Moog Cordovox CDX Organ 1975

The Moog Satellite was designed to be an organ player’s synth. It was manufactured by the Thomas Organ Company, who paid a large royalty to be allowed to manufacture the Satellite for Moog. In return they were allowed to incorporate the Satellite into their organs. Thomas Organ Company also, along with Cordovox, designed the Moog CDX.

The Moog CDX is basically a Cordovox organ with a built in Satellite monosynth. It is the only organ product that bears the Moog name prominently across the front. Somewhat rare in the US, they seem to be in plentiful supply in parts of Europe.
CDX-0652

A dual-manual combo organ with a Moog Satellite grafted onto it. I understand that the Satellite had a very thin sound, nothing like the MiniMoog. It had only a single oscillator and several preset sounds, similar to other semi-preset synths like the Arp Pro Soloist and the Roland SH-2000.

Thomas bought the rights to the Satellite from Moog. The CDX-0652 was designed by Thomas in cooperation with Cordovox. A Thomas version of the Satellite (the “Synthi 1055) and the CDX-0652 were both manufactured by EME, the same outfit that made most Italian Vox organs. Thomas also marketed the Satellite under the “Orbit” name on some of their home organs.

The synthesizer voices play only on the upper manual, organ voices play on both. Organ and synth voices may be played simultaneously on the upper manual. It includes a batch of 9 preset synthesizer voices that don’t appear on a Satellite. Unlike the 0642, this one seems to have all of the organ features (many of which seem identical to the 0642) available on both keyboards.

Controls:

Top Panel:

* Tab: Moog On/Off
* Buttons: Piano, Sax, Guitar, Flute, Banjo, Clarinet, String, Trumpet, Horn, Preset
* *Tabs 1: Octaves: 1 & 2 Modulation: Rep, Sine/Square, Vib, Trem
* *Tabs 2: Glide, Sust
* *Tabs 3: Brass: Mute, Open Reed: Thin, Hollow, Full, Bright
* *Tabs 4: String: Bow, Pluck Strike, Pick Bell, Lunar

Left of Upper Keyboard:

* Knob: Tuning
* Black Sliders: Flute Voices: 16′, 8′, 5-1’3, 4′, 2-2’3, 2′ Mixture, Volume Lower, Volume Upper
* *White Sliders: Filter: Contour, Color, Emphasis Modulation: Rate, Depth Glide, Volume

Left of Lower Keyboard:

* Buttons: Coupler, Sustain, Bass
* Sliders: Bass Min/Max, Guitar Bass, Vibrato Depth

Right of Lower Keyboard:

* Buttons: Percuss, Repeat, Mono
* Sliders: 8′, 4′, 2-2/3′, 2′, Decay Short/Long, Repeat Rate Slow/Fast””

Via THIS AUCTION

Step Into Concrète: Organ Sample Sets (and VSTi)

Hello everyone (that I didn’t scare away with my last post).

Today I thought I’d do something a little different and turn you on to some organ sample sets, free as well as commercial.  For the few of you that have no clue what I’m speaking of -A history lesson:

‘Samples’ are snippets of recorded sound used in musical composition.  It technically started in the 1940’s with Pierre Schaeffer and ‘Musique Concrète’.

1948!

In the 1960’s Musique Concrète went pop with the birth of the Mellotron, a keyboard that played 8 second lengths of audio tape playing a signle note of an instrument (like a cello, or violin) per key.  Certainly, you’ve heard it.

The strings?  Mellotron.

Then came the 80’s and with it came digital sampling.  The biggest name in the form was the Fairlight CMI.

Peter Gabriel explains the Fairlight!  Yes, in English

Art of Noise with their ground breaking Fairlight track (and amusing vid) for “Close To The Edit”

As the decade wore on, the technology became MUCH cheaper and the data storage much smaller resulting in many different choices in the sampling realm.  From the heavy duty:

The EMU Emulator II

To the down and dirty:

The Ensoniq Mirage (RACK VERSION)

Pete Rock wailing on the now legendary EMU SP1200 (among other things)

To the thing you wish you never bought your grandkid for Christmas:

What they sold you

What you bought!

Replace “Hello My Name Is Herbert” with a fart, or “Billy Is Gay” and the tears, they did flow huh, Gramma?  Yep.

Well, with the 90’s came the advent of computer recording and now, in the late Aughties, anyone with a half decent computer or smart phone (iPhone / iPad) has the ability to also run a top of the line sampler / sequencer through any number of DAW programs like Cubase, Nuendo, Reaper, Fruity Loops, Ableton, Pro-Tool, Garageband, the list is LONG.

DAW VIDEOS ARE TOO BORING TO SHOW!

go ahead, hit the link, see if I care!

So, why oh, why did I drag through this?

Because some of you love organs, but don’t have the space necessary or means to have one in your home.  Well, if you have a computer, enough space on your hard drive, and money to afford a USB MIDI keyboard controller, I think sampling is the solution for you!  Once you understand the basics of sampling (terms like MIDI and WAV) and spend a little time with a simple program like Garageband (which comes loaded in most iMacs as far as I know) or Cubase lite, the internet will provide you with more sampled organ sounds than you could believe, often cheap, sometimes free!

Here’s a few places to get some organ samples!:

http://sonimusicae.free.fr/orguedesalon-en.html awesome pipe organ

http://www.forgottenkeys.co.uk/3_fe70.php A Yamaha FE-70 – exactly the kind of organ we love @ Organ *Pron!  I’ve bought from Forgotten Keys numerous times, great stuff and SUPER CHEAP!  I didn’t know about this until TODAY!!  Plenty of classic Drumbox sample sets there, too!

http://www.sampletekk.com/proddetail.php?prod=PMIDELIVER-007-FORMAT A nice Kontakt style baroque organ

http://www.vintagekeyboardsounds.com/ A bunch of hot combo organs here!

http://audiogeneticslab.com/instruments/free/magnus-chord-organ A free Magnus chord organ set.  Actually really cool!

http://www.hollowsun.com/shop/Freepacks Hollow Sun, the masters of the weird sample set, offer up a free Novachord, one of the coolest organ type instruments EVER!

http://www.freesound.org/ Speaking of weird and Musique Concrète…

Here are some VSTi (Virtual Studio Technology instrument), basically simulated digital versions of real instruments – no samples.  Some are servicable, some are amazing, as far as organs go, there are TONS and the majority of them are FREE.  So, please, mosey on over to KVR Audio check ’em out!

http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php?mode=results&st=f&q=organ

No More Comments.

If you’ve noticed, I rarely update this page.  Part of the reason is the non-stop deluge of comments from people making demands, trying to buy things that I’ve made pretty clear aren’t mine, and people trying to sell organs – which I can safely say are 99% scams.  Well, congratulations dumbasses – no more comments.  I am DONE with your laziness in finding out about things like:

A) Where you are.

B) What the purpose of the place you are is.

C) What a blog is.

Half of you people seem to think I’m running a store, even though it says RIGHT UNDER THE TITLE

“No. I don’t own them. Stop asking!”

And you run your mouth at me making demands like “I need this manual.  I will pay five dollars.  I need you to get it here by Friday.” without even checking to see if I have the manual in question or if you’re actually in a store!

And then there are you sad, sad old folks who are all to willing to give up your personal info, credit card numbers and all to a total stranger you’ve never even seen in hopes of getting the organ pictured.

Enough.  I warned you months ago, but nothing has changed.  You’ve just about killed what joy I had in doing this blog.  When I get an email saying that a new comment awaits my moderation, I literally GROAN.  I really wanted to just have a blog where people came and drooled over crazy organs, maybe talked about their experiences and shared videos etc.  There have been a few of you that did just that.  To you I say thank you and also I’m sorry.  You were who I had in mind when I started this, unfortunately there are many more Archie Bunkers out there, ruining it for the rest of us.

KUSTOM KOMBO J-1295 TUCK AND ROLL ORGAN

Easily one of the coolest organs ever.  Auction HERE.  Ends on 2/25/10.

“Here’s a rare piece: a 1968 Kustom J-1295 Kombo organ. This piece is a real monster, “tuck-and-fold” silver ( white ) Naugahyde from the “Zodiac” series, four C12N Jensen special design speakers, K200A amp , K200 preamp for other instruments , and a lot more.This organ will need some work primarily on the preamp which I can’t seem to get a signal through,some humming, Naugahyde ripped on the bottom, and the volume pedal pot will need some cleaning. All of the tabs and controls function well and the amp is loud. Organ comes with its original cover. I believe this is a first year Kustom Kombo organ and a pretty funky unit at that. This baby weights about 200 lbs so it’ll have to be picked up or freighted, so please read my item description.”