A few Rodgers Trio Questions

[Vercus]

Hey guys,
Just a few quick ones on a Rodgers Trio. There's one for sale not too far from me, but the seller wants $1,500 and it only has internal speakers. Needless to say that's way too high. I've seen them with multiple speakers for as little as $300, but never anywhere close to me. This one comes with a Univox rhythm unit that's wired to play through the internal speakers, for what that's worth.

Does anyone know what kind of tonal resources this organ has? I've never heard of one with internal speakers before. I guess it must have a rotary speaker for tremolo? Either way I would definitely want to go external.

What are your thoughts as to the sound of this organ? Fun to play theater type music on? Also, what are the dimensions?

Thanks a lot,
Jon

[toodles]

The Trio had several different models over the span of 15 years or so, and there were some differences of import. The model number (320, 321, 321A, 321B, 321C, or 322) defines the organ apart from the name.

It looks like this one is from the early 1970's as it has the modern sans serif font for the logo--the ones from the 1960's used a script font, and the ones from the 80's used a serif font with the D and G in overlapping. It also does not have the Rodgers rhythm unit, which as included in late 1970's models. Also, Rodgers "squared up" the music rack in the latest version and added programmable presets.

This one appears to have wooden core keyboards (Herrbuger-Brooks, from England) which are very nice.

Typically, the Trio had two sets of oscillators--one set of keyed oscillators for the Tibia, which ranged from 8 ft low C through to the top of the 2 ft octave--it's a very nice sound; the other set was continuously running with diode keyers at 16 & 8 ft in the pedals, 8 & 4 ft in the accompaniment, 16 and 8 ft in the great, and 8 ft only in the solo. The string, diapason, and reed voices were made from filters, shared by the divisions. The voicing is not the best that Rodgers achieved, at least to my ears, except for the Tibia, which was lovely. .

It probably does not have an internal Leslie--there is not much room for it, but is sure to have provisions for an external one. The internal speakers would use electronic tremulant.

Be aware that all of the Trios used a smaller-than-AGO pedal board. I find it a little more comfortable than Allen's princess pedals, but it is set too far out for me. Depends on how long your legs are.

If it has a glockenspiel, it would be real metal bars struck electromagnetically.

In my opinion, the Trio suffered from some stop-list problems that limit it from using some typical theatre registrations, though there are some decent combinations that work.

The pitch keyers on the Trio incorporated some resistors in the output summing busses to provide a bass pre-emphasis, giving a fairly dull sound to the instrument; these are not shown in the technical documents, but you can short out specific ones of these to give a brighter sound. Since you can test the difference with some clip leads (temporarily), it's worth trying to see if you like the sound better if you end up with the organ.

Dimensions are 30-3/8 deep without pedals, 45-3/8 high without music rack, 53-5/8 wide.

[John Vanderlee]

I have a Rodgers 321 with Glock & ext. speakers that needs to leave, PM me for details.

[Vercus]

Hi John,
PM Sent.

-Jon