The upper is then the swell. Of course the voicing will be different also but the main thing is that you will be finding yourself needing to invert the manual choices in going from one to another. If you can get a used church organ such as an Allen, Rogers etc. it may be a bit easier on you. - mike
Thank you for your kind words. Something to keep in mind if you are going to make a serious study of the organ is that this instrument and others of the Theater Organ style are going to have the function of the manuals inverted. The top manual being the "solo" manual is the primary while the lower manual is considered the "accompaniment" manual and is secondary with fewer voices and less "body". In a classical or church organ the lower manual will be the "great" and be preeminent.
Wow, awesome demo of the Baldwin HT2R! I'm an organ student at university and am fortunate enough to have an Orgasonic at home for practice. It's a fun little instrument, but I'm now looking for something with something a little bigger. Anyway, stumbled across your video while hunting for a video demo of another model I'm looking at locally. You do a great job putting your instrument through its paces. I love your enthusiasm!
Just and update. I got the recalcitrant oscillator to work by replacing the caps and resistors in the tank circuit. Need to do a proper tuning yet but I played for well over a half an hour with the repaired board installed and it worked fine the whole time. A little intermittent while I was twiddling the tuning coil so may be another iffy connection but looks like we are back on line. :)
...I mention strings since tib/flutes and string/reeds are on separate channels and have their own reverb so it is possible that one of the amplifiers is inop or disconnected.
Either will do theater but the HT2 is more capable all around. If they are both free the obvious answer is get both esp. since you can use the pedal board of the 4500 anyway. If you end up parting one out it is surely a better fate than it would otherwise face. Could chop the 4500 for portable midi project.
... I haven't done a lot of work on the 4500 but it shouldn't be drastically different in difficulty as both use essentially the same approach. Once you figure out how to gain access the HT2 is pretty well laid out.
Many diss the SpectraTone but I always thought it pretty effective. One common problem with ST is the arm striking the bottom of the case esp. on fast. Shimming it up solves that problem.
HT2 has 1 reed acc. and 5 on solo manual. There are a couple of strings each also...
I have had both a 4500 (4502) and the HT2 so here are a few thoughts that I hope will be helpful.
Both can sound nice but the HT2 has a few advantages. (1) it has a full concave 32 note pedal board (but not AGO spec) and can play multiple ped notes simultaneously. The 4500 starts to get muddy if you use too many stops at once so the ensemble is best done with just a couple of stops and then use couplers to get the depth. The HT2 has more high bright stops and is cleaner sounding...
The free Ht2 I am being offered is very clean, but the son of the owner who passed away said the tibias work great, but the reeds don't sound at all. How many tabs are for reeds on this organ?
Once again, I am being offered a wurlitzer 4500. Can't decide. They are both free. The 4500 is local and maybe getting scrapped if I don't pick up. I could use that 25 pedal board on my Wurly 625t anyway.
So have you been pleased w/ your HT2 and would you recommend for theater playing? Can lighten 4 move?
I have a choice between a very nice HT2 or a Wurlitzer 4500. I saw the 4500 yesterday and it is a 25 pedal straight front console w/ theater tabs accross the top. It has the two-5 inch counter balanced speakers that spin called spectratone. I had a stand alone Wurlitzer cab w/ this in once and hooked it to my Hammond. It recorded better than my Leslie 122!
I know organ repair, but which is easier to work on, the Ht2 or the 4500?
Hi, it may be an intentional design feature. Without a schematic it would be hard to know where to look other than possibly some component drift in filtering or voicing circuits. Usually there are different wave forms (triangle, square etc) in various pitches (8', 4' etc) that are filtered and combined to produce stop voicing.
On mine I found that after cleaning the contacts on the tab rail the differences between the different voices was lessened so I would start there.
Thank you for the compliments. Patsaxon; This organ is all solid state. If it were possible to convert to vacuum tubes I would be inclined to do that. Thus my login name. :) I am in the process of building a tube based iPod "dock" for my Grand Daughter and with other projects on the table I haven't been able to debug the oscillator problem.
@lovesavacuum Finally a way to get some juice out of those too-silent players. They have even on loudest volume a level that is not loud enough. So it needs a true amplifier and tubes are great as it could probably produce very high amplitudes without distortion. Endure to use head phones that can take those levels without crackling, or use speakers.
You can see my video on KT-88 and mini-console speaker beta test to see what I am up to with the iPod dock. She is quite pleased with the sound of the amplifier section. I am getting ready to start wiring the preamp and next payday will order some woofers as I have come to the conclusion that the FRs need some help below 100Hz for best results.
@lovesavacuum Good! The only problem with tubes is portability though. Need a few heavy lead cells if you want to bring the music to the café, on the bus, etc.
This is more like a luggable (remember the original compaq portable?). :) I figure she will be using ear buds for the out and about stuff. This is more like take it over to a friend's dorm type of thing and the quality is good enough for a main stereo for a lot of folks.
There are substitute solid state unit that could take the place of the old vacuum tubes that would fit into the sockets to make your organ solid state. Plus vacuum tubes are expensive too. You play very well, I hope that your organ last a long time. There is nothing more fun than an organ.
Thank you for your kind comments. The Loves-a-vacuum actually refers to vacuum tubes. Nature abhors a vacuum but audiophiles don't. ;) That said I do have a soft spot for Kirby and Electrolux.
Since this video was made I have lost the B oscillator (actually it dies after a few minutes of play) so I will need to be getting the board out and checking for bad caps or solder joints etc. Most difficult part will be indexing all of the connections to the oscillator board.
Hey, great playing. You know someone is going to be good when they rattle off stops. BTW, I used to repair vacuums ( your screen name??) until Wallymart's $39 Bissel took all the fun away. My favorite is the Rainbow D4. Now I'm a carpet cleaner, but there is something to that water separation...hmm...
I also play the organ. Not as good as you though. Wow! I played the Hammond/Leslie for 5 yrs., but got sick of it. Go figure. I like my Hammond S6. I'm a combo man at heart. Just bought a Farfisa.
Thanks for looking and for your comment. I don't know any spanish so I used google translate. If I understand correctly you said that you have a baldwin organ with the phantom fingers feature and it is working perfectly.
I am not sure what year my organ is but judging by the circuitry and cabinet style my guess would be 60s or 70s. I really haven't even looked into what years this model was offered.
I just bought an Organ Baldwin HT2R. I love it but there was not a service manual, Could you please make me a copy of it.
Thanks for the DEMO
marynguyenkk 2 weeks ago
(continued from previous post)
The upper is then the swell. Of course the voicing will be different also but the main thing is that you will be finding yourself needing to invert the manual choices in going from one to another. If you can get a used church organ such as an Allen, Rogers etc. it may be a bit easier on you. - mike
lovesavacuum 3 months ago
Thank you for your kind words. Something to keep in mind if you are going to make a serious study of the organ is that this instrument and others of the Theater Organ style are going to have the function of the manuals inverted. The top manual being the "solo" manual is the primary while the lower manual is considered the "accompaniment" manual and is secondary with fewer voices and less "body". In a classical or church organ the lower manual will be the "great" and be preeminent.
lovesavacuum 3 months ago
Wow, awesome demo of the Baldwin HT2R! I'm an organ student at university and am fortunate enough to have an Orgasonic at home for practice. It's a fun little instrument, but I'm now looking for something with something a little bigger. Anyway, stumbled across your video while hunting for a video demo of another model I'm looking at locally. You do a great job putting your instrument through its paces. I love your enthusiasm!
1narizushi 3 months ago
Just and update. I got the recalcitrant oscillator to work by replacing the caps and resistors in the tank circuit. Need to do a proper tuning yet but I played for well over a half an hour with the repaired board installed and it worked fine the whole time. A little intermittent while I was twiddling the tuning coil so may be another iffy connection but looks like we are back on line. :)
mike
lovesavacuum 5 months ago
...I mention strings since tib/flutes and string/reeds are on separate channels and have their own reverb so it is possible that one of the amplifiers is inop or disconnected.
Either will do theater but the HT2 is more capable all around. If they are both free the obvious answer is get both esp. since you can use the pedal board of the 4500 anyway. If you end up parting one out it is surely a better fate than it would otherwise face. Could chop the 4500 for portable midi project.
lovesavacuum 1 year ago
... I haven't done a lot of work on the 4500 but it shouldn't be drastically different in difficulty as both use essentially the same approach. Once you figure out how to gain access the HT2 is pretty well laid out.
Many diss the SpectraTone but I always thought it pretty effective. One common problem with ST is the arm striking the bottom of the case esp. on fast. Shimming it up solves that problem.
HT2 has 1 reed acc. and 5 on solo manual. There are a couple of strings each also...
lovesavacuum 1 year ago
I have had both a 4500 (4502) and the HT2 so here are a few thoughts that I hope will be helpful.
Both can sound nice but the HT2 has a few advantages. (1) it has a full concave 32 note pedal board (but not AGO spec) and can play multiple ped notes simultaneously. The 4500 starts to get muddy if you use too many stops at once so the ensemble is best done with just a couple of stops and then use couplers to get the depth. The HT2 has more high bright stops and is cleaner sounding...
lovesavacuum 1 year ago
The free Ht2 I am being offered is very clean, but the son of the owner who passed away said the tibias work great, but the reeds don't sound at all. How many tabs are for reeds on this organ?
Once again, I am being offered a wurlitzer 4500. Can't decide. They are both free. The 4500 is local and maybe getting scrapped if I don't pick up. I could use that 25 pedal board on my Wurly 625t anyway.
So have you been pleased w/ your HT2 and would you recommend for theater playing? Can lighten 4 move?
paulj0557 1 year ago
I have a choice between a very nice HT2 or a Wurlitzer 4500. I saw the 4500 yesterday and it is a 25 pedal straight front console w/ theater tabs accross the top. It has the two-5 inch counter balanced speakers that spin called spectratone. I had a stand alone Wurlitzer cab w/ this in once and hooked it to my Hammond. It recorded better than my Leslie 122!
I know organ repair, but which is easier to work on, the Ht2 or the 4500?
Which ultimately sounds better overall?
paulj0557 1 year ago
Hi, it may be an intentional design feature. Without a schematic it would be hard to know where to look other than possibly some component drift in filtering or voicing circuits. Usually there are different wave forms (triangle, square etc) in various pitches (8', 4' etc) that are filtered and combined to produce stop voicing.
On mine I found that after cleaning the contacts on the tab rail the differences between the different voices was lessened so I would start there.
mike
lovesavacuum 1 year ago
Hey Mike—my Conn 427 has a similar level problem with the 8" flute on the great—it blows everything else away. Any tips?
Firepowerforfreedom 1 year ago
Thank you for the compliments. Patsaxon; This organ is all solid state. If it were possible to convert to vacuum tubes I would be inclined to do that. Thus my login name. :) I am in the process of building a tube based iPod "dock" for my Grand Daughter and with other projects on the table I haven't been able to debug the oscillator problem.
mike
lovesavacuum 1 year ago
@lovesavacuum Finally a way to get some juice out of those too-silent players. They have even on loudest volume a level that is not loud enough. So it needs a true amplifier and tubes are great as it could probably produce very high amplitudes without distortion. Endure to use head phones that can take those levels without crackling, or use speakers.
Riskteven 5 months ago
@Riskteven
You can see my video on KT-88 and mini-console speaker beta test to see what I am up to with the iPod dock. She is quite pleased with the sound of the amplifier section. I am getting ready to start wiring the preamp and next payday will order some woofers as I have come to the conclusion that the FRs need some help below 100Hz for best results.
mike
lovesavacuum 5 months ago
@lovesavacuum Good! The only problem with tubes is portability though. Need a few heavy lead cells if you want to bring the music to the café, on the bus, etc.
Riskteven 5 months ago
@Riskteven
This is more like a luggable (remember the original compaq portable?). :) I figure she will be using ear buds for the out and about stuff. This is more like take it over to a friend's dorm type of thing and the quality is good enough for a main stereo for a lot of folks.
mike
lovesavacuum 5 months ago
Lovely organ.I have a solid state Thomas house organ.Haven't played it in a while but was getting the hang of the bass pedals.
Thermionman1970 1 year ago
There are substitute solid state unit that could take the place of the old vacuum tubes that would fit into the sockets to make your organ solid state. Plus vacuum tubes are expensive too. You play very well, I hope that your organ last a long time. There is nothing more fun than an organ.
patsaxon 1 year ago
Thank you for your kind comments. The Loves-a-vacuum actually refers to vacuum tubes. Nature abhors a vacuum but audiophiles don't. ;) That said I do have a soft spot for Kirby and Electrolux.
Since this video was made I have lost the B oscillator (actually it dies after a few minutes of play) so I will need to be getting the board out and checking for bad caps or solder joints etc. Most difficult part will be indexing all of the connections to the oscillator board.
lovesavacuum 1 year ago
Hey, great playing. You know someone is going to be good when they rattle off stops. BTW, I used to repair vacuums ( your screen name??) until Wallymart's $39 Bissel took all the fun away. My favorite is the Rainbow D4. Now I'm a carpet cleaner, but there is something to that water separation...hmm...
I also play the organ. Not as good as you though. Wow! I played the Hammond/Leslie for 5 yrs., but got sick of it. Go figure. I like my Hammond S6. I'm a combo man at heart. Just bought a Farfisa.
paulj0557 1 year ago
Thanks for looking and for your comment. I don't know any spanish so I used google translate. If I understand correctly you said that you have a baldwin organ with the phantom fingers feature and it is working perfectly.
I am not sure what year my organ is but judging by the circuitry and cabinet style my guess would be 60s or 70s. I really haven't even looked into what years this model was offered.
What model number is your Baldwin by the way?
lovesavacuum 2 years ago
hola yo tengo el balwin fantom fingers pero no se de que año es funciona perfectamente
27adry 2 years ago