Allen Protege AP-9

[allenfrank]

I may have the opportunity to purchase an Allen Protege AP-9 organ. I know it is a 3 manual, with a 32 foot stop, and was first built in 1995.

I have searched the threads and done other searches and looked at the Allen Manual but could not find answers to the following questions. Any thoughts or insight would be appreciated.

Would this organ be using the MDS technology and W5 tone generation?

Does it have internal speakers?

Can external speakers be easily added without additional changes?

Is this a 2 or 4 channel organ?

The manual seems to say that "Smart MIDI" is included, but it is hard to tell what Smart MIDI does.

What are the dimensions of the console?

Was the console contoller(like on MDS models) ever installed on the AP-9? Or was another approach used?

On MDS models the console controller will do a sequential MIDI recording. What needs to be in place on an AP-9 in order to do a sequential MIDI recording?

What would be a fair price for this organ?

Just a general question on the Protege line. This model was introduced in the middle of the MDS time frame. What are the significant differences between MDS and Protege?

[toodles]

Here is the internet archive page for this model: https://web.archive.org/web/19970622...om:80/ap-9.htm

Same technology as MDS, but I don't know what generator it uses.

Internal speakers.

Antiphonal controls for external speakers were optional, so you'd probably need to add relay boards at some cost.

Four channels, internal speakers.

"Smart MIDI" was Allen's term to say that the organ integrated easily with Allen's external MIDI devices.

The web page link I gave has the dimensions. Highlight the text to read under the black bar.

It looks like the console controller was not provided on this model, based on the photo.

For MIDI recording you would need an external sequencer.

One sold on eBay for $15,000 in 20015. Probably a little less today.

Protege was introduced as a lower cost alternative to MDS. It had LED rocker tabs instead of drawknobs and in the early models, like this, it didn't have the console controller. A few features were missing on the Protege (varies with model) such as reduced number of toe studs, pistons, 2nd voicing. Nothing that really changes the sound quality.

[beel m]

Toodles, this brought up an interesting point. That old website seemed to be MDS-era. Yet the "M P Moller" page touted "note by note voicing capability." ?? Did those Allen MPM organs have technology different from the MDS organs?

TIA, Bill

[toodles]

I don't know the Allen technology of that era in detail--Jbird is probably the best to answer this one.

[allenfrank]

Thanks for the information. I was not having any luck finding the specification page. I appreciate your help very much.

[jbird604]

Bill,

That must be a mis-print or at least misleading. The Moller platform was simply MDS, nothing special about it other than the pipe interface built in. So there was no note-by-note voicing of any kind. Perhaps the ad writer meant to say "stop by stop" which still isn't accurate, given than there are numerous stops in each group in the MDS generator. Or maybe the writer was referring to the pipe ranks, which of course could always be voiced by individual notes.

Interesting that this archive even exists. Like a trip back in time. Too bad the once "free" owner's manuals were not captured before Allen pulled them down.

[organman95]

Bill,

That must be a mis-print or at least misleading. The Moller platform was simply MDS, nothing special about it other than the pipe interface built in. So there was no note-by-note voicing of any kind. Perhaps the ad writer meant to say "stop by stop" which still isn't accurate, given than there are numerous stops in each group in the MDS generator. Or maybe the writer was referring to the pipe ranks, which of course could always be voiced by individual notes.

If you look at the other models, the MDS-26, 71S, 81S, 85S all say "note-by-note voicing capability"... Wow. If you're going to make a false claim, why limit it to the one two-manual, and then much larger models?

[toodles]

Some of the other models on that archive say "on board voicing controls" rather than "note-by-note...", so this was probably a transition period where not all of the models were using the same tone generation system, thus different models had different capabilities.

[organman95]

Some of the other models on that archive say "on board voicing controls" rather than "note-by-note...", so this was probably a transition period where not all of the models were using the same tone generation system, thus different models had different capabilities.

Technically, all had "on board voicing"... y'know, the pots "on boards" in the cage. I asked once about the MDS-81S, and was told "No, that was all hardware. Nothing was note-by-note"

[you795a]

The AP-9 is a T-series console usually in walnut. If I recall correctly it was aW5 system with an MN-1 board.