Baldwin Model 48c

[quantum]

Can anyone tell me more about the Baldwin 48c. There is a local ad for one. A stop list perhaps?

I am mainly a pianist, but would like to learn organ in hopes of maybe accompanying for church one day. I do have a GEM F30 spinet, but I can't learn much classical music on it due it's lack of sufficient keys.

[back52887]

Re: Baldwin Model 48c



You should have a self contained, 32 note pedal organ with full sized manuals there. I'm sure it will be worth looking at, and that it will have a traditionaly named stop list. The voicing technology will have improved from the tube based grandparents, the 44 and 45.(1950s) The 46 looked better than it sounded, but later models than that I have not seen enough of to say more. Come back and visit when youhave seenit.</P>


Lee</P>

[MarkS]

Re: Baldwin Model 48c

Caution: the pedalboard is not AGO, although there are 32 pedals. That makes it pretty much useless as a practice organ for classical music.

I cannot remember the exact stoplist (I played one from 1973-1975) except that there were six reeds: a 4' Schalmei in the pedals, four 8' reeds in the swell, plus an 8' Trumpet on the Great.

As for tone, everything was derived from one twelve-note generator and the key contacts were the variable type. A Conn spinet had better tone.

My memories of the organ aren't all that fond. I wouldn't take one if it were given to me, although it might be acceptable for occasional use in a chapel.

[back52887]

Re: Baldwin Model 48c



Mark, RU sure you're talking about a 48C? You have given a perfect description of what I remember as a 46C, from the "princess" pedals to 4' Rhor Shalmei and the disappointing tone.I thnk they got rid of the "gradual contact resistors" in the keyboards in later editions, so I am more hopeful for a 48C, but as I say,I have not seen one.</P>


And yes, a Conn spinet, especially a tube version, always sounded better.</P>


Lee</P>

[MarkS]

Re: Baldwin Model 48c

I first played one at the Minnesota State Fair about 1970 at a Baldwin dealer's display. It was priced just over $2,000, which seemed like a bargain even then. Little did I know that I would soon be playing the same organ in a church.

It was fully transistorized, which I think places it as a model 48. I believe that the model 48 used the truncated pedalboard, which is my primary reason for dismissing it as a practice organ for someone interested in church pipe organ study.

In the mid-70's I played a then recent Baldwin three-manual "Custom" (custom because it had a trumpet en chamade on the Gt with an indicator light above it!) that still used the graduated key contacts. (The pedals may have switched to electronic keying, though.) It was an impressive drawknob console with three expression shoes, crescendo pedal, combination action, main/antiphonal/echo, etc. But then if you looked a little more closely you would see that it used little pegs, similar to pushpins, to set the combination action! And the "tone" for such a "large" instrument. Aaargh....