can anyone identify this organ ?

[pipe64']

i wish it were a better shot but this is all i have
</p>

this is the organ in the church i grew up in and always thought it had a beautiful sound </p>

i'm guessing it's from the 60s or older </p>

when i was a kid, i asked the organist about the pipes and she told me that they didn't work anymore but maybe some of the smaller ones still did but she didn't sound very sure. i'm guessing it's 100% electronic </p>

the church is St. Hedwigs roman catholic church in Trenton, NJ</p>

i still have the Christmas LP that the church recorded with organ and mens choir that they put out back in the 60s
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[Dave S.]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?

The console is definitely Conn, model 830 maybe; I owned one awhile ago. There's some Conn electronic pipes in the background of that first pic, they're just tubes with speakers underneath them.Those are probably the smaller pipes she was referring to. I liked my 830 for what it was, but it didn't hold a candle to a real pipe organ; of course, mine having been in a much smaller acoustic that would be expected.

[pipe64']

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?



thank you. do you know what year the Conn 830 came out ?</p>

i'm guessing there had to be more speakers somewhere because the organ had a very strong presence in a farley large gothic church</p>

how much would an organ like that have cost at the time ?</p>

</p>

thanks
</p>

[Dave S.]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?



I'm pretty sure I was told those were made thru the 1970's, i'm sure someone else on the board would know a better approximation though. I don't remember what the wattage ratings were on the amps, but mine had four huge cabinets that were 2 channels apiece, 255 and 256 cabinets. Two each had a 15" woofer and a 10" full range Leslie for the flutes, and the other two had 10" and 12" drivers for the reeds and the Diapason/String channel. Mine also had a full complement of the Connpipes wired in with the diapasons and strings. I once turned the ampsall up just to see how much volume I could get, and it was downright deafening in the little 12'x12' apartment bedroom I had it in. I'm sure your church would have had a bunch of those 255 and 256 cabinets stashed behind those pipe facades.</P>


The Conn I had actually had a little history behind it. The guy who was the voice of Howdy Doody, "Buffalo" Bob Schmidt himself bought it for his church which is in Pompano Beach. In the 1990's it was replaced, and the dealer that I was working for got ahold of it thru a warehouse cleanout. One of the guys who worked in the electronic shop remembered installing that organ when it was new, and (if memory serves here) he said it cost nearly $25,000 back then; it had many more connpipes, speakers and amps than that which I wound up with. I may be wrong on that price, trying to recall a conversation that happened over 10 years ago, things get a little hazy. If you're looking for one, they can usually be had for cheap nowadays, although those connpipes still seem to fetch a good dollar. Isold off my connpipes and one set of 255/256 speakers when Ihad to downsize into a tiny apartment. The organ and it's last set of speakers wentto a country Baptist church a few years ago when I needed to get my pipe organ into the house, I literally donated it because Icouldn't seem to sell it to anyone. </P>

[pipe64']

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?



thanks again for the info</p>

i see you can't attach mp3's here so i'll try and use one of those file hosting sites</p>

this is a sample off the Christmas LP from our church. does it sound like the Conn to you ?</p>

http://www.sendspace.com/file/nm4ako
</p>

[Dave S.]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?

It certainly does, but it really comes to life in that large building. I don't think I heardtoo muchof the "main" channel voices in use, it sounded a lot like the flutes on the choir manual, maybe with the string celeste added in; the swell had a string and celeste too (same flute voices also), but ithad a lot more 'sizzle' to it.The Conn flutes always sounded to me like they were fashioned after large scales, almost Tibia-esque; although the III flute Mixture on the swell manual never was appealing, between the unit flute's voicing and the tierce pitch they put in it! It could really getridiculous when i'd turn the flute channel Leslies on full speed with that crazy mixture going. But again, mine was in a tiny room. It's amazing what a good acoustic will do for an organ, especially one like this which doesn't have a whole lot of adjustments for voicing. Do you know if they still have it?

[pipe64']

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?

wow, thank you so much for the info

i'll never forget the first time i went to midnight mass when i was about 9 and the thing that stands out in my memory the most was the organ and how it could fill the whole church with such powerful sound even with almost 2000 people singing silent night, the organ just effortlessly laid the foundation and got even louder when needed

[circa1949]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?



Interesting for an apparently large church in a fairly wealthy state to have such an old electronic organ.</p>

But this raises an interesting point: we dodder on here about the subtle differences between, oh, I dunno, Rodgers late analog and Rodgers early digital, Allen MOS, ADC, MDS, and Quantum, etc. etc. To a lot of people all organs whether electronic or pipe, old or new technology, just sound the same. And they sound good. Especially in the right acoustic setting.
</p>

I remember being at a church service when I was quite young, a few years before I switched from piano to organ. The church my family attended at the time had a modest Allen analog TC3 but it sounded pretty good to my ears. I did know by this point that it was electronic. i remember a man sitting in front of me and whispering to his daughter during the prelude, "you see the sections of the wall on either side of the pulpit? That is where the pipes are."</p>

</p>

[pipe64']

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?



i haven't heard the organ since Christmas Eve 2002 and it sounded just as it did in the mid 70s and 80s
</p>

i would love to see them get a real pipe organ but i don't see anyplace they could put the pipes</p>

what are those really high notes i hear on the file i posted. is that the flutes ? they almost sounds like a really high pitch whistle type sound which i kinda like by the way :)</p>

oh, sorry dave, i missed your question "do they still have it"</p>

i would assume yes, i checked the church website and that 2nd pic is from 2008
</p>

[Dave S.]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?

Could very well be the 2' unit Flute whistling away, it appeared on the swell and choir manuals. Mine always seemed to have strange harmonic resonances on certain notes in the treble range, maybe this one does it too.

[Dave S.]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?

[quote user="circa1949"]


Interesting for an apparently large church in a fairly wealthy state to have such an old electronic organ.</P>


[/quote]</P>


This seems to be the case in more than just this church; I married into a Catholic family, and since then i've stepped foot into quite a few churches ofCatholic denomination that still use an old electronic like this one. Except in one case, all of the buildings had a very vibrant acoustic and seemed to have therightamplification. The church where my grandmother-in-law's funeral was at had this old electrostatic Wurlitzer, and even it was quite passable in the nice room it had. </P>


The exception was actually a few years before I married, andstill lived outside of Buffalo.The ex andIwent to mass in a large church in Depew, so large that they had extended their original sanctuary to nearly twice it's length, from the old chancel location on out. Looking back down the original concourse of the church, I saw organ chambers in the gallery, but the first notes the organist hit really disappointed me.....it was aHammond in that big place, and anemic-sounding to boot. Turned out it was anX-77, with one meager tone cabinet, and the same drawbar reg that had probably been on it for years. I did a little digging around, and found out they had a Casavant once, but some priest didn't want the maintenance bill so he had it removed and picked upthe second-hand Hammond. No one sang in that church, except the few choir members that showed up. </P>

[pipe64']

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?



[quote user="Dave S."] Do you know if they still have it?[/quote]</p>

well i just got back from midnight mass and it sounds like the old Conn 830 is still in action</p>

sounds just as good and powerful as i remember it as a kid in the early to mid 70s </p>

they must keep it well maintained
</p>

[Tony Pipe Milwaukee]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?



It looks like you got two different organs going there. On either side of the window there are the remains of the facade pipes of an older pipe organ, most likely installed soon after the church was built. I'm guessing around the 1890 to 1910. Apparently the old organ died, or they didn't want to fix it, so it was replaced with a Conn organ with the speaker pipes put in the middle under the window. So the organist was right, the small pipes (Conn) did work but the other big pipes (old pipe organ) didn't work. Most likely the old pipe organ console was in the center under the window and it was removed to make way for the new Conn "pipe" organ in the 1950s.</P>


I'm glad to see those old Conn speaker pipes still in use. I got some from a church that didn't want them anymore. They replaced their Conn organ with a electronic keyboard. I hooked the Conn pipes up to my Allen organ, and it sounds wonderful! I only wish I had a few more sets of pipes to fill my whole house.</P>


Merry Christmas</P>

[dstory]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?

Its quite possible this is/was one of the Conn/Tellers combination that Conn sold around this time frame. The console used was made by Conn and mostly based on their Classic series console and used a lot of the Conn utility speakers and pipe speakers but also used a bunch of Tellers pipe organ ranks as well. I think they usually had about 6 ranks of the Tellers minimum but probably could be had with as many as the buyer wanted and could afford. They originally came out in the late 60s IIRC and may have been made as late as the early 80s. The Super Classic was a 3 manual version intro'd in 1980.

[OrgansR4Me]

Re: can anyone identify this organ ?



I'm wondering if the Dealer might have been the Mifflin Company on State Street because in 1958 they supplied a Baldwin for our small Jersey Shore church. Since my mom was making the change from piano to organ they graciously supplied some free music books among which were several Conn Organ books so I assumed they were representatives for Conn as well. (My dad, the minister, was a Baldwin loyalist, and their literature at the time boasted that they had therare purely electronic tone generation --- a technical feat that supposedly was a marketing advantage and made their customers feel they had selected the best available choice.)</P>


I didn't really become acquainted with a Conn until I received a free 720 from a ministry that couldn't use it in the late 90's and I've owned 4 since. As noted the installation and room acoustics can give casual listeners a pipe like experience because that has been the goal of the electronic organ companies from the very beginning. It wasn't until the "electronic" sound of the moog synthesizer becameacceptedthat electronic instruments turned toward more authentic band sounds. Andy G has written much about the advancement of true sting and piano tones and how home instruments turned toward synth technology.</P>


But back to the subject, the classic was indeed ahead of its time in producing fine worship music! Thanks for sharing the information on this old beauty.</P>