30-01-2023, 09:07 PM
(This post was last modified: 30-01-2023, 09:17 PM by Lucien Nunes.)
If he made any record of how it was before he started, that was over 50 years ago, and it is some years since he was alive. Much original information that was in the Compton offices was destroyed when the factory was bombed during WW2, so there probably isn't a single document in existence describing this organ's innards. However, a few similar ones survive, at least one of which is in fairly original condition. Many aspects will also follow Compton standard practice; although it was their very first electronic organ, the console is wired exactly like that of a cinema pipe organ, of which they had already made hundreds to very standardised layouts and specs.
Although I mentioned in a recent post that Compton typically used interchangeable fixed resistors for voicing instead of presets, unfortunately in these very early generators they did use presets, so even on the surviving original generators that we could copy, it is unclear how the voicing has been changed since manufacture. Not everyone agrees how an electronic imitation of an organ imitation of a trumpet should sound. It can't be copied exactly from later, unaltered instruments because the generators have a different complement of waveforms leading to a different method of building up the pipe tones.
I will post better pictures of the generator rack at a later date. I tried to capture the views inside the generator shed, but even with a wide-angle lens it is hard to see what is going on. The equipment is laid out as three islands with narrow gangways for maintenance, but you can't readily stand and take a picture of the front of any of them. A few attempts below - this is one of the three islands containing most of the original material for this instrument, although with later generators and different amplifiers. The relays and voicing chassis are original. Picture 3 shows one of the maintenance gangways. In total, the generators for the two instruments occupy the whole of the wooden shed, which connects to the organ room on the right via two 4-inch plastic cable ducts visible over the door.
Although I mentioned in a recent post that Compton typically used interchangeable fixed resistors for voicing instead of presets, unfortunately in these very early generators they did use presets, so even on the surviving original generators that we could copy, it is unclear how the voicing has been changed since manufacture. Not everyone agrees how an electronic imitation of an organ imitation of a trumpet should sound. It can't be copied exactly from later, unaltered instruments because the generators have a different complement of waveforms leading to a different method of building up the pipe tones.
I will post better pictures of the generator rack at a later date. I tried to capture the views inside the generator shed, but even with a wide-angle lens it is hard to see what is going on. The equipment is laid out as three islands with narrow gangways for maintenance, but you can't readily stand and take a picture of the front of any of them. A few attempts below - this is one of the three islands containing most of the original material for this instrument, although with later generators and different amplifiers. The relays and voicing chassis are original. Picture 3 shows one of the maintenance gangways. In total, the generators for the two instruments occupy the whole of the wooden shed, which connects to the organ room on the right via two 4-inch plastic cable ducts visible over the door.
