Sean O’Donnell actually installed the very same type of computer playback system in a residence Aeolian instrument that was restored in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Brent, this is absolutely fantastic! What a wonderful experience to see the organ, player mechanism, and all the loving restoration and maintenance work that has preserved this treasure. Very fortunate to have Sean O'Donnell share his work and explanations for this marvelous organ. Much of the technology being almost 100 years old, meticulously restored and updated. Loved the bellows mechanism shown with the harp, the 1812 Overture, and the incredible player technology featured with the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Thank you very much for all your excellent and informative videos. This is one of your best.
Ohhhh, the Hansel and Gretel Overture! Wow, it's been decades since I've heard that and been reminded of what it was called so that I could have it played again! Wowww, thank you! Ohhhh man... I started crying too, because that reminds me of the old days when I was really young and my parents would play that in the car as they drove my sisters and me up to the Salt Lake area from Spanish Fork and I'd fall asleep to it. And sometimes I'd hear someone comment that I had fallen asleep. Huhhhhh... ohhhhh.... I hope that either the Spanish Fork or Payson (Utah) Community Theater will perform that show here in the next few years, ohhhhh!
wow, this is incredible. It might be the best put together documentary done on this channel. And there are VERY MANY excellent videos on this channel. Sean O'Donnell thought through the organ demo. Clearly he knows every inch of that instrument. The videography and editing were tight. And an intact Skinner residential organ. Then the addition of the LED to aid folks on how this machine actually works. Incredible electro-pneumatic awesome machine! But what is the difference between an Harmonic Flute and the Orchestral Flute? I thought a Harmonic Flute was twice the speaking length and had hole(s) midstream to sound an octave higher when overblown.
To make life easier for the editor, the computer played for all of the video recording. This way we could repeat the music many times to get all of the different camera angles without damaging the rolls, and in the end the sound tracks would line up for all the different takes. (Brent did an unbelievably amazing job assembling all of those pieces into what you see here!) However, all of those performances came from the paper rolls (except the English Horn demonstration). The computer and the spool box are wired to the same pinboard in the console; the computer records the ‘raw’ multiplexed information coming off the paper. When playing back, the computer repeats that same multiplexed information. The de-multiplexer up in the chamber can’t tell the difference, nor can the listener. Most of the music audio was recorded in the front hall - the Skinner machine is in an isolated room, and the clacking and clunking drowns out the music. On the “smoothness” question, all I can offer is that a lot of effort went into getting all the mechanical details correct, from the spool box to the expression shades and everything in between.
Thank you for a delightful, well-edited technical presentation. Would love to hear some of the classical rolls you sampled, played in their entirety & mixed to stereo. Love to hear some of the digitized Debussy rolls, as well.
Haha, I like that he mouth-played one of the organ pipes! I actually did that once at one of the buildings of my church while the chapel was being asbestos-abated, since they removed the Great pipes and stored them in 2 of the classrooms! I watched them replace some of those pipes too. I shot video of some of that, including my mouth-play, ha! I should try to unbury that and upload it to here.
Sandy (Preston) Fleet hooked his 40 rank pipe organ to an Onkyo cassette deck to play and record with. It also had one stop to play the Duo Art, Spanish style art case grand piano, formerly on Dolores de Rio's yacht, located across the room in his barn which was retrofitted especially for the pipe organ, physically and acoustically......long before blue tooth and modern electronics!
Wow, I wish I could easily follow all of that electromechanical "decision making" in order to understand this part of the video better. It would be cool to see a video that really expands on that.
Is the player being played by the Skinner or slightly revised Skinner rolls played by the computer. They sound very smooth, too smooth - which is good !
This instrument plays the old paper rolls and is modified to play from a computer. As seen in the presentation the short clips are played directly from the computer. At the end of this presentation we see the instrument running off the original paper roll in an excellent performance of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". As we are watching the mechanism the instrument is reading from the paper roll. The flashing lights were added during the restoration project in order to assist with the diagnostics.
@@anthonyshiels9273 most of what I heard was too smooth to be the player relay, I enjoyed the smoother rolls. Were some Aeolian Roll customized to the Skinner?
Wow, it's a shame that they'd want the organ mechanics to all be invisible. I think I'd love to be able to see a lot of its playing parts around the house!
Semiautomatic vs. fully automatic rolls... _plus_ a MIDI or MIDI-like operation! Wow, it's amazing that you can combine a console with a roll player _and_ a MIDI or MIDI-like system! This is similar to the American Fotoplayer but then that's piano-heavy and this is more organ-centered, and this has the computer advantage that that doesn't. But I suppose you could rig up one of those to MIDI too, although I've never seen it done. Very interesting! So this is basically a miniature theater organ (like Wurlitzer, Kimball) with the player machine(s) attached, isn't it?
"You've got one hole for each note and you can control the entire machine." Not really. Because a standard pneumatic player piano's expression, etc. aren't controlled by that paper.
There is a window that closes over the roll and the Ventil switch turns on positive pressure on the outside of the roll. For most of the shots, the window was left open for visibility.
@@OrganMediaFoundation: I'm confused about how that would work. We can see that it works whether you close the door or not, and obviously the organ reads the paper in order to work automatically when you want to run it on that instead of the computer, so it's having to run negative air pressure through the tracker bar while it runs positive pressure to blow the pipes. So how is that working?
@@HelloKittyFanMan It runs when the door is open, but all of the shots with the door open were just for the camera. The player wasn't actually running the organ then.
"So these pipes, if they weren't wrapped around on themselves, would be 16 feet long." Uh, they're STILL 16 feet long. Just because something is bent doesn't mean it's shorter than if it's straight, does it? You wouldn't say a cable that's sort of haphazardly sig-zagging along the floor temporarily "shorter" than when it's taut just because it's curved at the moment, would you?
"And if that's not enough trumpet sound for ya, we have the tuba." Since tubas aren't trumpets, then... how would you think that'd work, supposedly (even since something that imitates a tuba isn't also imitating a trumpet with that same section)?
"It looks like a xylophone, but it does, in fact, sound like a harp." Nah, being metal it actually looks like a glockenspiel. And it sounds nice to me but I don't think it sounds like a harp. It sounds more like the glock that I think it actually is (but percussed more softly than normal) and a marimba. I'm certainly no expert but I think that really is one of the idiophones.
"And there's a music rack, should you actually want to play some real music...." Uh... whenever a song is played on it it's ALWAYS playing real music! Just because a machine would be playing instead of a human doesn't mean it's "not real music." You don't call music recorded onto other media, such as phonographic, magnetic, optical, or flash, "not real," do you?
Watching the mechanism work while it was playing was so interesting. It’s not a huge organ, but it seems to play a wide variety of music very well.
Sean O’Donnell actually installed the very same type of computer playback system in a residence Aeolian instrument that was restored in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Brent, this is absolutely fantastic! What a wonderful experience to see the organ, player mechanism, and all the loving restoration and maintenance work that has preserved this treasure. Very fortunate to have Sean O'Donnell share his work and explanations for this marvelous organ. Much of the technology being almost 100 years old, meticulously restored and updated. Loved the bellows mechanism shown with the harp, the 1812 Overture, and the incredible player technology featured with the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Thank you very much for all your excellent and informative videos. This is one of your best.
Wonderful! It makes you feel good that this instrument has been taken care of so thoughtfully. Thank you for a wonderful journey.
Fascinating! That was a lot of fun.
Amazing to see this project, Sean! What a major piece of work this was, I’m sure.
Sean is a brilliant restorer
What a fascinating and marvelous organ and a great video. Thank you.
Amazing machine. It's good that it's been restored and you can see it in action.❤
Beyond fascinating!
Ohhhh, the Hansel and Gretel Overture! Wow, it's been decades since I've heard that and been reminded of what it was called so that I could have it played again! Wowww, thank you! Ohhhh man... I started crying too, because that reminds me of the old days when I was really young and my parents would play that in the car as they drove my sisters and me up to the Salt Lake area from Spanish Fork and I'd fall asleep to it. And sometimes I'd hear someone comment that I had fallen asleep. Huhhhhh... ohhhhh.... I hope that either the Spanish Fork or Payson (Utah) Community Theater will perform that show here in the next few years, ohhhhh!
A very interesting and impressive organ!
wow, this is incredible. It might be the best put together documentary done on this channel. And there are VERY MANY excellent videos on this channel. Sean O'Donnell thought through the organ demo. Clearly he knows every inch of that instrument. The videography and editing were tight. And an intact Skinner residential organ. Then the addition of the LED to aid folks on how this machine actually works. Incredible electro-pneumatic awesome machine!
But what is the difference between an Harmonic Flute and the Orchestral Flute? I thought a Harmonic Flute was twice the speaking length and had hole(s) midstream to sound an octave higher when overblown.
I've seen some videos of the larger roll changing versions... thoroughly enjoyed the more in-depth video of the logic systems. Great video.
Totally enjoyed this most informative and enjoyable presentation. Hats off to Mr. O'Donnell. Thank You for bringing this to the channel Brent !
What a beautiful instrument! So good that it is so well preserved.
Fantastic Brent!
Wow, this was another very fascinating video, thanks!
Bravo!!!😊
To make life easier for the editor, the computer played for all of the video recording. This way we could repeat the music many times to get all of the different camera angles without damaging the rolls, and in the end the sound tracks would line up for all the different takes. (Brent did an unbelievably amazing job assembling all of those pieces into what you see here!)
However, all of those performances came from the paper rolls (except the English Horn demonstration). The computer and the spool box are wired to the same pinboard in the console; the computer records the ‘raw’ multiplexed information coming off the paper. When playing back, the computer repeats that same multiplexed information. The de-multiplexer up in the chamber can’t tell the difference, nor can the listener.
Most of the music audio was recorded in the front hall - the Skinner machine is in an isolated room, and the clacking and clunking drowns out the music.
On the “smoothness” question, all I can offer is that a lot of effort went into getting all the mechanical details correct, from the spool box to the expression shades and everything in between.
Thank you for a delightful, well-edited technical presentation. Would love to hear some of the classical rolls you sampled, played in their entirety & mixed to stereo. Love to hear some of the digitized Debussy rolls, as well.
Haha, I like that he mouth-played one of the organ pipes! I actually did that once at one of the buildings of my church while the chapel was being asbestos-abated, since they removed the Great pipes and stored them in 2 of the classrooms! I watched them replace some of those pipes too. I shot video of some of that, including my mouth-play, ha! I should try to unbury that and upload it to here.
Maybe their NYC apartment is shown in Rollin Smith's 'Pipe Organs of the Rich and Famous' multimedia product.
We need more residence organs
That mini-keyboard for tuning is kind of interesting. I'd like to see him play it a bit.
Sandy (Preston) Fleet hooked his 40 rank pipe organ to an Onkyo cassette deck to play and record with. It also had one stop to play the Duo Art, Spanish style art case grand piano, formerly on Dolores de Rio's yacht, located across the room in his barn which was retrofitted especially for the pipe organ, physically and acoustically......long before blue tooth and modern electronics!
Wow, I wish I could easily follow all of that electromechanical "decision making" in order to understand this part of the video better. It would be cool to see a video that really expands on that.
Is the player being played by the Skinner or slightly revised Skinner rolls played by the computer. They sound very smooth, too smooth - which is good !
This instrument plays the old paper rolls and is modified to play from a computer.
As seen in the presentation the short clips are played directly from the computer.
At the end of this presentation we see the instrument running off the original paper roll in an excellent performance of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice".
As we are watching the mechanism the instrument is reading from the paper roll. The flashing lights were added during the restoration project in order to assist with the diagnostics.
@@anthonyshiels9273 most of what I heard was too smooth to be the player relay, I enjoyed the smoother rolls. Were some Aeolian Roll customized to the Skinner?
I was wondering the same …
Wow, it's a shame that they'd want the organ mechanics to all be invisible. I think I'd love to be able to see a lot of its playing parts around the house!
Semiautomatic vs. fully automatic rolls... _plus_ a MIDI or MIDI-like operation! Wow, it's amazing that you can combine a console with a roll player _and_ a MIDI or MIDI-like system! This is similar to the American Fotoplayer but then that's piano-heavy and this is more organ-centered, and this has the computer advantage that that doesn't. But I suppose you could rig up one of those to MIDI too, although I've never seen it done. Very interesting! So this is basically a miniature theater organ (like Wurlitzer, Kimball) with the player machine(s) attached, isn't it?
2 happy bunnies .
"Because like any good machine it will do exactly what we ask it to!"
Not if it's malfunctioning!
What's that little cabinet door for (24:22)?
So how come the player machine was set up to never play the 2 2/3?
"You've got one hole for each note and you can control the entire machine."
Not really. Because a standard pneumatic player piano's expression, etc. aren't controlled by that paper.
With the organ orchestra in general getting powered by positive wind, how is the negative wind generated for the paper-based player mechanism?
There is a window that closes over the roll and the Ventil switch turns on positive pressure on the outside of the roll. For most of the shots, the window was left open for visibility.
@@OrganMediaFoundation: I'm confused about how that would work. We can see that it works whether you close the door or not, and obviously the organ reads the paper in order to work automatically when you want to run it on that instead of the computer, so it's having to run negative air pressure through the tracker bar while it runs positive pressure to blow the pipes. So how is that working?
@@HelloKittyFanMan It runs when the door is open, but all of the shots with the door open were just for the camera. The player wasn't actually running the organ then.
"So these pipes, if they weren't wrapped around on themselves, would be 16 feet long."
Uh, they're STILL 16 feet long. Just because something is bent doesn't mean it's shorter than if it's straight, does it? You wouldn't say a cable that's sort of haphazardly sig-zagging along the floor temporarily "shorter" than when it's taut just because it's curved at the moment, would you?
"And if that's not enough trumpet sound for ya, we have the tuba."
Since tubas aren't trumpets, then... how would you think that'd work, supposedly (even since something that imitates a tuba isn't also imitating a trumpet with that same section)?
"If the blower ever dies..."
Why not just replace the dead part: the motor? The fan itself would last indefinitely, wouldn't it?
no specs at that site
Sinner accidentally invented "mux/demux"? Very interesting!
Originally pronounced "VelkenVeir"!
"...Being a player orchestra rather than an organ..."
* Rather than _just_ an organ....
A "cymbal and... a cymbal"?
"It looks like a xylophone, but it does, in fact, sound like a harp." Nah, being metal it actually looks like a glockenspiel. And it sounds nice to me but I don't think it sounds like a harp. It sounds more like the glock that I think it actually is (but percussed more softly than normal) and a marimba. I'm certainly no expert but I think that really is one of the idiophones.
"We do not recommend you do it."
-- "Oh, so you really don't want my business, eh?"
Haha, a "chimney flute"!
"Like a player piano."
* Like a _pneumatic_ player piano, that is.
"And there's a music rack, should you actually want to play some real music...." Uh... whenever a song is played on it it's ALWAYS playing real music! Just because a machine would be playing instead of a human doesn't mean it's "not real music." You don't call music recorded onto other media, such as phonographic, magnetic, optical, or flash, "not real," do you?