Predecessors ;Harmonium The immediate predecessor of the electronic organ was the
harmonium, or
reed organ, an instrument that was common in homes and small churches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In a fashion not totally unlike that of pipe organs, reed organs generate sound by forcing air over a set of reeds by means of a bellows, usually operated by constantly pumping a set of pedals. The Harmonium used pressure, and the American reed organ or pump organ used suction. While reed organs have limited tonal quality, they are small, inexpensive, self-powered, transportable and self-contained. (Large models were made with multiple manuals, or even pedal boards; in the latter case, the bellows were operated by a leaver or crank on the side by an assistant, or in some late models an electric pump.) The reed organ is thus able to bring an organ sound to venues that are incapable of housing or affording pipe organs. This concept played an important role in the development of the electric organ. ;Pipe organ In the 1930s, several manufacturers developed electronic organs designed to imitate the function and sound of pipe organs. At the time, some manufacturers thought that emulation of the pipe organ was the most promising route to take in the development of an electronic organ. Not all agreed, however. Various types of electronic organs have been brought to market over the years, with some establishing solid reputations in their own niche markets.
(1897–1930s) The use of electricity in organs emerged in the first decades of the 20th century, but it was slow to have a major impact. Electrically powered reed organs appeared during the first decades of electricity, but their tonal qualities remained much the same as the older, foot-pumped models.
Thaddeus Cahill's gargantuan and controversial instrument, the
Telharmonium, which began piping music to New York City establishments over the telephone system in 1897, predated the advent of
electronics, yet was the first instrument to demonstrate the use of the combination of many different pure electrical
waveforms to synthesize real-world instrument sounds. Cahill's techniques were later used by
Laurens Hammond in his organ design, and the 200-ton Telharmonium served as the world's first demonstration of electrically produced music on a grand scale. Meanwhile, some further experimentation with producing sound by electric impulses was taking place, especially in France.
(1930s–1975) After the failure of the Telharmonium business, similar designs called
tonewheel organs were continuously developed; For example: •
Robb Wave Organ by
Morse Robb (Canada) — developed since c.1923, marketed 1936–1941 •
Rangertone by Richard Ranger (United States) — marketed c.1932 •
Hammond organ by
Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert (United States) — invented in 1934, marketed 1935–1975 (as the tonewheel organs) • ''
by Edwin Welte, et al.'' (Germany) —
optical-tonewheel
sampling organ, marketed 1935–1940s One of the earlier electric tonewheel organs was conceived and manufactured by Morse Robb, of the Robb Wave Organ Company. Built in Belleville, Ontario, the Robb Wave Organ predates its much more successful competitor
Hammond by patent and manufacture, but shut down its operations in 1938 due to lack of funding. The first widespread success in this field was a product of the Hammond Clock Company in 1934. The
Hammond organ quickly became the successor of the reed organ, displacing it almost completely. From the start, tonewheel organs operated on a radically different principle from all previous organs. In place of reeds and pipes, Robb and Hammond introduced a set of rapidly spinning magnetic wheels, called
tonewheels, which excite
transducers that generate electrical signals of various frequencies that are mixed and fed through an
amplifier to a
loudspeaker. The organ is electrically powered, replacing the reed organ's twin bellows pedals with a single
swell (or "expression") pedal more like that of a pipe organ. Instead of having to pump at a constant rate, as had been the case with the reed organ, the organist simply varies the position of this pedal to change the volume as desired. Unlike reed organs, this gives great control over the music's dynamic range, while at the same time freeing one or both of the player's feet to play on a
pedalboard, which, unlike most reed organs, electronic organs incorporate. From the beginning, the electronic organ has had a second
manual, also rare among reed organs. While these features mean that the electric organ requires greater musical skills of the organist than the reed organ has, the second manual and the pedalboard along with the expression pedal greatly enhanced playing, far-surpassing the capabilities of the typical reed organ. The most revolutionary difference in the Hammond, however, is its huge number of tonewheel settings, achieved by manipulating a system of
drawbars located near the manuals. By using the drawbars, the organist can combine a variety of electrical tones and
harmonics in varying proportions, thus giving the Hammond vast registration. In all, the Hammond is capable of producing more than 250 million tones. This feature, combined with the three-keyboard layout (i.e., manuals and pedalboard), the freedom of electrical power, and a wide, easily controllable range of volume, made the first electronic organs more flexible than any reed organ, or indeed any previous musical instrument except, perhaps, the pipe organ itself. The classic Hammond sound benefits from the use of free-standing loudspeakers called tone cabinets. The sound is often further enhanced by rotating speaker units, usually manufactured by
Leslie. The Hammond Organ was widely adopted in popular genres such as
jazz,
gospel,
pop music, and
rock music. It was utilized by bands such as
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer,
Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and
Deep Purple, among others. Occasionally the legs would be cut off these instruments to make them easier to transport from show to show. The most popular and emulated organ in the Hammond line is the B3. Although portable "
clonewheel organs" started to synthesize and displace the original Hammond tonewheel design in the 1970s, it is still very much in demand by professional organists. The industry continues to see a lively trade in refurbished Hammond instruments, even as technological advances allow new organs to perform at levels unimaginable only two or three decades ago.
(1934–1964) In the wake of Hammond's 1934 invention of the tonewheel organ, competitors explored other possibilities of electric/electronic organ design. Other than the variations of tonewheel organ design, for example, a purely electronic interpretation of the pipe organ (based on "
additive synthesis" design) seemed a promising approach. However, it requires a huge number of oscillators, and these circuit scales and complexities were considered a technical bottleneck, as
vacuum tube circuits of those days are bulky and unstable.
Benjamin Miessner realized that a hybrid approach, using acoustic tone generators along with electronic circuits, could be a reasonable design for commercial products. The
Orgatron was developed in 1934 by Frederick Albert Hoschke, after a Miessner patent. A fan blows air over a set of
free reeds, causing them to vibrate. These vibrations are detected by a number of
capacitive pickups, then the resulting electric signals are processed and amplified to create musical tones. Orgatron was manufactured by
Everett Piano Company from 1935 to 1941. Following World War II and a business transfer, production resumed in 1945 by the
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company and continued into the early 1960s, including some models retaining the Everett name from 1945 to 1947. In 1955, the German company
Hohner also released two electrostatic reed organs: the
Hohnerola and the
Minetta, invented by
Ernst Zacharias. In the same decades, similar
electro-acoustic instruments —
i.e. electric-fan driven free reed organs with additional electronic circuits — were developed also in Japan.
Magna Organ invented in 1934 by a
Yamaha engineer, Sei-ichi Yamashita, was a multi-timbral keyboard instrument similar to the Hoschke's instrument developed in the same year, although it utilized the
microphones in the
soundproof box instead of the electrostatic pickups. Initially the Magna Organ was designed as a kind of the
additive-synthesizer that summing-up the
partials generated by the
frequency-multipliers. However, it seems difficult to achieve
polyphony without
intermodulation distortions with the technology of the 1930s. and the reviews at that time, its later implemented design, seems to had shifted to a sound-colorization system using the (various) combinations of reed sets, microphones and loudspeakers. This type of instrument was later re-commercialized: In 1959, Japanese organ builder, Ichirō Kuroda, built his first Croda Organ with each pair of constantly oscillating free reed and a microphone in the soundproof box, and installed at Nishi-Chiba Church in Chiba Prefecture.
(1930s–) Novachord (1939) On the other hand, the Hammond
Novachord (1939) and other competitors selected the
subtractive synthesis design using various combinations of
oscillators,
filters, and possibly
frequency dividers, to reduce the huge number of oscillators, which was the bottleneck of the additive synthesis design. The heat generated by early models with vacuum tube tone generators and amplifiers led to the somewhat derogatory nickname "toaster". Today's solid-state instruments do not suffer from the problem, nor do they require the several minutes that vacuum tube organs need to bring the filament heaters up to temperature. Electronic organs were once popular home instruments, comparable in price to pianos and frequently sold in department stores. After their début in the 1930s, they captured the public imagination through the recordings of musicians such as Milt Herth (the first performer to record the Hammond Electric Organ) as well as recordings and film performances of
Ethel Smith. Nevertheless, they were promoted primarily as church / institutional instruments during the
Great Depression and through World War II. After the war, they became more widespread; for example, the
Baldwin Piano Company introduced its first in 1946 (with 37 vacuum tubes). Following the adaptation of solid-state electronics to organs in the late 1950s, the market for electronic organs began a fundamental change. Portable electronic keyboards became a regular feature of rock-and-roll music during the 1960s. They are also more convenient to move and store than are the large one-piece organs that had previously defined the market. By the late 1960s, the home organ market was dying while the portable keyboard market was thriving.
(1930s–) Early electronic organ products released in the 1930s and 1940s were already implemented on frequency divider technology using vacuum tubes or transformer-dividers. With the development of the
transistor, electronic organs that use no mechanical parts to generate the waveforms became practical. The first of these was the frequency divider organ, the first of which uses twelve
oscillators to produce one octave of chromatic scale, and
frequency dividers to produce other notes. These were even cheaper and more portable than the Hammond. Later developments made it possible to run an organ from a single
radio frequency oscillator. Frequency divider organs were built by many companies, and were offered in kit form to be built by hobbyists. A few of these have seen notable use, such as the
Lowrey played by
Garth Hudson. The design of the Lowrey's electronics made it easy to include a pitch-bend feature that is unavailable for the Hammond, and Hudson built a musical style around its use.
(1930s–) Console organs, large and expensive electronic organ models, resemble pipe organ consoles. These instruments have a more traditional configuration, including full-range manuals, a wider variety of stops, and a two-octave (or occasionally even a full 32-note) pedalboard easily playable by both feet in standard toe-and-heel fashion. (Console organs having 32-note pedalboards are sometimes known as "concert organs".) Console models, like spinet and chord organs, have internal speakers mounted above the pedals. With their more traditional configuration, greater capabilities, and better performance compared to spinets, console organs are especially suitable for use in small churches, public performance, and even organ instruction. The home musician or student who first learned to play on a console model often found that he or she could later make the transition to a pipe organ in a church setting with relative ease. College music departments made console organs available as practice instruments for students, and church musicians would not uncommonly have them at home.
(1940s–) During the period from the 1940s through approximately the 1970s, a variety of more modest self-contained electronic home organs from a variety of manufacturers were popular forms of home entertainment. These instruments were much influenced by
theatre organs' sounds and playing style, and often the stops contained imitative voicings such as "trumpet" and "marimba". In the 1950s–1970s, as technology progressed, they increasingly included automated features such as: •
Repeat percussion (
Thomas Organ) •
Sustain (
Gulbransen •
Chimes stop / Piano stop (Gulbransen) •
One-touch chords (
Hammond S-6 Chord Organ in 1950) •
Automatic Orchestra Control (Lowrey organ in 1963) •
Autochord (Hammond Piper in 1970, Lowrey Magic Genie in c.1975) •
Automatic walking bass (Gulbransen etc.) •
Built-in Leslie speaker /
Rotary speaker (Gulbransen, etc.) and even built-in
tape recorders. This is an even simpler instrument designed for those who wanted to produce an organ sound in the home without having to learn much organ (or even piano) playing technique. The typical chord organ has only a single manual that is usually an octave shorter than its already-abbreviated spinet counterpart. It also possesses scaled-down registration and no pedalboard. The left hand operates not a keyboard but an array of chord buttons adapted from those of an
accordion. The original Hammond Chord Organs in 1950 are electronic instruments using vacuum-tube technology. In 1958
Magnus Organ Corporation introduced chord organs similar to an electrically blown reed organ or harmonium.
(1957–) Electronic organs before the mid-1950s had used
vacuum tubes which tended to be bulky and unstable. This restricted attempts to extend features and spread their use into homes.
Transistors, invented at
Bell Labs in 1947, went into practical production in the 1950s, and their small size and stability led to major changes in the production of electronics equipment, in what has been termed the "transistor revolution". In 1957, a home organ manufacturer,
Gulbransen, introduced the world's first transistor organ,
Model B (Model 1100). Although it uses transistors for tone generation, vacuum tubes are still used for amplification. Other manufacturers followed.
(1950s–) ) using
transistors. It's light, compact and portable. By the 1960s, electronic organs were ubiquitous in all genres of popular music, from
Lawrence Welk to
acid rock (e.g.
the Doors,
Iron Butterfly) to the
Bob Dylan album
Blonde on Blonde. In some cases,
Hammonds were used, while others featured very small all-electronic instruments, only slightly larger than a modern
digital keyboard, called
combo organs. (Various portable organs made by
Farfisa and
Vox were especially popular, and remain so among retro-minded rock combos.) The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s saw increasing specialization: both the
gospel and
jazz scenes continued to make heavy use of Hammonds, while various styles of
rock began to take advantage of increasingly complex electronic keyboard instruments, as
large-scale integration and then
digital technology began to enter the mainstream.
(1970s–) An
Eminent 310 organ was prominently featured on
Jean Michel Jarre's albums
Oxygène (1977) and
Equinoxe (1978). The
Solina String Ensemble was used extensively by pop, rock, jazz, and disco artists, including
Herbie Hancock,
Elton John,
Pink Floyd,
Stevie Wonder,
The Carpenters,
George Clinton,
Eumir Deodato,
The Rolling Stones,
The Buggles,
Rick James,
George Harrison, and
The Bee Gees. ;Various synthesizer organs File:Eminent 310U Overview Upper.JPG|
Eminent 310U (1972) File:Eminent Solina C112s home organ.jpg|Eminent Solina C112s () File:Moog Cordovox CDX-0652 in Utrecht.jpg|CMI Cordovox CDX-0652 (c.1974) File:Yamaha GX-1 (clip) @ Yamaha Design Masterworks.png|
Yamaha GX-1 (c.1975), an earliest
polyphonic synthesizer. File:Don Lewis' LEO (Live Electronic Orchestra) synthesizer organ, Museum of Making Music.jpg| Don Lewis' LEO: ;Typical features on Synthesizer organs File:Eminent 310U Right Panels and Manuals - Strings Ensemble.jpg|
built-in String Ensemble section on Eminent 310U File:Wurlitzer Model 805 Centura Professional (1974) with Orbit III Monophonic Synthesizer.jpg|
built-in Monophonic Synthesizer Orbit III (entire second row with mini-keys) on
Wurlitzer 805 (1974) File:Thomas 2001 organ - angled view.jpg|
Thomas 2001 (1976) File:Thomas 2001 organ - Band Master Polyphonic Synthesizer (1976).jpg|
optional Polyphonic Synthesizer Band Master on Thomas 2001 File:Farfisa pergamon chor.jpg|
built-in Vocal Chorus Synthesizer on
Farfisa Pergamon (1981)
(1971–) Allen introduced the world's first digital organ (and first digital
musical instrument commercial product) in 1971: the Allen Digital Computer Organ. This new technology was developed for use in home organs by
North American Rockwell (project leader Ralph Deutsch) and licensed to Allen, which began using it for church organs. Allen later sued Rockwell and Deutsch, and gained sole rights to the digital computer organ technology.
(1980s–) Electone STAGEA ELS-01). Though it resembles a 1950s spinet organ in appearance, its digital tone generators and synthesis modules can imitate hundreds of instruments. 2). Electronic organs are still made for the home market, but they have been largely replaced by the digital keyboard or
synthesizer which is smaller and cheaper than typical electronic organs or traditional pianos. Modern digital organs offer features not found in traditional pipe organs, such as orchestral and percussion sounds, a choice of historical
pitch standards and
temperaments, and advanced console aids. Digital organs incorporate real-time tone generation based on sampling or synthesis technologies, and may include
MIDI, and
Internet connectivity for downloading music data and instructional materials to
USB flash drive or
media card storage. While much more complex than their predecessors, their basic appearance makes them instantly recognizable. The best digital organs of the 2000s incorporate these technical features: File:Electronisch orgel.jpg|
Generalmusic GEM MK-10 File:EL-900m.jpg|
Yamaha Electone Stagea EL-900m (2000) --> ;DSP technology In 1990, Rodgers introduced
software-based digital church organs with technology which connected multiple
Digital Signal Processors (DSP) in parallel to generate pipe organ sound with
stereo imaging. Sounds in other digital organs are derived from DSPs in either a sampled or synthesis type generation system.
Sampled technologies use sounds recorded from various ranks of pipe organs. In
synthesis systems, the wave shape is created by
tone generators instead of using a sound sample. Both systems generate organ tones, sometimes in stereo in better systems, rather than simply playing recorded tones as a simple digital keyboard sampler might do. Marketed by
Eminent, Wyvern, Copeman Hart, Cantor, and Van der Pole in Europe, synthesis organs may use circuitry purchased from
Musicom, an English supply company. In the digital organ category, synthesis-based systems are rarely seen outside of Europe. ;Sampling Many digital organs use high-quality samples to produce an accurate sound. Sampled systems may have samples of organ pipe sound for each individual note, or may use only one or a few samples which are then frequency-shifted to generate the equivalent of a 61-note pipe rank. Some digital organs like Walker Technical and the very costly Marshall & Ogletree organs use longer samples for additional realism, rather than having to repeat shorter samples in their generation of sound. Sampling in 2000s-era organs is typically done with 24-bit or 32-bit resolution, at a higher rate than the 44.1
kHz of
CD-quality audio having 16-bit resolution. ;Surround sound On most digital organs, several audio channels are used to create a more spacious sound. Higher-quality digital organ builders use custom audio and speaker systems and may provide from 8 to 32 or more independent channels of audio, depending on the size of the organ and the budget for the instrument. With dedicated high-power
subwoofers for the lowest frequencies, digital organs can approach the physical sensation of a pipe organ. ;Pipe organ simulations To better simulate pipe organs, some digital organs emulate changes of
windchest pressure caused by the air pressure dropping slightly when many notes are sounding simultaneously, which changes the sound of all the pipes. Digital organs may also incorporate simulated models of swell boxes which mimic the environmental effects on pipes, pipe chest valve release, and other pipe organ characteristics. These effects can be included in the sound of modern digital organs to create more realistic pipe organ tone. Digital pipe sound can include sampled or modeled room acoustics. Rodgers uses binaural and crosstalk cancellation processing to create real-time acoustic models, and Allen also uses room acoustics as part of the sound generation.
(1990s–) The data processing power of
PCs has made personal organs more affordable. Software applications can store digital pipe
sound samples and combine them in real time in response to input from one or more
MIDI controllers. These tools can be used to assemble home-built organs that can rival the sound quality of commercially built digital organs at a relatively low cost. ==In churches==