Conn Model 830-- A Classical (?) organ?

[EricS]

I have an opportunity to purchase a Conn Model 830. I have not yet seen the instrument, but looking at the specs and voice listing, it appears this is much closer to a classical electrical/electronic organ than, say the 650 series, which is the essence of theatre.</P>


Does anyone know anything about the 830... quality, reliability, etc?</P>


I have gone onto Google and found lots of helpful information about several Conn organ series, but not the 830. Help!!</P>

[myorgan]

Re: Conn Model 830-- A Classical (?) organ?



Quite correct you are. This is Conn's attempt at a serious classical instrument. Unfortunately for them, they came out with this model at about the time Allen released its first digital instruments in the 1970s, so I don't believe there was much of a market for the older technology from a company who hadn't been seriously involved in the classical organ market previously. At that time, Saville, Rodgers, and Allen (and probably some others) were the major classical organ manufacurers in the US.</P>


The only reason I know this information is because I obtained the brochures as a high school student and dreamed of owning one, writing down possible combinations I'd use in church. I did the same with the Allen organs once I became acquainted with them. In fact, Istill have some of the original Allen brochures with prices on them forsome of the earlier MOS instruments. I've thought about scanning them for this website, but it would violate copyright.</P>


There is a Conn available either on eBay or CraigsList. The speaker pipes (not real pipes as in pipe organ pipes) are quite popular for many organists--both aesthetically and sound-wise. The one I referred to for sale, I believe has 4 or 5 sets of speaker pipes.</P>


Good luck in your quest. Meanwhile, I'll look for the brochure I had of the 830, but I think I lost it years ago. Sorry! [:(]</P>


Michael</P>

[jbird604]

Re: Conn Model 830-- A Classical (?) organ?



Wow! Micheal, you and I were probably both drooling over organ brochures at the same time! I too collected a lot of them at one time, including many for the Rodgers and Allen organs that were on the market in the 1970's. Wish I still had them.</P>


The Conn 830 was in production at the time I was working for a Conn dealer, back in the late 70's, in Fort Worth. I was a 25-year-old seminary student and had only discovered the wonders of the organ a few years earlier. When I went to work for this Conn dealer, he indulged my desire to sell some large classical organs, and ordered in an 830. It was fully decked out with the elaborate setterboard combination action and any other options available at the time. It had the 255/256 set of speaker cabinets plus a couple of sets of "pipes" attached. There were a total offour audio channels, I believe.</P>


Though it has been almost 30 years since I heard that organ, I think I'd still be pleased with the sound. It had those enchanting Conn flutes, unified though they were, playing through both the rotating speaker of the Conn system and through a set of pipes, giving a glorious lively sound with the extra sparkle imparted by the pipes.</P>


I remember that it had a nice principal chorus (again, unified) all the way up to a couple of different mixtures. The principals, like the flutes, were keyed by banks of diode gates, giving each note the right amount of attack and decay. Chiff was available on the flutes as well as sustain.</P>


By then, Conn had finally quit using those awful vinyl-conductive keying rods for the reeds and strings, and these voices were remarkably good for unsophisticated analog formant filtering. They were keying on metal rods, but you could actually still effect a bit of slow attack by playing rather gently.</P>


This model was one of the few that Conn ever built that had couplers that truly worked like normal couplers. All the stops of a given division -- not just the 8' stops -- could couple to other divisions. This model also had a fully independent celeste generator, tunable note by note, as opposed to the cheaper top octave/divider celestes on lower cost models.</P>


Of course, Conn was, as Michael notes, just a little too late with this one. Allen had turned the organ world upside down with digitals, and Rodgers was developing their advanced microprocessor controlled systems that far outstripped the simple Conn technology. But this was a nice organ, and I'd love to see and play one again, just for old time's sake. </P>


I'd think one of these, if in good operating condition, would make a nice practice organ or a good starter organ in a church.</P>


John</P>
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[m&m's]

Re: Conn Model 830-- A Classical (?) organ?



I played one of those 830's in a medium size building in the late 1970's, and remember it as being quite impressive, far more so than Allen's first digitals. That was about the time Baldwin came out with the IC organs, and again they sounded better than the Allen's.</p>

I grew up on Conn organs, and have owned several over the years. To this day, I admire the Conn flutes, and the diapasons, on those series that keyed them separately from the reeds and strings, were also nice.</p>

[Dave S.]

Re: Conn Model 830-- A Classical (?) organ?



I had a Conn 830 for 6 years, it was the type 3 with the setterboard combo action. I wish I could have heard it in a larger room, it wasn't really spectacular in my tiny 10x10 apartment music room. The 255 and 256 speaker cabinets are HUGE, and very ample. Overall, it'll have that warm analog sound, the nice split-channel Vox Humana and keen strings on the Swell. TheChoir manual uses the same voices as the Swell, just unitizeddifferently, although it does feature a nice Clarinet stop and a slightly quieter string and celeste. The neighbors got a kick out of seeing their walls shake--there were two brothers that lived upstairs, and they'd bang on the floor if they wanted me to play it louder!! Mine may have been an older one, it did still have those aggravating vinyl contact rods, but they were easily replaced with gold rods after I got sick of applying bussbar lube every year. It was a pretty dependable organ after the newcontact rods, although every now and then one of thediodes on the combo action power supply would go south and there'd be an audible buzz when using a piston.Also, the pedal note actuators tend to break off from their mounts if they've been heavily used, as mine were; these can be labor-intensive to replace. Don't let this turn you off from it though, my 830 had a lotta miles on it after 30 years in a Lutheran church.</P>


There were a few quirkythings in playing it thatI remember: The Swell to Great coupler--it didn't couple the mains down at full volume,but it did theflutes. The tech manual even made a point to state that this was normal, butto me it seemed counter-productive to a full organ chorus. The choir manual had no inter-manual couplers at all. The great IV fourniture wasn't really four ranks unless you had the 2' Super Octave tab on, and it's volume would taper way off in the upper octaves, to where it was almost inaudible. However, the III Mixture on the Swell (which was derived from the unit flute) wasvery prominent throughout the full compass. Also,like most other Conns, the built in reverb didn't affect the flutes. </P>


If it weren't for my pipe organ project i'd still have it, but there was a Baptist church that was in need, sooff it went to make room. </P>