Hello fellow mechanical music enthusiasts, I am new to the Internet
and only just found this organisation.  I have always been interested
in mechanical music devices, particularly fairground organs.

Being an electronics engineer and some experience in electronic organ
building, I built some years ago a 48 keyless electronic fairground
organ.  The tone generators are all separate oscillators for every note
and separate ranks for every voice.  Each voice has it's own 35-watt
amplifier and speaker system, twelve channels in all.

To add some interest to the sound of the organ I included three tone
combinations when the organ is playing piano, i.e. sequence: forte/piano
1/forte/piano 2/forte/piano 3 etc.  This gives the impression of a
larger instrument.

The keyframe reads standard keyless or keyed 48-key books using photo-
electric devices.  Bass drum, cymbal, triangle, side drum, wood block
and glock are all played with electromagnets.  I am at the moment
fitting a MIDI interface to it; this will allow recording from a book
or playing the organ from the computer.

I hope these brief details will be of interest to someone.

Available from me: a copy in good condition of 'The Fairground Organ'
by Eric V. Cockayne.  Offers?

Paul Allen

 [ Welcome to MMD, Paul.  At least one of our group, Andy LaTorre,
 [ has built a similar instrument with a combination of real percussion
 [ devices and electronic organ sounds.  It's a fine way to get the
 [ music playing while awaiting real ranks of pipes!  I like your
 [ use of multiple amplifiers and loudspeakers; that surely reduces
 [ distortion.  Can you tell us more about the tone generators?  Are
 [ they a standard organ design?  How many independent oscillators?
 [ -- Robbie