Lowrey Organ & Flexi Disc?

[stebai]

Hi,

I'm going a little bit crazy trying to recall the organ we had in our UK home during the early 80's. I'm pretty sure it was a Lowrey and a my research suggests either a Carnival or Magic Genie, however it had a feature that I cannot find any information about anywhere. It used a 12" flexi disc to change the sounds available. You could flip open the front panel and slide the "disc" in. Once loaded you had access to a library of sounds of a type that the disc provided. I am 99% sure one we had was called "Bluegrass Banjo" but try as hard as I can I cannot find any mention of this anywhere online. Please, someone tell me I am not losing my marbles (though I am mid fifties now) and such an organ and feature did exist. Many thanks for reading this.

[andyg]

You're describing the Optigan, which used a 12" (ish) flexible disc with sounds and styles 'engraved' as patterns on it. Each disc would therefore give you a new playing style and sounds to go with it. Plenty of info on line now you know what it's called. Produced in Europe, it was rebranded a few times but having just created an entire timeline document for Lowrey, it didn't bear that name at any point. Here's a photo to get you started down memory lane! :)

If you're thinking of a Lowrey that did the 'add extra sounds and styles', their 'Genius' series used plug-in cartridges to do the same thing.

[stebai]

Thank you so much for the information - I will be able to do better research now that i have a name!