Needed= Info on Rodgers trio organ 321

[Guest]

Re: Needed= Info on Rodgers trio organ 321



Hello Gary and everyone on this thread;

I just joined this forum today, because it looks as if the knowledge base that I need for my situation is most certainly present amongst the posters, whose postings I have read. It is from all of you that I seek assistance.

I work in a large (1600 seat) theatre in a retirement community in South Florida. We have been given a Rodgers 321 three manual theatre organ that was previously in a church ( ! ).

A couple of questions: 1) Although I have adjusted the Tibia Trem Speed and Tibia Trem Depth potentiometers, there does not seem to be any Tibia Tremulants happening. The Mains work fine, but no trems at all on the Tibias. Any ideas where I should look for the solution?

2) We have a very sophisticated Meyer Sound system, and I would like to input the 321 into the sound system. It appears that there are two RCA female jacks inside the 321, labeled "Tape Recorder Mains" and "Tape Recorder Tibias". AmI correct in my assumptions that these are line level outputs of the two channels of the instrument?

This has the potential to be a really neat thing in this theatre. There are quite a few "organists" living wihin the community, and management has discussed having "pre-movie" organ music... I think this was done in theatres before....a long time ago....and on WurliTzers, Bartons, Pages etc., but it would be neat to have it happen here on the 321.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Bruce Hannover

Tech. Dir. Century Village Clubhouse Theatre, Deerfield Beach, Florida

[John Kinkennon]

Re: Needed= Info on Rodgers trio organ 321



Hi Bruce,

I've been holding off on answering your post as I'm so new to this forum and my Rodgers is a 321A and it is entirely possible that your 321 may not look like what I describe. That said, on the 321A there's an obvious "most likely" failure in the tibia tremulant and vibrato circuits. The tibia (and mains) tremulant, vibrato, tibia ff, and tibia bright all turn on little lamps (#19) that in turn activate Light Dependent Resistors. These lamps are inside tubes on the tremulant circuit board which sits above the tibia oscillators. They just pull out. If this isn't the problem, and if the switches themselves aren't damaged, then it's time to pull out the schematics and dig deeper.

Those are nominal line levels on the tape outputs. Watch out for a dirty scratchy volume control that will send lots of noise through the sound system.

Good luck!

[Guest]

Re: Needed= Info on Rodgers trio organ 321



Thanks John;

Further investigation has revealed that the console speaker channels are only working with the Mains, not the Tibia voices. That is why I was not able to hear Tremulants on the Tibias. However, when I ran the RCA tape outputs into two direct boxes and then into the sound system at Mic. levels, all is well, the Tibias are fuller now and they do respond to the tremulant tab.

Gary has been most helpful, and I believe that we have determined that this particular instrument is a 321C, as it has eight settable pistons and eight toe studs.

Gary and I are attempting to find out why the internal speakers that are for the Tibia channel are not working. This organ is now in a 1600 seat theatre in a clubhouse in a huge retirement community. It is hoped that we will be able to find some of the residents who can play it. They will not always have access to the sound system being on, and they will need to practice with the internal console speakers.,

Bruce

[terryp]

I just acquired a Trio 321 (no suffix, but with wood-core keys and internal glock). It has a few minor issues that I think I could resolve with the help of a service manual. Does anyone here have one available?

Thanks in advance.