•> Last year I made a 25-note set of hanging chimes out of copper pipe, > and it took at least 20 minutes to file each note to pitch. Following > a length chart was out of the question, because every pipe from the > store gave different results. (Yes, I checked the gauge!) The > results were worth i...

•I have an 'old' style OGM monkey organ which I believe is a 64 pipe organ, controlled electronically through memory cartridges. I have a couple of questions for those who might own one of these or have experience working on them. First, what is the scale of the organ? Do the flute and piccolo ranks...

•Steve Cobb asked: > First, what is the scale of the organ? Do the flute and piccolo > ranks cover the same scale? What is the bass scale?" We made the pipes and chests for the OGM Monkey Organ. The 18 bass notes are GG, AA, D, E, G--g#. The 23 flute and piccolo pipes are a--g chromatic, the piccolo...

•The OGM Monkey Organ can be tuned without any problems. The old one requires a box we made to tune it and the new one tunes with a MIDI keyboard. If anyone needs the tuner for the older OGM Monkey Organ they only have to pay the freight charges and a deposit that will be refunded when the unit is r...

•Tuning a Mills Violano is really not that hard. One does not need a tuning roll at all. First, open the piano door back so that the action and magnets can be accessed. The best way I have found is tuning the instrument using the circle of fifths (music theory). Start with A# then D# then G# then C#...

•While tuning the Mills Violano doesn't need to be an enigma, there is Still the problem of the Violin, itself. The violin is mounted in unstable pot metal, which over the years has grown. In 1970, Don Barr (Mills Novelty Company, Santa Monica, Calif.) and I worked on a very nice single Violano he o...

•Jack Kane posted a request recently for the tuning scale for a 17" Kalliope musical box. I was able to locate one published by Graham Webb in his book, "The Musical Box Handbook Vol. 2 - Disc Boxes" (2nd. Ed.) published by Vestal Press. I scanned the applicable page and forwarded it to Jack in a se...

•When tuning one note lower, low E becomes D, and F becomes E, but F-sharp becomes...? My first organ I tuned on pitch, but I wanted to try it one note lower. Les Higger lhigger@att.net.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]

•Re: 080915 MMDigest, tuning one note lower: F-Sharp becomes E natural. Are you talking about a keyboard organ or a purely automatic note-roll played instrument? If you're talking about a keyboard instrument, I would like to add a plea to give up this notion and tune it correctly. If anyone should e...

•In response to Les Higger's question in 080915 MMDigest: Are you trying to tune it down one whole note lower or down one half note? Your note transfers conflict. Lowering E to D is a whole tone lower Lowering F to E is a half tone lower If you want to lower by a half step, or by a whole step, use t...

•For Les Higger (080915 MMDigest): One note lower for F is not E but E-flat. F-sharp becomes E. There is more to consider than just tuning the organ. If the organ is designed for a certain pitch, tuning it one note lower could make the slides or stoppers loosen in the pipe causing the pipe to go off...

•One should really talk about 'one tone lower' or 'one semitone lower'. In this respect 'one note lower' is meaningless, as organ scales are not chromatic. If E becomes D then that is a drop of one tone, so F cannot become E, since this is only a semitone. F should become D-sharp and F-sharp becomes...

•Les Higger wrote: > When tuning one note lower, low E becomes D, and F becomes E, but F-sharp > becomes...? One "note" lower: surely E becomes D sharp, F becomes E, and F sharp becomes F. On the other hand, one "tone" lower, E becomes D, F becomes D sharp, and F sharp becomes E. To make transpositi...

•Les, When transposing, you must remember that not all the notes in the major scale are one note apart. There are two points in every (major) scale that are only a half-step apart. In C scale, there is only a half-step between E and F (there is no E-sharp). The other place where this occurs is betwe...

•Responding to Les Higger's question about tuning one step lower. One step equals two half steps, not necessarily the next door neighboring key. Going down one step (two half steps), C-Bb, B-A, Bb-Ab, A-G, Ab-Gb, G-F, F-Eb, E-D, Eb-Db, D-C, Db-Cb(B). Dr. Dave Lunt :)

•Hello All, I had to double look at this one. Is Les dropping the organ scale by one whole tone or just moving everything down one to the left on the white notes only? I had to draw a quick sketch of a keyboard to check if I could make sense of it and to be sure I was in the right area, so here goes...

•Thanks to everyone for the response. I now understand how it works. The organ I want to re-tune is a Wurlitzer 105, the second organ I've built. The first I built was tuned on pitch because of the trumpets that I used from a Wurlitzer 125 that I built 40 years ago. Since then, using Bob Stanoszek's...

•Without getting into the details of why you should or could or would tune the organ one note low, there is a very easy way to transpose a scale up or down by any number of notes. It doesn't matter if the instrument scale is chromatic or not because you tune each note up by (for instance) one note, ...

•-- non-subscriber, please reply to sender and MMD -- We are close to finishing the fabrication of our "life size" music box using a 55-gallon drum whose base is made of old bicycle frames. The movement plays Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyries" and has almost 300 notes. The combs have a range of four...

•> ... we are not getting enough sustain on the high notes ... I would > also welcome any information on a dampening system for the low notes. To get sustain from high notes you must have very rigid mounting to drive the comb "body" to a very high frequency. For tuning, to lower the frequency of the...