T 12B levels...

[Nullifier]

I just realized that the great division is softer than the swell on my Allen. Is this by design or is there some way to adjust the levels? There is a tab that says "Great Softer" and it will drop the level even more.

Al

[PianOrgan]

If it is like our T-15B at our church, the entire Great and Pedal divisions get their sound from the Flute tone generator. On ours, about 5 stops in the Swell division have added strength through the "Reed" or "Diapason" tone generator. Also keep in mind that during that period, Allen liked to use "compound" stops, meaning that one stop had borrowed partials from others. For example, the Clarinet on the T-15B is made up of Flute tones at 8', 4', 2 2/3', and 1 3/5' pitch levels.

PO

[Nullifier]

I thought..

all the tone came from the flute generator. That's why this puzzles me.

[toasterDude]

{I thought} all the tone came from the flute generator.

You're right. There's no independent Reed or Diapason generator on a T12 or a T15. Instead, Allen did what they called a reed "trunk" off of the flute generator. This was essentially a separate channel that took the flute tones and clipped them with a diode (they called the circuit a "tone changer.") This then formed the more complex waveforms of the reed/diapason voices. But since they're piggybacked on the flutes, the whole setup is very limited. I found on my T15 that I would run out of voices very quickly - i.e., after a certain point, adding additional stops would make no difference in the sound. This is because those tones were already being called up by other stops.

This is why models like the TC-4 and higher are so far superior to the lower models. On the TC-4, you had fully independent Flute, Diapason, Reed, and Celeste generators.

[Nullifier]

Yeah! Running out of voices is the word!! After being used to the TC 6 the T12B is one dimensional. But it is stil nice to have something to practice on!