maybe I'll pick it up for the $50-60 it will cost to move it, and just use it to practice foot pedal technique? There are millions of these things out there. You can rescue one and learn to do board rework on it if you want. Board rework I already know. It's foot pedal technique that I want to learn. Or do these organs always sound like **** when you first try them? Like maybe I need to spend more time with it, to figure out what I like? They won't sound like a pipe organ, they aren't for that. --scott Umm....that's obvious! I had no illusions it would sound like a real pipe organ. I just wanted something to practice foot technique on, that was reasonably decent sounding. But I couldn't even get it to sound like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zjed9Mywgk I believe the spectra tone speaker rotator was not working: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neQncrijvwQ Maybe I'll pick this up....if it doesn't work out, I'll pass it on to someone else, or chuck it. |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
In article , Paul wrote:
These are both Craigslist freebies. (I also have a chance at a Wurly 4300, but I want more foot pedals and keys like on the 4500). The 4500 apparently functions properly, they just don't use it anymore at this church. The E200 works, but has some lost functionality (not sure the details). Which one would be "better" for playing Bach, a la E Power Biggs style? Thanks for any feedback.... Either, add MIDI out to the key/pedals and run Hauptwerk on your PC or Mac. Sounds will be orders of magnitude better than either organs built in sound. You can even play 'Bach organs' by downloading the appropriate sample set. You can start free and spend more if you like the sound. ---john. |
#10
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
John Haskey wrote:
... add MIDI out to the key/pedals and run Hauptwerk .... Thank you! Kind regards Peter Larsen |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
On 4/17/2014 9:20 AM, Paul wrote:
These are both Craigslist freebies. (I also have a chance at a Wurly 4300, but I want more foot pedals and keys like on the 4500). The 4500 apparently functions properly, they just don't use it anymore at this church. The E200 works, but has some lost functionality (not sure the details). Which one would be "better" for playing Bach, a la E Power Biggs style? Thanks for any feedback.... Well, I picked up the 4500. $60 plus $5 tip to move it. It actually appears to work for the most part! I'm not even sure all the electrolytics need to be replaced. It sounds MUCH better now that I had some time to fiddle with the settings. Is there a way to save the user settings? (I will take photos of favorite settings for now) The Spectratone actually works. The rubber band is a bit loose, but it still rotates the speakers. I wish I had removed the front legs first, as the movers cracked the wood slightly, but they are still functional. Also, I wish I noticed what appear to be retractable handles on the back! The volume swell pedal was scratchy, but some Deoxit fixed that very well. One key on lower manual doesn't play, so will have to fix that. The reverb isn't the greatest, but it will do for now. Probably some type of spring reverb....apparently can be helped with new e-caps. Surprisingly, the slow cathedral rotation makes for a pretty useful voice. Yes, you can practice and play Bach on a Wurlitzer, but then again, you can play Bach on anything, even a Moog a la Wendy/Walter Carlos. Definitely worth picking up for $65 if you have never had an organ before, and want to practice foot pedal technique... |
#12
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
On 4/27/2014 10:30 AM, Peter Larsen wrote:
John Haskey wrote: ... add MIDI out to the key/pedals and run Hauptwerk .... Thank you! Actually, I've tried Hauptwerk, and didn't like the sound of it. I've even heard REAL pipe organs on official releases that sounded bad to me. Sometimes too flatulent of a bass sound, or really cheesy and cheap sounding voices. |
#13
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
On 4/27/2014 12:51 PM, Paul wrote:
On 4/27/2014 10:30 AM, Peter Larsen wrote: John Haskey wrote: ... add MIDI out to the key/pedals and run Hauptwerk .... Thank you! Actually, I've tried Hauptwerk, and didn't like the sound of it. I've even heard REAL pipe organs on official releases that sounded bad to me. Sometimes too flatulent of a bass sound, or really cheesy and cheap sounding voices. Although this guy's setup sounds good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWprXxnmrYM He could have gotten better sound with a direct lineout from the computer, but even with the cam mics, it's pretty good. Maybe I'll MIDI the pedalboard in the future.... |
#14
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Wurlitzer 4500 organ or Hammond E200??
In article , Paul wrote:
Actually, I've tried Hauptwerk, and didn't like the sound of it. With the dozens of sample sets that are available surely you could have found something you liked! Or maybe you just don't like pipe organs... :-) The 'advanced' edition offers additional voicing control as well. ---john. |
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