The future opinions?

[dressur4]

what are your opinions of the future of organs? since Lowrey is leaving the scene what do you all think the organ world will be in say 5 years? So you think it will come back again? do you think "non" Hammond organs will eventually be somewhat valuable? or be totally gone in the next 10 years. I see a little resurgence in church organs my girlfriend's church got a new used Allen and it is played somewhat opinions? thanks

[andyg]

We've discussed this a few times, so there are a few threads that you can look up and read through. General consensus is that the home organ is all but dead. There will be some new models sold but I think sales of these will slow to a crawl over time. When it becomes uneconomical to produce them, they'll go.

Will the oldies ever become valuable? A few models, yes, they already are, but only to a very small market. Most of the oldies will never be worth anything, the prime reason being lack of spares. Would you pay out a lot for something that you knew couldn't be fixed if it suffered a major failure?

Will the home organ market ever come back? No.

As for church organs, a trawl through the threads in that section will also reveal the sorry state of the market there too, with more churches probably getting rid of organs than buying them.

It does sound depressing, doesn't it? The upside is that for those of us who like home organs, there are incredible bargains and freebies to be had. There are few great on line home organ communities, this being one and the Vintage Organs Facebook group being another. Lots of chat and information to share, as well as video and audio.

[johnbeetem]

I agree with Andy's comments.

I'd like to add that it seems like far fewer people are learning to play keyboards, so there is far less demand for pianos and keyboards. In the 19th Century practically every middle-class home had a piano or reed organ and at least one person who could play it well. People entertained themselves by gathering around the instrument and singing the popular songs of the day. Edison's phonograph put a damper on this and people listened to other people make music instead of creating it themselves. But the quality of recorded sound was poor so there was an incentive to create live music.

It remained common to force children to take piano lessons through the first half of the 20th Century. For a great example, watch The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953), a wonderful movie about a boy who hates practicing, falls asleep at the piano, and has fantastic dreams about his hated piano teacher Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried at his best). "Hello, Physics Lab? I'd like to have someone disintegrated." Story and art concept by Dr. Seuss.

Since the 1960s piano lessons have largely become a thing of the past and music reproduction keeps getting better so people don't see any reason to spend years learning to play an instrument when they can pop in a CD or download a music track.

I'm personally grateful that my dear mother forced me to take all those music lessons. I had to put music aside for most of my full-time working years, but I'm finally getting back to it in semi-retirement. I'd always wanted to have a nice organ, but had neither space nor time for it.

Now I've taken advantage of today's "incredible bargains" by scoring a Rodgers Trio 321C, which uses 1978 technology. Almost everything is analog with standard parts that are still available. (I'm a computer engineer with enough analog to get by.) There are some digital ICs that are unobtainable (especially the custom rhythm chip) but I don't care about the rhythm function. The preset board has some vintage CMOS such as 74C200 256-bit RAMs and some serial-to-parallel chips that are probably irreplaceable. It the preset board dies I'll have to replace it with an FPGA.

I don't consider the instrument to be a valuable antique, so I'm not concerned about Conservation, i.e., retaining every original molecule. I've already replaced the music desk light bulbs (twenty 1-watt 14V bulbs) with a couple of LED strips. One of these days I'm going to replace the battery back-up for the presets. Currently it has a couple of mostly-dead 2V batteries (maybe sealed lead-acid?) Might as well replace them with a couple of CR2032s which are non-rechargeable lithium coins. The few 74Cxx chips that use battery back-up don't draw much current so CR2032s will probably last for years.

My long-term plan is to add VPO capability, which will become the only sound source when I can no longer fix the analog circuits. But for now I love the Trio 321C sound and I'm having a blast.

[dressur4]

I agree with you too. I am getting a Lowrey C500 and a couple of symphonic theatre 25-3 its the ones that a lot of people here love. and they need work. I have an old Baldwin C601 that to me is beautiful and All the analogue stuff is fried and I gutted it and got a quote from Artisan to copy the stop list and it came to 3600 for all the boards engine and sampleset. I am thinking of doing that someday and the combination action works and then it will have full midi capabilities I think the future eis going that way old consoles being turned into digital organs with open source that is one reason why I am after this Lowrey Royale it the motherboard fries I can do the same thing basically the C500 all works and that was my favorite organ of all to be honest t her is something I loved about the C-500

[Silken Path]

Well, if I understand what I get from Roland every now and then, right now I can "subscribe" to instruments and play them over the internet.

An outfit in Germany has modeled an entire B3 in silicon, and anybody could make an extremely good clonewheel (or alternative C3, A100, etc) using such a chip.

And the Neo Vent sounds a lot like a Leslie.

[dressur4]

I think it will become a boutique type of ordeal where little shops and maybe larger companies will make 'kits" from downloadable samples to turn key kits that fit into various consoles where you install the "kit" and it is like the original organ. I think right now the digitals are going to be hard to sell at high prices like the Lowrey Royales and what not but eventually they will be desired for the retrofitting but not many organists out there so it will never be that hard to get good deals I think for the next 10 years I think we have a good 10 year of organ harvesting then the Royales will be 30 years old and they will end up being dumped so there will be a lot less to pick from in 10 years they are big and people want them out of their house so I am going to try to get a couple and keep them as I have a big house and my girlfriend don't want to marry me or move in my home. (she hates the country) and so till I get married I will have space

[andyg]

Since the 1960s piano lessons have largely become a thing of the past......

Er, I don't think so! At the music school where I teach, we have three piano teachers and we're pretty much fully booked all week. I also teach keyboard, so probably 60% piano and 40% keyboard for me. Two new ones started last week, one new one starting on Thursday! And I just got an email from someone wanting private piano lessons for his two daughters.

Piano will never die and people will always want lessons. What I think you meant was that making kids do piano lessons is a thing of the past!

[dressur4]

What I DO!!!! hope dies is this attitude that you need to start whilst in your Mum's womb to be any good. I hope that the attitude starts where anyone who has talent and desire can play and the attitude towards string musicians like we are not as good or as much of a musician as a keyboard/pianist. that is the only thing I hate about organ and piano world I also think that is why it's dying as far as the organs I notice that the attitudes in the AGO is not inviting nor helpful and elitist. That is the only thing I want to see die. and maybe it will.. I did love Lowrey's way and some really great players came from that. I know a church organist that started in her late 30s as her husband died and she had older friends that got her into the Lowrey club next thing you know she is a church organist and you couldn't tell if she started at 30 weeks after birth or whenever.
My opinion is and always was that if the keyboard world was taught more like guitar then it will be much better for middle aged folks with no music experience to learn. I hope that happens. and yes in the USA at least where I live most churches now use piano and there are many places to take lessons and all that so, you are right Piano is NOT dying nor ever will Organ on the other hand I don't think ever ever will but the theatre organ and the home organ,,, is at a place where I think will stay for the nest 20 years but I could be so wrong maybe there will be a Renaissance and this will be a short lived nightmare who knows
nence