Orchestrion, Penny Arcade, Main Street U.S.A, Disneyland

[GermanStreetOrgan]

0:00 Zip a Dee Doo Dah

[anglerfly]

Thanks for posting!

[OFR]

Orchestron is a 70s keyboard, this is likely the Orchestrion, as mentioned below.

[Soundq22]

I was playing with this a few days ago. For a quarter you get to select a song. It actually works but it is controlled by computer instead of the chart paper. I thought is sounded amazing.

[conner623]

this is freaking awsome i played this is halloween on it it played it very good almost amazing

[GAVIOLITOM]

What a shame Disney cannot afford a few dollars to get it renovated, thanks for the video anyway, nice to get the chance to see it ;)

[KawhackitaRag]

I WAS rebuilt in the 1990s by the late Tom Grace; the problem is that there's now nobody working at the park to service the automatic musical instruments. The Nelson-Wiggen model 6 orchestrion in the Main Street Train station similarly plays weakly now because it needs attention and hasn't had any in years. If they could just get a qualified rebuilder to come in once or twice a month and touch things up, they would sound a LOT better!

[KawhackitaRag]

This one is a bit out of tune here. To hear how great these instruments can sound when fully restored, go to the Musical Box Society International (MBSI) website (google it: it's the first website that comes up), go to the "photo gallery" and scroll down to the "Welte Style 4 concert orchestrion". There's a photo and sound clip of one that's fully restored.

[KawhackitaRag]

The roll reader actually has a small endless loop threaded through it, so it kinda "looks" like the roll is playing it, but not really. If you look hard in back of the roll frame, you can see the added magnet board which pulls down the valve wires on the windchest. More history and debate about this instrument is at the Mechanical Music Digest (MMD) website. Look under "Subject index", "D" and "Disneyland" for articles.

[KawhackitaRag]

Thanks for this video. This is a Welte model 4 concert orchestrion. It was originally paper roll operated, but because the wear and tear the hard commercial use of Disneyland places on the roll reader and vacuum system, Disneyland elected for the restorer not to restore that, but instead just restore the pipes, windchest, and percussion and run it off of MIDI. It sounded great when it was first restored, several years ago; but for some reason park people have turned off some pipe ranks.