The Wurlitzer organ that was at the Odeon Cinema, Leeds.

[liits]

jonleeds wrote: I bet there arent many places that still have their own electric organ like all the clubs used to have.     I've got a couple.A Wyvern church organ. Great for annoying the neighbours.A Hammond, which was replaced by....a Technicsand last but not least....the Wurlitzer!    I must add that I don't have a musical bone in my body and that the damn things belong to my other half.

[jonleeds]

Ha ha ha! That made me chuckle Liits! As I was reading your message and looking at your photos of the organs I was thinking, bloody hell this guy is a bit of an electric organ anorak, then I read you'd written "...I dont have a musical bone in my body... the damn things belong to my other half"!I can recall when I was a child one of my uncles had a big old Yamaha electric organ that we used to go plonk on the keys when visiting on Sunday afternoons. I remember when I was a small child in the 1970s the only organs you could get for kiddies to play on were those Bontempi electric fan driven reed wind type organs that sucked air in and when you pressed the keys they made a dreadful wailing sound... Electronic keyboards such as those made by Casio / Yamaha etc didnt come around until the early 1980s I think. One of my friends had an early Casio keyboard that let you sample sounds via a built in microphone and then let you play that sampled sound at different pitches according to the notes on the keyboard. We'd find it hilarious to sample someone burping and then we'd be playing versions of all those great tunes you learn to play when learning music - Michael Row the Boat Ashore / When the Saints Come Marching In etc but instead of reverential church organ sounds it would be some revolting belching symphony...! Heh heh heh! Then we found we could use an electric guitar cable to connect said organ to the P.A system in the school hall! So this dreadful 'wind-music' was blaring out at many decibels for all the school to hear until the geography teacher Mr England caught us... I dont know, the things you find entertaining as a kid...

[liits]

Well, I’m certainly an anorak, just not for electric organs. I hate the damn things. I can’t think of anything better designed to gather dust or have toes stubbed against than an organ [or piano].You said about seeing lots of them thrown out. The usual reason being either that hateful “Live, from Norwich, its Sale of the Century!” type sound or else, the lack of said sound which is made by a rotating Leslie speaker and which is apt to go wrong if they get a bit of rough handling. Well, I’ve tried rough handling the Wurlitzer and the Hammond and they still seem to work just fine. The Technics is just a fancy electric keyboard in an overlarge cabinet although it can make “that” sound if desired.The Wyvern although masquerading as an organ is actually a synthesiser whose sound is sampled from real pipe organs from around the word [when set up to play like the Lincoln Cathedral organ, it even plays the two bum notes, Aflat & Bflat in the third octave, on the top register – whatever that means]. Adding other samples like burps and farts is always good for a laugh. Bach’s Toccata & Fugue works especially well with either.