New organ for our church

[Guest]

Our old Conn 717 is nearing 40 years old and is at the end of its life. We our looking for a new organ and have narrowed it down to 2 models, the Allen L-9 and the Rodgers Allegiant 658. We were wondering as to the opinion of the users of this forum on either / both organs as to which may be the best one. </P>


Our church is Anglican/Episcopalian with both a traditional choir and a contemporary group. Our music director directs both groups and wants to maintain the traditional choir with all the sung responses and hymns done on the organ and the contemporary music with the band and keyboard.</P>


Your feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'am an organ buff myself andonly discovered this forum a few days ago while perusing the internet for info on these two instruments. Its a great medium and will probably be on it often. I justown a Baldwin Fanfare spinet myself.</P>


Thanks, Art V</P>

[jbird604]

Re: New organ for our church



Art,</P>


Welcome aboard! Good to know that the Conn has served for so long. I sold and installed a few 717's back in the day.</P>


I assume you are looking at the Allen L-9 and the Rodgers 658 (not 958 as stated, that is a very expensive 3-manual).</P>


You're certainly looking at a couple of fine models and either one should serve your needs. You'll just have to listen and play and talk to the dealers. Both builders have great products and the abilityto do precise voicing to match your church. But you should find out which dealer in your own area is best known for truly doing with his organs what they are capable of.</P>


If one of the dealers has a reputation for spending a great deal of time with the church after the sale, seeing to it that the installation is carried out properly, critically adjusting the voicing so that the instrument is always a joy to play -- and if that same dealer is willing to spend some time with you before the sale making sure you're getting the model that's best for your situation, making sure that you're buying enough speakers and providing adequate space and proper placement -- that's your dealer! No matter how fine a product a dealer offers, if pre-sale planning and post-sale setup and voicing are lacking, the installation will be less than optimum.</P>


So look around at what they've done and ask a lot of questions from previous customers.</P>


John</P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>

[Clarion]

Re: New organ for our church



[quote user="Art V"] We our looking for a new organ and have narrowed it down to 2 models, the Allen L-9 and the Rodgers Allegiant 658. We were wondering as to the opinion of the users of this forum on either / both organs as to which may be the best one. [/quote]</P>


In a poll conducted here a few months ago, Allen seemed to be favoured2:1 ratio over Rodgers:</P>


http://organforum.com/forums/1/54592/ShowThread.aspx</P>

[arie v]

Re: New organ for our church



Hi,</p>

While I don't have any direct experience with either model, from the web-site and from your comments, you may want to think about the following,</p>

1) your church is into contemporary church music, - you may want to think about the Rodgers here, it has many contemporary church music sounds built-in. </p>

2) by the look of it, the Allen does not have velocity on the keyboards. If they use their own keyboards with magnetic reed switching, they will not be velocity sensitive. For contemporary church sounds, like orchestral instruments or piano, you will need velocity sensing on the keys.</p>

3) reliability, both should be good, although my experience servicing older organs, the Allens are well built and durable.</p>

4) looks like both organs have internal speakers - I cannot recommend just internal speakers, generally they sound inferior, but also tend not to lead the singing very well</p>

5) make sure the organ is voiced. Most brand "A" and brand "R" organs I come across are poorly voiced and could sound much better with attention to what the organ is supposed to do musically.</p>

BTW, John has made some good comments about thoroughly getting acquainted with the dealer, installs that they have done, and trying out several instruments that have been installed. Only then will you know whether you like what want to purchase. Product broadsheets or internet information does not really give much info. on what the organ is like. Organs always sound better on paper (especially the lower end), than they do in real life.</p>

</p>

AV
</p>

[Guest]

Re: New organ for our church



John,</P>


Thank you for the feedback, we are already planning to look at a couple of Allen installations and I'm waiting for a Rodgers demo, the dealer doesn't carry much product. Themost difficult thing for me is that I personnally know both sales persons.</P>

[Guest]

Re: New organ for our church



Clarion,</P>


Thank you for the info. </P>


Art V</P>

[Guest]

Re: New organ for our church



Arie,</P>


Thank you for your response. I have read a number of your posts over the last few days. Good comments. I don't think that our music directors intention is to use the organ for the contemporary music, we have a high end Roland keyboard although I will mention this to her and she can take this into consideration.</P>


Art V</P>

[nullogik]

Re: New organ for our church



Out of interest how big is your Church?
</p>

Have you also considered purchasing say a secondhand Allen or Rodgers. By that I mean perhaps say an Allen Renaissance thats a couple of years old or perhaps a late model Allen MDS? They do come up from time to time on sites such as Ebay or Organ Trader.
</p>

Official dealers are also a good place to find "trade ins" or demo/ex-hire/showroom stock that might be also worth considering if your budget is tight.
</p>

[clumber]

Re: New organ for our church



And, while you say the choice seems to be down to an Allen or a Rodgers, don't miss out on a fine bit of Canadian craftsmanship (and which finished second in the poll cited above - not that 38 votes can tell you a lot!), but take a look at Phoenix as well. I'm sure they could do a fine instrument that will make you all quite happy. They are located near Toronto, but have done installs all over North America.</p>

Andy
</p>

[NYCFarmboy]

Re: New organ for our church

You are getting ready to spend alot of money so here is what I would recommend:

Visit installations of Allen, Rodgers & Phoenix & other brands of organs in local churches of similar size/accoustics of your church.


Take all the demonstration CD's you have heard and dis-regard them...any audio engineer can make ANY organ sound great on a CD (trust me on that..I know something about that).

What matters is how it sounds in person for a church and the congregation.


Other important considerations:

Ask local organists about the service reputation of the dealers and how easily they get serviced...and as noted on here, whether they will spend some time and adjust the organ to your space after it is installed...something that is ULTRA important. If it is just going to be dropped off and plugged in look elsewhere....make part of the payment conditional upon the organ being "received and in well-regulated for the room condition.

Don't scrimp on speakers. I'd rather have a cheap organ with NICE and AMPLE speakers than a nice organ with just 3 or 4 speakers.

Have the speakers installed in a accoustically interesting way so that your divisions will be from different areas of the room if possible. When you are investigating organs make sure to look at the speakers and their setups to see what you think sounds best.


Again..very important and I may get some flack....don't make a judgement on demonstration CD's ... they will all sound marvelous.


Go out and see what you like to your ears.....in person..... Take your time but most importantly make sure that whomever you buy the organ from has a track record in the area and will back it up long after the sale.

[nullogik]

Re: New organ for our church



Thats good solid unbiased advice from NYC.</p>

Re demo CDs, indeed they can be very misleading. I've been playing with some recordings (taken straight out of two RCA outputs) of our organ which frankly didn't sound impressive - "dead" and "wooden" are two words that spring to mind. I then added some convolution reverb (I like to pretend I'm playing in a cathedral [;)] ), tweaked the treble and bass and it sounded like a completely different instrument - all in about five minutes work and I'm not a pro by any means, very much a novice.</p>

Imagine what the same software in the hands of sound engineering pros can do.
</p>

[BOZ]

Re: New organ for our church



Art,</p>

I had a Rodgers Allegiant 678 installed in my home in November, after evaluating Phoenix, Allen and Johannus. All of the organs sounded good to my ears and I ranked them R/P,A,J. It was a tough decision between the Phoenix and Rodgers but, since I was trading in a Rodgers 530 (and recouped what I originally paid for the used 530), I opted for the 678. Importantly, the Rodgers dealer (St. Louis) offers superb technical and voicing support -- within 1.5 hr drive, should there ever be a problem.</p>

I do not care for the built-in speakers on any organ (Phoenix, of course, never does this). I rarely use them, except as a background fill. My main speakers consist of 6, large, home-built, Altec-Lansing speakers and 1 powered (Aperion) subwoofer in a 400 sq. ft., carpeted space (relatively dead). The 678 has the capability to turn on the 4 main, speakers as well as 2 antiphonals (in a separate room) from the console. The 4 main speakers are powered via a Yamaha RX-V663 7.1 system while the antiphonals will be powered by a smaller amplifier (not yet hooked up). </p>

The two previous Johns have given excellent advice, so this John will not repeat their suggestions. I'm just sharing my personal experience with a related organ, the A678.</p>

Congratulations on having the opportunity to purchase a new instrument.</p>

 </p>

[clumber]

Re: New organ for our church



NYC is absolutely right in what the demo CD's can tell you. You have no idea how they were recorded, what post-processing has been done to the sound, or much else about the CD or DVD.</p>

He's also right about taking your time and visiting other installs. Ask questions of the people at the churches you visit, but understand that everyone there you talk to has a built in bias and will probably have wonderful things to say about the instrument.
</p>

I'd like to temper the talk about service reputation however. The current digital instrument is a far cry from the 1980's organ, with its discrete resistors and capacitors and wire-wrapped circuit boards with yellow patch wires on the back. If your dealer says you need service every year, you might ask why they think that's true... When was the last time your (oh, this is gonna show my age....) stereo needed service? I've got a 20 year old Yamaha that has been through major moves, a fair amount of abuse, cats sitting on top of it during use, etc. and it's never been serviced. Today's electronics have benefited from the QA that all computers and electronics have seen in the last 20 years. This improved build quality, along with cell phones and email and Fed-Ex and UPS means that you don't necessarily have to have a service person living 20 minutes away. I've emailed questions about our instrument and had them answered in 20 minutes. The one part that was needed in 4 years (Well, it wasn't absolutely needed, but it was replaced) was Fed-Ex'd to us overnight.
</p>

Also, there may be things you can do for free or very cheaply to improve your acoustics... your organ salespeople may give you ideas. </p>

Another benefit of talking to a larger set of makers is that you may actually find the competition helping you in getting a good deal. The installation and voicing for your space is key. Make sure the person who is doing the voicing has the experience to get it right. You might even ask for places that this person has done an install and voicing to see what their opinions are after the install is done and they've lived with the instrument for a while. In our case, Don Anderson, co-owner of Phoenix North America did the voicing. The benefit there was that he also did most of the pipe sampling, so has a keen ear for what the instrument should sound like.
</p>

And the one thing, in my opinion, that is the most critical piece in the sound of your organ, is the person sitting on the bench. 'nuf said.</p>

Andy
</p>

[Guest]

Re: New organ for our church



Nullogik</P>


We did look at a couple of used, one was 12 years old and the other 24. The twelve year old was with the Allen dealer, but the price of it was near half that of a new one without MIDI capability.</P>


Thanks</P>


Art V</P>

[Guest]

Re: New organ for our church



Andy,</P>


There is only one organ dealer listed in the yellow pages and only stumbled accross the Rodgers dealer when I called the former Baldwin dealer about the age on an organ listed on kijiji, whci turns out to be a Viscount about 3 times the age as what was stated. Baldwin hasn't made anything since 1996. So until yesterday, I wasn't aware that anyone in Alberta sold anything else, and we still will have to drive 200 miles for a demo on the Phoenix. It does look good and have e-mails going back and forth now thanks to a Phoenix owner on this forum.</P>


Thanks,</P>


Art V</P>