ALLEN TC-3 MIDIFICATION...

[buzzyreed]

I know, I know.. I am sure I've asked this, but how would one go about midifying a TC-3? I also have a Allen MOS 600 that is too big to drag around. The TC-3 has a perfect consoule and the keys are great. How expensive/ tough would this be?</p>

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[nullogik]

Re: ALLEN TC-3 MIDIFICATION...



There is a guy on the Yahoo Allens Owners Club, that has done that but with a TC-3S. </p>

If you search for something like MIDI TC-3S you'll come across his post and some instructions and a list of parts that are suitable. From memory he has wired his just for MIDI-out.</p>

Just found some posts (taken from posted by John Beach, Allen Owners Club - Yahoo)</p>

Check out the http://www.artisan-instruments.com website.

I "midified" a two manual and 32-note pedal board on an Allen TC-3 (same vintage

as yours, mid 60's) and did the work myself. Price including ribbon cable

(purchased separately on eBay) was just a bit over $500 in spring 2005.

Their units will work on any organ from 5-30 volts DC, negative or positive.

They will communicate with you and have had enough experience to know most of

the problems associated with retrofitting analog organs. The only "hitch" I had

was in grounding the Micro Midi unit to the ground terminal on the Random Motion

Whind unit of the Allen. If you are familiar with that,(being a theatre model,

yours probably does not have the RMW, just the traps unit in the theatre organ

gyrophonic projector unit) the gain on the Allen RMW unit needs to be set at "0"

zero when using the midi unit as the principle of the RMW is to cause a

pulsation for internal tremolo by varying the voltage. This rhythmic variation

in voltage, if NOT set to "0" affects the ground side of the midi unit causing

the "note on" midi message to hit and/or miss. When set to zero, it functions

perfectly and I use it with both Miditer 216 and a PC music MIDI sequencer

program which allows using any soundfont loaded to play live and/or record

performance live.

I am very happy with the unit and it performs flawlessly. </p>

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Allen-Organ-Owners/message/21356 </p>

This thread may also help:</p>

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Allen-Organ-Owners/message/19298
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[Brandon Tuomikoski]

Re: ALLEN TC-3 MIDIFICATION...



Hmm, I may have to try that on my rodgers.</p>

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BTW Nullogik, do you play or own that organ that is in your picture?</p>

[nullogik]

Re: ALLEN TC-3 MIDIFICATION...

[quote user="Brandon Tuomikoski"]

Hmm, I may have to try that on my rodgers.</p>

BTW Nullogik, do you play or own that organ that is in your picture?</p>

[/quote]

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I've considered adding MIDI to my own TC-3S but alas its in storage so its a waste of time.</p>

As for my avatar, yes that is an Allen with an English style console which I played whilst at school. Whether its this instrument or not I don't know, but it looked exactly the same down to the finish of the wood and the layout of the tabs and stops. I think it was a late large MDS instrument (probably an MDS 70 or 80 series) as the chapel was built in 1996/7 - I never had the opportunity to lift the lid to see the serial number plate. It had a console controller in the left drawer and 6 memory levels (if that helps) and had a separate transposer knob on the console next to the power switch.
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It was a fantastic instrument but as the chapel was small the speaker placement wasn't ideal with some members of the congregation practically sitting next to the speaker boxes - as such the sound quality may not have been so good as if it had been installed in a larger building with more imaginative places to put the speakers.</p>

Still the sound from it was good, and typical Allen, the instrument was built like a tank. </p>

Also of interest was an identical console to this but with two manuals. However, this instrument had no console controller and had a card reader (and a bar graph volume display). This was installed in the theatre which had a lot of thick padded seats and heavy carpet so was acoustically dead, absolutly no natural reverb - suffice to say the organ didn't sound that great, through no fault of the instrument itself.
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