Hi everyone!

Starting today, this blog will now reside at http://www.optigan.com, so update your bookmarks and/or rss feeds!

Hi all-

First off, I still have 3 copies of the Orchestron Sax disc left, and 8 copies of Mod Rock. So if you haven’t bought a copy yet, or would like an extra copy, please place your order soon!!

We’re taking a bit of a break at the moment, but hope to be back with more new Optigan/Orchestron disc titles this summer. We may be launching an alternate marketing plan for discs going forward, which would involve a subscription service. Among other things, this would ensure that we only make as many discs as are already pre-paid for. If we decide to go this route, it will be the only way to buy new discs. I have yet to turn a profit on this venture, so if I’m to continue, I need more assurance that I won’t lose my shirt!

Also, the newly re-designed optigan.com will be live soon. My good friend J Lesser is designing it. At first, there won’t be much in the way of new content, but it’s being redesigned to allow me to quickly/easily add and edit the content, so once it’s live I’ll be tweaking and adding things gradually.

There’s a possibility that Optiganally Yours may embark on a mini-tour of the west coast in July, opening for our pals Three Mile Pilot. If we do, chances are we’ll at least try to have an EP of new material ready by then, so we have something to sell at the shows. More news as things come into focus.

Robert is making progress on his Optigan Jr. project (a state-of-the-art, midi-controllable Optigan disc reader) so maybe he’ll post a status update here soon.

If you’re on Facebook, you should join the Optigoners!

OK! That’s all for now! For the next few weeks, I’ll mostly be tied up hosting incoming PCT hikers here, and won’t have much time for Optigan stuff, but things should start happening again in May.

Pea

Thanks to Micheal Wookey for a heads-up on this one. Here’s a track by Lily Allen featuring the Optigan’s Pop Piano Plus Guitar disc.

Greg Kurstin produced the album. I see that Greg inquired about my Optigan sample CD about a year ago, but my records don’t indicate that he actually bought a copy. Maybe I somehow just managed to misplace his order information…

Pitch stability is one of the biggest problems for Optigans. The rubber on the idler wheel gets hard or worn over the years, which makes the wheel slip against the tapered motor shaft. Old wheels can have other problems including notches or flat spots, which cause a knocking or grinding sound when the discs are played. I’ve tried to recondition the rubber and restore the gripping surface with chemicals and fine sandpaper, only to have the pitch problems return a few weeks later.

I recently came across the web site of fellow who says that he completely replaces the worn and damaged rubber on pinch rollers and drive wheels in tape recorders. On the site he shows several examples of his work along with a wow and flutter test comparing a repaired pinch roller to a new one. Since his price seemed reasonable and I had a spare idler wheel, I decided to give him a try.

After about week I received the repaired wheel. The wheel was clean and the rubber had the correct wedge-shaped profile (I sent him a copy of the original Optigan blueprint for the idler). I disassembled the Optigan and removed the shaft/wheel assembly only to discover that the wheel is secured to the shaft by crimps on either side of the wheel. I have a small lathe, so I chucked up the shaft and carefully filed down one of the crimps to remove the old wheel. I slid on the repaired wheel after applying oil to the shaft. I then secured the wheel to the shaft with a clip and reinstalled the wheel/shaft assembly into the Optigan.

I tested the wheel using the new Mod Rock disc. It played well and there was no change in pitch during the several minutes of play. I then put in an old Optigan disc that used to slip badly, and the pitch stayed stable like the Mod Rock disc. I then replaced the Mod Rock disc and played with the pitch control. I was amazed to discover I was able to adjust the pitch about 10% lower and higher than before. I’ve had the Optigan working for a week now, and it’s holding up nicely. I’ll publish an update in a few months. I am optimistic that this will hold up for many years.

The fellow’s name is Terry Witt and the web site is www.terrysrubberrollers.com. The charge for rebuilding the Optigan idler is $35 plus shipping ($5 for the USA). I have been discussing the possibility of Optigan owners sending in the wheel/shaft assembly without having to go through the difficultly of removing the wheel from the shaft. He is willing to look at this and he’ll need to see one to determine what is involved (may or may not affect the price).

If you intend to send your wheel to Terry and you’ve never disassembled an Optigan, you may want to pick up a copy of OptiDocs from Optigan.com for instructions. Let us know if you use his services, and please post your results.

Robert

hi all-

we’re in the process of overhauling optigan.com, and the first thing we’ve launched is a re-vamped message board, to replace the antiquated and spam-ridden one. so feel free to register and start posting!

pea

This is just an announcement to let everyone know that we’re now generating the Sax and Mod Rock discs, and they will be ready to ship next week. If you haven’t yet placed your order, please do so now, as there’s no guarantee that we’ll be making any additional copies of these discs in the future!

This is just a quick note to let y’all know that the OptiDocs service manual CD-Rom has now been updated to include the impossible-to-find Talentmaker service manual as well as Orchestron service docs, schematics, and brochures. 275mb of geeky goodness. Order your copy today!

We’ve had great success with the Radioaktivox release, and since we have been getting requests for more Optigan and Orchestron offerings, we thought we’d take time to explain what it is we do in regards to disc production.

One of the most important things we bring to the table is a reliable method of converting wave files to a digital file format that can be read into a high resolution photoplotter. We also have access to what remain of the original session tapes for the Optigan and Orchestron.

What we currently are not pursuing is a system of copying original discs using reprographic techniques. Others have tried this with varying success. We support the efforts of the Optigan/Orchestron community to continue to search for reliable ways to do this. However, the skill set and resources we offer are audio production, file conversion, and digital disc fabrication, not the ability to photocopy discs. Eventually we may look into extracting audio from original discs, especially from rarities like those made for the Chilton Talentmaker where the original source tapes are lost, but this will be a side project and much more in the spirit of research than development.

With this in mind, we believe we can offer something of value to community. We can release previously unreleased Optigan and Orchestron material, we can create new discs using new source material, and we can even do special projects for individuals who want discs made from their own sounds. We can do all this with tools that were not available at the time when the Optigan/Orchestron were being produced. We also can do a smoother job of joining the loop seams and controlling other audio parameters while remaining true to the spirit of the Optigan/Orchestron.

Some of the earliest discs for the Optigan were made from sections that were cut with a knife out the master tapes. We still have the parts that remain, but the sections that were cut are gone forever. If we were ever inclined to release some of the earliest titles, our discs would sound different than the originals because we don’t have access to the exact loops that were used. This is not necessarily bad news since some of the lost sections were originally picked for ease of looping with the limited tools they had, and not due to the quality of the performance. Because purists will notice a difference and since the early discs are not especially rare, we have no plans to rerelease those discs. We welcome the community’s feedback on this.

We are now in the process of remastering the original Orchestron discs. We are discovering that this requires a more thoughtful effort than the Radioaktivox disc. This is because the Orchestron is more sensitive to crosstalk and noise than the Optigan. Like the early Optigan discs, we are concerned about pleasing the purists, but we realize there are limitations. There is no feasible way to exactly duplicate the original loop points. Also, we don’t want to arbitrarily introduce flaws or forced errors by recreating glitches at the loop points. Instead we’ll endeavor to bring the richness of the original performance to the discs without introducing the flaws. We believe this is what Mike LeDoux would have wanted, and we are operating as if he was in the room directing our efforts.

As always, we look to the Optigan/Orchestron community for feedback and support. If it weren’t for all of you we would never have attempted this project. We always welcome your comments, and we actively discuss your remarks amongst ourselves. So please, if you’ve purchased a Radioaktivox disc, let us know your thoughts, good or bad.

We’re now taking pre-orders for MOD ROCK!

It’s a mod, mod world and you know you’re a mod rocker. Now you can prove it to your friends and family when you play the Optigan Music Maker with the new Mod Rock program disc.

Press the buttons with a left finger. What is that you hear? Drums, organ, guitar, bass! Who would have believed it? And it’s you playing it! Wow! And wait till you see what you can do with your right hand!

You’ll enjoy the Mod Rock program disc even more when you use it to play the contemporary songs that you’ll find in the Optigan Music books. Pick some up today!

MOD ROCK is the first in our series of Optigan discs newly mastered from the original source tapes. There are many sessions on the tapes that were never made into Optigan discs back in the 1970s. MOD ROCK was actually made into a prototype disc, but for some unknown reason it was never released. Two copies of the original prototype are known to exist.

This disc is not a simple “photocopy” of a prototype disc- it’s been completely remastered and recreated from scratch. The disc comes in a full-color jacket featuring artwork created by Mark Crafford especially for this disc.

The initial edition is limited to 25 copies. If there’s sufficient interest beyond this initial run, we’ll proceed with a second printing, but there’s no guarantee on this, so get your copy while you can!

We’re proud to announce the first in our series of remastered Orchestron discs – SAXOPHONE!

We are now taking pre-orders for this disc. As soon as we have 15 pre-orders, we’ll go to press and start shipping. It’s unlikely that there will be sufficient demand to do a second run of 25 of these discs, so your best bet is to buy as many of these as you need while you can! Any future additional copies will most likely be done as one-offs, which are twice as expensive to produce, and thus will cost twice as much.

PLEASE NOTE: This disc WILL NOT play properly in an Optigan! They WILL play, but the sounds will NOT be mapped correctly to the keyboard- they will be mapped mostly haphazardly across the chord buttons. Please don’t order this disc expecting to easily use it in an Optigan. In the future we will be porting the Orchestron sounds to the Optigan- please be patient!

This is not a simple photocopy of an original vintage Orchestron disc, it’s completely re-mastered and re-created from scratch, using the original sounds from the Orchestron master tapes. In other words, this disc won’t sound 100% exactly like the original discs in every tiny detail. Specifically:

• Since there’s usually no way to precisely identify the exact 2-second excerpt that was originally used from each sustained note on the master tapes (some of which can be 8-10 seconds long), we’ve simply chosen 2-second excerpts that sounded good in our editing situation.
• Our Saxophone disc has a little less low-end and a bit more high end than the original. These can both be easily adjusted with EQ if you’re trying to precisely duplicate the overall tonality of the original discs.
• The loop joints on our disc are very smooth and for the most part don’t pop/thud the way the originals do.
• We’ve staggered the loop joints evenly across the disc (instead of placing them all at 12 o’clock), so that no two notes hit their loop joint at the same time.
• Some of our discs may have very slight periodic crosstalk on some notes (mostly noticeable on higher notes), owing to miniscule variations in the center hole punching tolerance. Said crosstalk should be well within the acceptable limits that Orchestron users are accustomed to.

So, will our disc satisfy the absolute purist? Probably not, and we won’t attempt to argue otherwise. But despite the differences, to the more casual player our disc sounds very much like the original. We’re confident that you’ll love the sound and quality of this disc, but if you’re not totally satisfied, we’re happy to offer a 100% money-back guarantee. This is a labor of love for us, and we want to make sure you feel the love too!

Since the original discs came in plain white jackets, so will ours. We will be replicating the original printed paper sleeves- spelling/grammar errors and all.

Soon we will have all eight of the original Orchestron discs remastered, as well as a few brand new titles. Stay tuned!