Last week I got me a new organ again (you can read about how I got it here). This time a combo organ with synth part by a Swedish company called Malmsjö. However the organ might actually be a re branded Viscount, more about that in a later post.
The organ in itself sounds pretty much like an ordinary but quite good Italian organ. I haven't tried to many Italian ones but the Piano sounds are not far from but better than for example the GEM Instapiano. The organ sounds are a bit behind my favorite Philicordas but the bass and percussive sounds have quite some punch. I made a brief demo of the organ parts of it:
The most interesting part of it is the Synthesizer found on the bottom right of the organ called "Synth Effect". Actually it works mostly as some kind of filter for the piano (incl. spinett and clavi cord) sounds. With High Freq, Low Freq and Mid Freq buttons. Two simple envelopes ( kind of soft / hard attack) and a selector for square ore sine wave for the filter. Apart from these on/off selectors there are four sliders for Frequency, Amplitude, Response and Intensity.
To be honest though, whatever I do with the different knobs not much seems to happen. Might bee that all functions are not 100% working but since I haven't found any other demos or examples it's hard to tell. The Intensity slider however goes pretty fast into feedback on most settings and that might indicate that not everything is as it should bee.
I made a demo of this part as well:
As you can hear it's no Mini Moog that you get in the bargain with the combo organ, but it's a quite nice addition since you can mix the sounds freely and you also get a separate output for the Piano/Synth part.
I'm still trying to find out what the model is called and maybe if I find out more I'll be able to get more out of it.
I'll get back with some detailed photos to help trace it in a later post:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
I have the same organ! Mine is branded as a "Viscount Mk I" instead of "Malmsjö," but it appears to be exactly identical as yours. The electronics are based on solid state with plenty of analog components (IIRC). My tech who fixed mine said it was made in Italy (as opposed to Japan like Ace Tone organs). Your organ is in impeccable condition! Mine is beat up and may require new tolex in the future.
I posted pictures of my organ here:
http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?27731-Viscount-Mk-I-organ
We should let www.combo-organ.com know we have an organ that is unlisted on their site.
Glad to see their is another out there in the world!
Wow! Really glad to se another one out there. I actually sent theese blog posts to Combo Organ Heaven. Didn't get any answer yet though.
I'd love to hear the sound of the Synth on your. I have a feeling mine isn't working fully. Opened it up about a month ago and got it to sound a little better than on my videos, but I guess there can be more to it.
Yea I'll get mine out and record it. That synth section is finicky on mine as well. When it worked I got it to do some cool 1 second long wah filter sweeps on clav and piano tones, similar sounding to hyrid synthesizers of the 1980's like the ESQ1 or K3.
That's really interesting mine is quite far from doing such tricks today. Might be time to open it up again and see if I can cet more out of it.
Have you done any recordings with it yet?
Darned synthesizer section is nearly out on mine now. Not the most exciting synthesizer in the world, but it was cool when it worked.
Yes, Spring 2015 I multi-tracked a Philip Glass recording with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0y7bZaSbmY
or search "Philip Glass - Etoile Polaire (North Star) combo organ cover" on Youtube.
Can someone send me the picture of the power cable? I got one today but it doesn't have the power cable
Lua,
Sorry to hear that. My organ has been modded in the past to have a normal 3 prong power cable instead of the 9(?) pin cable. I’d recommend a tech do that for your organ.
Post a Comment