Lowrey Century questions

[libraryguy]

Hey All,

A Lowrey Century is for sale in my area. I have a few questions about these.

It meets my criteria because of its cabinet size and 49 note keyboards. Its only got 13 pedals. I want 20 but haven't seen anything with that many.

Do these have a built in Leslie or other rotating speaker?
Is it even playable without the automatic features turned off?
What kind of weight can I expect?
Is it a one tab, one sound stoplist or is it a menu system?
How easy is the display to read?

My Gulbransen is continuing its downhill slide so I have stopped up my organ search activity. The pedals gave out the other day.

I have pretty much decided on a 49 note keyboard Yamaha but this Lowrey came up so I thought I would ask.

[andyg]

1) No organs have leslies anymore. This has Lowrey's electronic tremolo system.
2) Yes, it's playable with the automatics turned off. I haven't played one to tell you how good it sounds in 'manual mode' though. The newer bigger ones can make a fine sound, but this one's rather old (2000- 2004 at best) and only mid range.
3) Heavy! I'm sure there's a brochure on line somewhere. The Holiday I used to move around when I was with Lowrey was heavy enough, this one has a bigger cabinet.
4) It's a mix of up front tab and button voices and lots of 'hidden' ones in the menus when you choose Genius voices.
5) Depends on your vision, but it's a small, two line LCD display, nothing like the large colour screens we find on newer instruments.

If you're looking for something that's high quality when driven 'manually' with no automatics, with better sounds and a 20 note board, if you have room for a Roland Atelier, I'd be looking at something like an AT80SL. How much are they asking for the Century? They've been selling for less than $1K for years and have now gone sub $500 on ebay in the USA - with no takers yet! Depreciation on Lowreys is extreme and there are no spares or support for any models that old. Caveat emptor!

[tucsondave]

330 lbs with bench.
Two 50 watt amps, 2-12", 2-3", 2-monitor speakers.
MIDI
Aux in/out
Floppy disk
Top of the LC series.

td

[andyg]

Thanks for the info, Dave. I knew it would be heavy! :)

[Guest]

My organ stopped playing my recorded discs....does anyone know what to do to fix it?

[andyg]

Dorothea, we need to know what organ you have first, and you need to start a new thread about it please.

Chances are the disk drive is failing or has failed. Depending on the organ and the drive it uses, it could be just a simple swap with a standard PC 3.5" floppy drive, or it could be non-repairable with no replacements available. More info in your new thread please.