My father kept purchasing organs until he had this one. I have many beautiful and bittersweet memories of him playing his organ in the evening about an hour or so before bedtime. I would go up to him and he would keep playing and lean over and kiss me goodnight. Mom and all of us loved hearing him play pop standards from the 20s up to the 50s. Every time I hear a pipe organ it reminds me of him as he also took us to the Nystatin theater organ concerts. I miss him so much as he passed away in 2017 at the age of 89😭.
I just picked up one of these last night for free from a local church that wanted it gone. It needs work but what works, works well and what doesn't, doesn't at all. After seeing this I convinced that's it's well worth fixing. This is a beast of an organ. I'm going to add MIDI to mine while I'm fixing things. I'm psyched!
The PHANTOM BASS tab at 8:45 happens to just be a resultant quirk on my 58' CONN CLASSIC 815 Classic ( an all-tube indv. osc.) when activating the add-on KEY-PERCUSSION tab, except it is the lower keys which became 'phantom'' to upper manual and not the pedals. In regards to the organ not having automated rhythms, organs in general started going down hill when the ubiquitous EPROM microchip started making automated rhythms possible. Manufactures slowly but surely began spending less of their efforts on great organ tone, and more on gimmicks like automatic rhythms, one finder chord accompaniment, and walking bass. Fact is, a great theater console is just impeded by automation such as this. The basic passive ' one shot' drum sounds being triggered in sync with the players choice of LOWER MANUAL and PEDALS is in perfect line with how the real Wurlitzer theater pipe organs worked. Another major point worth noting is that in general ALL organs previous to 1968 could be assured of sounding good to great, whereas those models made in the age of automated organs from around 1971 onward, well it was more of a crap shoot. In fact by the mid 70's customers who were sick of cheesy organ rhythms and weak organ tone resulting from manufactures shift to integrated circuits for tone generators, these customers began seeking out the less expensive, but better sounding 'used organs' built before 1970. So it was like a manufactures very well built organs from the early days was suddenly their own worst enemy. Of course the general public took the drop in new organ sales as an indication that the organ was no longer a fun instrument to play. No, it will always be an amazing instrument to play, but stick to the earlier models like this Conn 650 and it's simple passive drum sounds.
Conn organs did have the attack of the wind blown pipe organ, but was behind on technology when it comes to one finger chords and fun features like other organs. When Kimball bought out Conn, some of the Conn organs were actually Kimball organs with Kimball's technology. The fascinating thing I loved about Conn was Show Chords, and also those Electronic Pipe Speakers as I have a set of them and yes they still work.
Organs don't come any better then a CONN in my opinion!!!!! They had a sound all their own. No other organ manufacturer could match the CONN sound back in the day!!!!
My father kept purchasing organs until he had this one.
I have many beautiful and bittersweet memories of him playing his organ in the evening about an hour or so before bedtime. I would go up to him and he would keep playing and lean over and kiss me goodnight.
Mom and all of us loved hearing him play pop standards from the 20s up to the 50s.
Every time I hear a pipe organ it reminds me of him as he also took us to the Nystatin theater organ concerts.
I miss him so much as he passed away in 2017 at the age of 89😭.
I just picked up one of these last night for free from a local church that wanted it gone. It needs work but what works, works well and what doesn't, doesn't at all. After seeing this I convinced that's it's well worth fixing. This is a beast of an organ. I'm going to add MIDI to mine while I'm fixing things. I'm psyched!
The PHANTOM BASS tab at 8:45 happens to just be a resultant quirk on my 58' CONN CLASSIC 815 Classic ( an all-tube indv. osc.) when activating the add-on KEY-PERCUSSION tab, except it is the lower keys which became 'phantom'' to upper manual and not the pedals.
In regards to the organ not having automated rhythms, organs in general started going down hill when the ubiquitous EPROM microchip started making automated rhythms possible. Manufactures slowly but surely began spending less of their efforts on great organ tone, and more on gimmicks like automatic rhythms, one finder chord accompaniment, and walking bass. Fact is, a great theater console is just impeded by automation such as this. The basic passive ' one shot' drum sounds being triggered in sync with the players choice of LOWER MANUAL and PEDALS is in perfect line with how the real Wurlitzer theater pipe organs worked. Another major point worth noting is that in general ALL organs previous to 1968 could be assured of sounding good to great, whereas those models made in the age of automated organs from around 1971 onward, well it was more of a crap shoot. In fact by the mid 70's customers who were sick of cheesy organ rhythms and weak organ tone resulting from manufactures shift to integrated circuits for tone generators, these customers began seeking out the less expensive, but better sounding 'used organs' built before 1970. So it was like a manufactures very well built organs from the early days was suddenly their own worst enemy. Of course the general public took the drop in new organ sales as an indication that the organ was no longer a fun instrument to play. No, it will always be an amazing instrument to play, but stick to the earlier models like this Conn 650 and it's simple passive drum sounds.
I love the sound of all of that from the organ he played
Conn organs did have the attack of the wind blown pipe organ, but was behind on technology when it comes to one finger chords and fun features like other organs. When Kimball bought out Conn, some of the Conn organs were actually Kimball organs with Kimball's technology. The fascinating thing I loved about Conn was Show Chords, and also those Electronic Pipe Speakers as I have a set of them and yes they still work.
I love the sound of organ music
Sorry I meant he took us to the NY state theatre organ concerts.
The modern-day keyboards can't match these old-style organs!
Great sound
It's a very MAD church organ . . . It doesn't sound like a Wurlitzer, yet I love the organist David Hamilton on Conn 651 !
Organs don't come any better then a CONN in my opinion!!!!! They had a sound all their own. No other organ manufacturer could match the CONN sound back in the day!!!!
Richard White A sound all its own is not necessarily a good thing now is it ?
Today's MIDI keyboards can be connected to expanders to play actual Blackpool Tower samples !
Don't forget to use the chiff.
It added nothing to the sound, the 652 two models after this dropped it altogether
Thin Sound no body maybe a good set of speakers could help
It depends on what you are hearing it through.
Need someone that knows how to demonstrate.this wouldn't entice me to buy one.he sucks.
@@timothyrogers3647 Would also depend on what mic was used to record this. I have one. The sound is not thin.
@@2bonk22 This was a Sony Camcorder with the stock mic,. I did not take time to add a better quality mic.
it has a great sound, but sincerely i prefer a real wurlitzer or compton or morton or barton or each other theatre pipe organ
Having worked in the music trade for 50 years, that must be the worst demonstration I have ever heard !!