Schober Organ Notes No. 58
To Organ Notes via email subscribers: Organ Notes # 58 involves pictures
as well as text. The pictures are available from me for downloading, or
on paper if requested (and you send some postage or a SASE to Alex.)
I don't know how he did it, but Alex has got the file down to a very
small size and it still has good resolution. It is in .jpg format, and
took me about 3 minutes with a 28.8 modem to download it. Email me back
if you want me to attempt to send it to you. Seasons Greetings, Jack Gildar.
Disclaimer: We accept no responsibility for any unfavorable consequences
resulting from following our advice.
OVERTURE
Some time ago I purchased several types of very thin leather and man made
materials from organ supply houses and player piano parts houses for experimentation
in the construction of the little "air bags" used in the "puff of air"
Theatre presets. I never started as there seemed not to be any interest
from any of you in the project. Now, someone on our web page made some
inquiries about Theatre presets of this type. Is there any interest out
there from any one else? Let me know please.
EVENTS
Jack Gildar sent information about the Home Organ Festival "ASILOMAR 2000"
to be held September 10-14, 2000. It will be held in Pacific Grove, CA.
A discount of $25 is offered for registration before December 31, 1999.
Contact Judy Laine (Registrar) Home Organ Festival PO Box 10820 Salinas,
CA 93912 Phone: (831) 784-0331 Fax: (209) 796-4398
SOME MORE ABOUT CONTACT CLEANERS
Our member Alan McFarlane wrote: "You were discussing Caig sprays - wonder
if you are aware of their ProGold G5? It is made expressly for gold contacts
in switches etc. and it seemed to clear my problems with a few bad key
contacts... It's a bit pricey, about $14 for 6 oz. can, but sure easier
than dismantling the keyboard! I bought mine from Tech America (now changed
to Radio Shack.com)...". Another of our members, Dave Gairo writes: "Just
read the Schober newsletter and I see talk about contact cleaning again.
That made me remember that my key contacts have been working very well
for a few years. Here is my treatment: First, clean the contacts with any
contact cleaner. Then rub on RAIL ZIP, a contact enhancing product that
model railroaders have been using for a number of years. Get it in any
decent hobby shop that has a good train department. Evidently, the RAIL
ZIP leaves a coating (or something attaches to the contacts) and remains
there. As I said, I did this a few years ago and have not had to touch
the contacts since...".
RECORDINGS
Fred Henn, our founder, pointed out to me that ATOS is having auctions
of surplus recordings every second month. This newsletter will reach you
after the deadline of Dec. 1; however, the first of the alphabetical lists
was only up to "C". The next deadline will be February. The list is sent
out with THEATRE ORGAN. If you are not a member of ATOS you can get a list
from: ATOS Special Services 785 Palomino Court San Marcos, CA 92069-2102
MORE RECORDINGS
Fred Henn also wrote that the Organ Historical Society just mailed out
a catalog featuring Theatre Organ recordings and books. You can e-mail
them to get one at: catalog@organsociety.org or write or phone: Organ Historical
Society PO Box 26811 Richmond, VA 23261 Tel.: (804) 353-9226
AND MORE ABOUT OHS
Bill Kohrumel writes that the Organ Historical Society web site catalog
has quite a selection of CD's at a good price. Their web site address is:
www.ohscatalog.org. Membership, which includes their publication The Tracker,
is $35 per year regular, $29 for age 65 and over, and $19 for students
under age 25.
BOOKS AND RECORDINGS
All sorts of books, new and used (some hard to find) as well as new and
used recordings can be found at The Organ Literature Foundation. Send for
their catalog at: 45 Norfolk Road, Braintree, MA 02184 Email:Organlitfnd@juno.com
Fax: (781) 848-7655
A SCHOBER THEATRE-RECITAL-CONSOLETTE
When I got my Theatre, I gave away my Consolette II, (I had already given
away a tube Consolette). The recipients were a family consisting of grandparents,
parents and three youngsters. Well, they saw the Theatre and were a little
disappointed in the lesser capabilities of the Consolette II, and that
they would not have the room for a Theatre model even if I could find one
for them. I told them I would "jazz up" the Consolette and so it stayed
in my place for another year or so. With the exception of the pedal generator,
the tone generators, and preamplifier, I removed all the Consolette PC
boards, keyboards and stop tabs and replaced them with Recital versions,
also adding a mixer. The Consolette preamplifier along with the keyboard
balance switch was retained because only one swell shoe was to be used.
A new stop board was cut, as the stop tablet assembly for the Recital needed
a lower and wider slot. Six stop tab spaces were cut from the stop tab
mechanism, as the retained Consolette pedal generator has only four voices
and the pedal couplers were eliminated since the Consolette pedal division
was monophonic. The new board had barely enough room left on the sides
to accommodate the switches for vibrato (3 depth), keyboard balance switch
and pilot on the left and the Reverbatape, percussion controls and percussion
pilot on the right. [See photo]. 
The rotary on-off switch was replaced with a Recital type, relocated
in the upper left cheek board. To make room for the stop tab assembly and
the plug in voicing filters, the component board had to be lowered several
inches. The organ has the library of stops capabilities of the Recital,
and is voiced exactly as Schober recommended for its theatre voiced Recital,
with white, red, yellow and black tabs. There are no couplers for the pedals,
but the keyboard couplers are Recital. Since the original tone generators
were retained, one extra octave at 2' is repeated on the keyboards, the
same with the lowest octave at 16', but individual Recital tone generators
would have created a space problem as they are wider than the Consolette
type. An Allen 50-watt amplifier feeds the standard Schober LSS-10A speaker.
After all this was done the trouble started. NOISE! What a horrible disappointment
that was! So here are some solutions which made all the difference in the
world. Firstly, the registration circuits PC boards have the ground busses
interrupted. The busses run from a mechanical connection (the long thin
screw and nut that holds the PC board to the tablet assembly) and end just
before the next mechanical connection where the bus restarts! The mechanical
connection, if not tight, causes noise. If over-tightened, the thin copper
of the printed circuit board breaks and completely severs the connection.
The solution was a heavy copper wire (#12) run along the top of the stop
tablet assembly connected to ground, and thin wires run to every ground
point on the Swell and Great PC boards. A lot less noise; however, some
hash noise (every pitch in the book as background noise) was still there.
Now, if you have this problem, here is something that might help. The shielded
wires from the swell pedal potentiometers ran right below the tone generators,
the full length of the organ, and then up to the preamp and mixer boards
in the original Schober design. One would think that shielded wires would
not pick up anything, but do they ever! Those shielded wires were rerun
from the potentiometer up to the PC boards along the front of the console,
far away from the TG's and the difference was stunning. Now the Schober
percussion system was added. The keyer boards are mounted on the back of
the console and this part of the back is hinged and the boards can be swung
back out and up for servicing. The voicing board is mounted on the treble
side of the component board. The percussion was another noise nightmare.
I had wired it to the power supply as per original Schober instructions;
two wires running directly to the power supply and internally connected
at two points of the rectifier section. Fortunately, I found a change notice
amongst my Schober papers which connected these wires to a decoupler. The
Consolette decoupler is a single capacitor and a resistor. Connecting it
there reduced the noise somewhat, but a Recital type decoupler was added
and this helped some more. A 3300 mf capacitor was added to the mixer,
which again reduced the noise. Finally a metal enclosure was built for
the voicing board and again the difference was amazing. Unfortunately I
did not have a solid state reverberation unit. A good Reverbatape sounds
great in my opinion, it's just the matter of changing tapes that is a pain.
So I put in a Reverbatape. It is located on the floor of the console on
the far left. [See photo]. Noise again why? It was a great working unit.
What it was is that the tape heads were picking up signals from the tone
generators above! The solution was a metal shield between the tone generators
and the Reverbatape. [See photo]. The organ now had minute background noise
and sounded really good in my opinion. The new owners are happy with it.
ak
SCHOBER RELATED ITEMS
Recital Available
A Recital with two sets of tone generators is available from Mac Hayes,
who says he now has enough parts to build a real pipe organ. There is no
speaker and Mac would prefer to keep his Carver amplifier. He could deliver
within a reasonable distance. He is located about 75 miles north of Los
Angeles. For information contact him at: 5419 64th St. W Rosamond, CA 93560
Tel.: (661) 256-3162 Email: mach37@ptw.com
Theatre Genius John Janco writes that he
is rejuvenating a Theatre Schober. He is having some problems and would
like to communicate with an electronic genius "with a lot of patience...who
does not mind a score or two of stupid questions...". Send him an email
at: jjanco@concentric.net
Service
A MITA service man for the Fox Valley area of WI got in touch with me.
He is familiar with Schober Organs. If you need a technician contact: Jeremy
Tourville 3492 Aerts Lane DePere, WI 54115 phone toll free: (888) 910-8863
or e-mail: jtpiano@vbe.com
NON-SCHOBER RELATED ITEMS
Book Available
PC WORLD's Word for Windows 6 Handbook by Brent Heslop & David Angell,
IDG Books (free for cost of shipping). Contact your editor.
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Happy Holidays