Curious if anyone out there still has or is using the Baldwin 5a or 10a. An organist colleague once remarked that they produced "a pleasant electronic fuzz!" I played one in a church with the triple amplification system (vacuum tube of course) through the BIG Baldwin tone cabinets. It also had the Chora-tone projector installed. Sound wasn't too bad for the time, but lack of any mutations in the specification and those variable resistance keyswitches made playing with any normal technique a real challenge. Any experiences to share?
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I've played both models, but a long time ago. If I found myself playing regularly for a church that still had either one, I'd be pushing for an upgrade -- with things being as they are, a church could pick up a much newer and better organ for very little money if someone just keeps an eye open.
Pleasant electronic fuzz was better than nothing 50 years ago, but we've come a LONG way since then. It's a good thing modern organs have gone far beyond those things. In the right hands, today's best digitals can produce an awesome sound in a church and ought to be leading music as well as good pipe organs were it not for the unfortunate trends toward pop music in so many churches.
You have to give Baldwin credit for various contraptions that helped make their organs sound a little juicier -- the Choratone you mention, as well as the Tone Expander apparatus that made a single-generator model sound like it had more, the Panoramic Tone system (dual reverbs), and some pretty innovative audio, such as the 15-channel setups with the cardboard pipes.
Sitting down to an old 50's analog now and then helps one appreciate just how much more we have today, but should also inspire some appreciation for those who engineered and built some interesting instruments without digital technology, creating ranks and stops almost as laboriously as pipe builders.John
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I sure remember playing on a Baldwin Model 5 for several years. I enjoyed it for what it was back then which was in the mid to late 70's. That old organ then was 30 years old. The one I played had a very low serial number, and had come to the market in 1946. Yes there were a few others such as a Wurlitzer ES organ that sounded better to me than the fuzz, buzzy Baldwin. I only noticed the fuzz more so in the swell manual. Many of the Wurlitzer ES organs seem to need a tech more often than other brands of organs. Someone described the sound as being quite the same on all the stops with the only variation being in pitch levels. Well the same can be said about the Hammond. It was just pure flute with the only variation being in pitch.
However those spinet Baldwin Orga Sonics sounded just horrible to me since I had grown up on Hammond. Now I am very tired of the old line drawbar Hammond. I have described those Orga Sonics sounding like a kid blowing into a kazoo. They were very fuzzy, buzzy, and pooh pooh pooh, clarinety, etc. sounding. I have one of the last of the spinet Orga Sonics currently and I must admit it does not have the sound of those earlier Orga Sonics. My Baldwin 48C church organ is even a cut above many of the earlier Baldwin models without the buzzy, fuzzy, etc type of sound.
It is amazing at how well many of those early analog organs were built like tanks. The organs I prefer for my type of playing which is church music are the Wurlitzer ES organs, early Conn tube organs, and the Gulbransen organs.
Yes it is sad to see so many of the churches using pop bands, praise bands, etc. today in the churches. Such as this has replaced even the good old Southern gospel music, and the traditional hymns found in many main line churches. I know of one big church that sings only part of a song often leaving out the chorus if stanzas are repeated. Of coarse they use no hymnals, but the words are flashed on a screen. I often wonder where did all those days go since I was younger. I realize just how many changes have been made, and often wonder what will be next in the churches. I know of a good number of instances where the organ has been pushed out for these praise bands, and an electric piano is used instead of a good sounding piano. That is how I got my Baldwin church organ since a church let it go for the praise band.
JamesBaldwin Church Organ Model 48C
Baldwin Spinet 58R
Lowrey Spinet SCL
Wurlitzer 4100A
Crown Pump Organ by Geo. P. Bent, Chicago, Illinois
Organs I hope to obtain in the future:
Conn Tube Minuet or Caprice even a transistor Caprice with the color coded tabs
Gulbransen H3 or G3, or V.
Wurlitzer 44, 4410, 4420, ES Reed Models, 4300, 4500, Transistor Models
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