I bought my first Philicorda around 1995 and then traded it for a Fender Telecaster about a year later. Probably a good deal then but ever since that day I have been looking for a new one.
A couple of years ago I then finally got hold of a
AG7500 via a friend at work. It didn't seem to be working. But after a little soldering on the cables I got it running. However not playable in a traditional way. This one still stands in a corner waiting to be looked over.
About a year ago I then found my second one, a GM751. This one could not be tested where I bought it but since the price was more than right I took the chance. It sounded terrible when I first connected it at home but after a few hours connected everything fell in place without even opening it. This has been running smoothly ever since and has become my favourite organ.
A couple of weeks before Christmas I went to pick up my third Philicorda organ. This time a GM760 it's a spinet model with two manuals and bass pedals. And I didn't have the opportunity to test this either at pick-up but since it was completely free it wasn't much to talk about.
When I connected it at home everything, apart from the bass pedals and the percussion (fast, slow repeat) sounds, seemed to be working. The organ has a really warm organ sound with a marvellous plate reverb that is also possible to use on for example drum machines, synths or guitars when you use the Philicorda as an amplifier for external instruments via the connectors on the back side.
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| 5 pole DIN input and output connectors on the lower left back side |
I made a short sound demo on the parts of the organ that is actually working. First it's the clean sound then with vibrato and reverb added.
The problem with the repeat function didn't bother me to much until I saw
this video where the repeat function is used (around 3 minutes into the clip) and I really loved the sound of it.
Therefore today I downloaded the
service manual and opened it up to see if I could find some simple solution to the problem. I can tell you right away that my skills in electronics and in Dutch are about equal and it took me quite a few hours to get an idea of how things could be working in the Philicorda. The attempt to fix the percussive section was without any success. But I took some pictures of the cards, components and wires inside.
Compared to other organs there are plenty of space and pretty easy to get an overview of the things. Philips has also made several smart solutions with hinges and such that makes it quite easy to access backsides of the circuit boards, keyboards etc.
Here's some close-ups from the GM760.
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The knobs to the left of the lower keyboard. Manual, Volume, Pedal & Balance.
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| The knobs to the left of the upper keyboard. Selector, Repeat, Reverbeo & Vibrato. |
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| The far left part of the panel over the keyboards. |
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| The voice selectors for the lower manual. |
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| The first half of the voice selectors for the upper manual. |
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| The second half of the voice selectors for the upper manual. |
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| One of three circuitboards each containing four notes, loceted behind the speakers in the bottom section. |
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| The power and amplifier part and perhaps something more that I can't recognise. |
