Reverb for Allen MOS-1 Organs

[praestant]

Hallo, what Reverb (Alesis, Lexicon, Roland,others....) sound good (the best Reverb?) in a Allen Organ MOS-1 ?

Chris

[bbierbaum]

Hello Chris,

I have an Alesis Nanoverb connected to my 301-c and it improves the sound greatly. The organ is actually fun to play now!

Bryan

[Hamman]

Alesis Nano Verb!

[jbird604]

I have used Alesis MIDIVerb4 and MicroVerb4 units, even in church installations. They make an old MOS sound much better. The NanoVerb probably is just as good.

[samzer]

Can the Nano Verb 2 be used for effects other than reverb? For instance I've looked at the photos on the Sweetwater site. There are many settings available--like "Chorus", "Rotary", etc. Does anyone have experience with using these settings to alter an organ voice? For instance could a celeste be simulated? Or, in the case of the Galanti PII, can the voix celeste be tamed?

[Tony Pipe Milwaukee]

I think at one time Allen made a reverb box for their early organs. I saw a picture of it once. It was a speaker in a wood box on the floor pointing up. Above the speaker box there was a wood rectangle prism box about 8 feet tall. It sort of looked like one wooden pipe standing on the box, but the pipe didn't have a mouth nor did it have a foot. I believe there was some kind of spring suspended in the box. The top of the box was open.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

If there is such a thing, could someone make one? I absolutely :emotion-25: LOVE :emotion-25: my Conn pipe speakers. I was thinking of trying to make a wood set of speakers out of some old wood pipes and see what it sounds like. I think this Allen reverb box is along the same line of item.

Tony

[jbird604]

Could this be it?

http://www.--------/itm/REDUCED-Alle...item2a4b418ab9

Although the model may in fact be "TSR-5-S" instead of what's listed here. This was a tall spring reverb unit used in early MOS days. The output of this device went into an amp and a dedicated reverb speaker system. No doubt this was as good as spring reverb got, before digital reverb came along.

[Tony Pipe Milwaukee]

Could this be it?

http://www.--------/itm/REDUCED-Alle...item2a4b418ab9

Yes, that's it. It would be interesting to find one of those some day.

Tony

[jbird604]

Tony,

I'm in the process of updating a set of Conn pipe speakers. I've been trying out different drivers under the pipes, and I'm about to settle on a set similar to what Allen has in the PP series speakers. If it turns out good, this will become the speakers for my home organ (along with some woofers in a separate box).

I too have thought about building my own using some wooden organ pipes. Lacking real wooden pipes to cut up, I believe I could construct some plain four-sided pipes from thin pieces of wood you can buy at Lowe's and cut them to length using the Conn pipes as a guide to length. The Conn people sure got the "look" right. The curve of the pipes really reminds you of a real rank of pipes, so I'd want to make mine taper in a similar way. I don't think I'd make the holes so small though on the short pipes, as the tiny holes really choke the speaker's output on that end.

[myorgan]

I don't think I'd make the holes so small though on the short pipes, as the tiny holes really choke the speaker's output on that end.

John,

Doesn't the sound come from the top of the pipes? I thought the "mouth" was just there to help define the length. The shortest pipes IIRC don't even have a mouth, so the sound must come from the top of them.

I've been following this thread because I've been considering some Nanoverbs or something similar for the MOS-2. Thanks for all the great information.

Tony, I think the spring reverb tower on eBay is for sale, if you're really interested. Just a thought.

Michael

[jbird604]

Yes, to clarify, the sound comes out the ends of the pipes only in the smaller Conn pipe units. In the large ones, there is a "mouth" cut near the bottom that lets some sound out at that end too. But on my unit the longest pipes are less than 2' long and they don't have any mouths at all, the sound just exits the ends of the pipes.

My mention of the choking of the sound refers to the quite small amount of sound that can get out of the very small pipes at the treble end. Those little pipes are well under 1/2" diameter on the inside, and there aren't a great many of them. So the speaker underneath that end of the pipes is trying to force its sound out through a very restricted amount of space. This results in a somewhat lower efficiency of these speakers than standard organ speakers. See my discussion of this in the thread about my home organ, where I also posted some pics of the Conn pipe unit that I'm remodeling.

http://www.organforum.com/forums/sho...rising-source)

(Go down to post #15 to see the pics of the Conn pipes. Note the very restricted outlet for the speaker at the treble end of the pipes.)

[Tony Pipe Milwaukee]

I have four sets of Conn speaker pipes; two small and two large sets. One thing that I love about these speakers is that there is some sort of reverb effect. The air in the chamber and the metal pipes still vibrate after you lift your finger off of the key. In my organ room, I have the Conn speaker pipes surrounded by real (but non-operating) organ pipes, including a rank of 8' diapasons. I believe the metal of these pipes and the air inside of them sympathetically vibrate with the Conn speaker pipes and makes the sound sound better. Perhaps it's all in my imagination. At least the Conn speaker pipes look great surrounded by the real organ pipes.

Tony

[davidecasteel]

Is the situation for connecting external reverb units the same for MOS-1 and MOS-2 organs?

David

[Admin]

Is the situation for connecting external reverb units the same for MOS-1 and MOS-2 organs?

David

It depends on the MOS 2 model. The larger ones have output line amps which eliminate the impedance mismatch problems encountered with typical MOS 1 outputs.

[jbird604]

David,

Your 305 will be a standard MOS audio system without the line amps, so you will have to use isolating resistors to preserve the expression function. Harrison Labs can sell you a little pair of ready-made devices to insert into the line between the reverb unit and the Allen amps which will take care of the problem. I haven't used these but I have used a home-made (ugly) version of my own. Without these little jewels or something like them, you will have no expression and you may also overload the inputs of the Allen amps, which are designed to receive the very low-level signals coming from the DAC board, not the line-level output of a reverb unit.

http://harrisonorganworks.com/index.htm