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Roll-playing Theater Organs
By Tom DeLay

I cannot answer on an over-all theater organ basis, but I can address
the Wurlitzer piano-console pit organs.  These instruments are a hybrid
between a Photoplayer and a theater organ, and are electro-pneumatic
like the theater organ rather than tubular pneumatic as is the
Photoplayer.

Wurlitzer built over 500 piano-console organs of all styles.  The most
common style was the 4-rank style 135.  Not all piano-console organs
had roll players.  I have no idea as to how many of the 500+ such
instruments had roll players.  I can tell you there are virtually none
left.

Still intact with roll players:

    1. Dave Bowers has a wonderful unit installed in his home: style
       135 (and recorded);
    2. Phil Underwood has the largest (originally) 6-rank style 160;
    3. Montana Museum has a style 135, with the original tracker bar
       swapped for an O-roll tracker bar;
    4. Mine is the smallest of the lot: a 3-rank style 109 (and not
       presently playing).  It has the econo player, 88 notes with all
       registration and expression done by hand.  The piano/accom-
       paniment manual has an 85-note relay for the majority of the
       piano notes.  The bass stops divide at middle F# and below,
       while the treble stops operate from middle G up.  Percussions
       also play an octave higher than they do on the upper solo
       manual;
    5. A style 135 in Australia.

Without a roll player:

    1. A style 109, still in its original home, restored, in the
       Stonewall Jackson Hotel in Staunton, Va.  This instrument never
       had a roll player.

Recently a style 135 has turned up in its original theater in
Pennsylvania, quite unplayable.  I do not know whether it has a roll
player.

The style 135 is easily the most common theater organ ever.  There are
lots of parts scattered about the country, but there are fewer than a
dozen left intact worldwide.

The style 200 Special Wurlitzer (2 manuals, 8 ranks originally, 13
ranks now) installed in 1992 in the State Theatre, Monterrey, Calif.,
was factory prep'ed for an 88/98 concert roll player in its previous
1928 home in the Parkside Theatre, San Francisco.  All switching in the
relay has double switches for all solo manual stops and an 85-note
relay.  The manual relay divides at middle F# and G.  F# and below
operated the bass stops, while G-natural and above operated the treble
stops.  This organ never had the roll-playing device installed.  At the
console all the bass and treble stops were ganged on one stop key via
three-wire stop contact blocks, so the console was not overrun with
gobs of stop tabs.  I owned this organ for seventeen years and am more
than slightly familiar with the system.

Tom DeLay
Salinas, CA


(Message sent Sat 28 Nov 2009, 01:58:31 GMT, from time zone GMT-0800.)

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