Optigan
Encyclopedia
The Optigan was an electronic keyboard instrument
designed for the consumer market. The name stems from the instrument's reliance on pre-recorded optical soundtracks to reproduce sound. Later versions (built under license and aimed at the professional market) were sold under the name Orchestron
.
The immediate predecessors of the Optigan were the "Welte
Lichtton-Orgel" of 1936 and the Lumigraph
of 1950.
of El Segundo, California
with the manufacturing plant located nearby in Compton, California
. All rights to the Optigan, the disc format, and all previous discs were sold in 1973 to Miner Industries of New York
, an organ manufacturer who formed a subsidiary, Opsonar, to produce it. Miner had record sales for a time, in part due to Opsonar. However, sales declined shortly thereafter and production of the Optigan and its discs ceased in 1976.
unit and cabinetry with genuine wood veneer
were available as extra-cost options; the switch for the reverb on units so equipped is located below the power switch. Non-reverb equipped Optigans feature a metal plate which reads "Stereophonic" in raised relief and which hides the unused opening. Reverb-equipped units had a slightly different plate which read "REVERB Stereophonic" affixed immediately to the left of the rocker switches and above the power switch. According to optigan.com, two piano bar prototypes were produced. The Optigan played in stereo through two solid state
amplifiers with the right-hand keyboard assigned to the instrument's right channel and the chords and effects assigned to the left.
optical tracks. The system then translated the analog waveforms on the disc to an audio signal. A flip-down door beneath the keyboard allowed access to the disc's loading area to the left of the unit and a disc storage area to the right. Program discs were loaded by simply sliding them onto the felt-covered platform; a V-shaped notch on the front of the panel aided in alignment. When power was applied and the front cover closed, a spindle engaged the center hole of the disc and a motor-driven idler
wheel spun the disc on the spindle. The power switch itself was mechanically linked to the disc's drive system; lowering the front panel dropped the spindle and disconnected power to the instrument, allowing the program discs to be changed without the need to fully power down. A broad, flat, white plastic cleaning tool with a purple, simulated velvet cleaning surface was supplied with each Optigan to allow periodic cleaning of the photoelectric cell, located near the rear of the instrument.
Thirty-seven tracks were sustained or repeatedly percussive notes in the timbre
of a particular instrument and were played through a standard three-octave piano
-style keyboard
with the right hand; twenty-one were of a live band or soloist
playing chords
in different keys
arranged per the circle of fifths
, specifically B-flat, F, C, G, D, A and E major, minor, and diminished and were played with the left hand in much the style of a chord organ or accordion
. The remaining five were assigned to rocker switches above the chord buttons and featured (depending on the disc in question) percussion
, sound effect
s, introductions, vamps, and endings synchronized with the chord buttons. Pushing upward on the rocker switches locked them in place for use with percussion; pushing downward allowed momentary use for vamps, introductions and endings.
Not all of the chord buttons had their own track assignments, the result being only fifty-seven sounds on sixty-three buttons, keys and switches. There was also an optical metronome
incorporated into the discs which showed as a red flashing light for the downbeat and white for the upbeats inside the Optigan badge above the keyboard. The advantages of this unique optical playback system were that the Optigan's range of timbres was infinitely expandable and that there was no limit on the duration of a note as there was on the Optigan's professional-grade counterpart, the magnetic tape
-based Mellotron
. The disadvantage was that notes could have neither attack nor decay, as the tracks had no specific beginning or end.
The "Starter Set" sold with the Optigan contained discs with fairly self-explanatory titles: "Big Organ & Drums", "Pop Piano Plus Guitar", "Latin Fever", and "Guitar in 3/4 Time." More modern styles were represented by titles such as "Movin'!," which was a rhythm and blues
disc and "Hear and Now," with a sound clearly based on the hit single "Sweet Seasons" by Carole King
(and cover art evocative of that of her Tapestry album). Other discs were marketed individually and packaged much like long-playing phonograph
records
. These individual titles were also bundled in much the same way as the "Starter Set" and sold as six-disc "Entertainment Folios." Some discs were available only as part of a two-disc "Style Pak" with titles such as "The Joyous Sounds of Christmas", "Country Style Pak.", "Polka" and "Songs Of Praise" - these last two being produced towards the end of production and in very low quantities. Music books of various styles and even arrangements intended for individual disks were also available and sometimes packaged with the different bundles.
The initial run of musical tracks were recorded by Southern California studio musicians in Hollywood and Torrance
. However, a musicians' union strike meant that some of the later discs were recorded in Germany. One disc is of particular note. The instrumental tracks for "Bluegrass Banjo" were recorded by members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
. The Vox Humana disc keyboard sound was used for the "Vocal Choir" Orchestron disc.
For the benefit of those unable to read music, the notes in the books were numbered in correspondence to a numbered and color-coded foil strip above the keyboard. The Optigan's songbooks were written and arranged by Optigan Corporation's music director, Johnny Largo. Largo, an accordionist and session musician, was a contemporary of Johnny Marks
, a composer best known for his popular mid-20th century Christmas melodies. As such, many of the songs in the Christmas books were Marks compositions.
format.
The disc could be sped up or slowed down via a thumbwheel next to the chord buttons to cause a corresponding change in tempo
and pitch
; however, faster speeds tended to roll off
the lower frequencies, slower speeds rolled off the highs and moderate to slow tempo lent a slightly muddy quality overall. Natural imperfections on the celluloid
discs as well as dust and dirt came through as scratches, clicks and pops, much like a worn phonograph record. Furthermore, the pitch change brought on by the tempo adjustment made session work with live musicians a difficult proposition, especially since the pitch varied greatly from disc to disc.
Even though the technology of the day was more than sophisticated enough to avoid them, there were numerous mechanical problems with the disc's motor drive due to its having been engineered to be as affordable as possible. Changes in environment which had a physical effect on the photocells frequently led to crosstalk between tracks. One common example involves the F at the upper end of the keyboard; press this key, step on the volume control pedal and the C-diminished/A-diminished chord can often be heard in the background.
These same diminished chords intentionally found their way onto the row of major chords. And as pointed out earlier in this article, not all of the chord buttons had their own track assignments. In a very unusual move, A-major utilizes the same soundtrack as B-flat-diminished, G-diminished, and E-diminished while E-major shares space with F-diminished and D-diminished, thereby making it impossible to play in the keys of A or E, at least with left-hand accompaniment. Apparently, this was done to save space on the disc, further explaining the lack of dominant seventh chords or any chords in the keys of E-flat, A-flat, D-flat, B and F-sharp.
Since the instrument was aimed at amateur players, the majority of the songs in the Optigan's music books are written in the much simpler keys of F, C and G. The Optigan certainly had its share of detractors, then as now. Yet it provided an entertaining and educational introduction to the world of music and likely sparked interest in a generation of budding musicians and composers.
and synthesizer
s. While the same fidelity limitations of the Optigan applied to the Orchestron, these instruments were built to be more reliable and were used successfully in commercial recordings.
, The Clash
, Elvis Costello
, Jon Brion
, Blur
, Marco Benevento
, Fiona Apple
, Kraftwerk
(Orchestron), Money Mark
, Ani DiFranco
, Michael Penn
, Steve Fisk
, Tom Waits
, Nan Vernon
, Hala Strana
, TISM
, The Real Tuesday Weld
, Mark Mothersbaugh
of Devo
—who mixed in parts of the "Banjo Sing-Along" disc on a later remix of Devo's 1981 single
, "Beautiful World."
One of the earliest recordings that used the Optigan was an album by European dance music pioneer Alan Steward
. On his 1970s album release "Just Listen", Alan made extensive use of the Optigan. Six out of the nine tracks on the album including the title track "Just Listen" feature the Optigan. Alan also made extensive use of the "breakbeats" and the samples of the Hammond B3 organ that were part of the backing tracks found on many of the soul and R&B oriented Optigan discs. The European distributor of the Optigan used Alan Steward's album for promotion and in-store demos.
Steve Hackett
has also made frequent use of the Optigan. Hackett's 1980 album, Defector, features an unusual number called "Sentimental Institution," recorded with a solo Optigan spinning the "Big Band Beat" disc behind his own vocals. Hackett made use of all five of that disc's vamps and its ending; that particular disc featured no percussion tracks. His 2003 release, To Watch the Storms, features sonically expanded samples of the Opsonar "Champagne Music" disc on the track, "Circus of Becoming." Also of considerable note is the band Optiganally Yours
, featuring keyboardist Pea Hix
; they base their original compositions around the Optigan and employ it and similar keyboard instruments on virtually all of their recordings. Hix is also the founder and webmaster of Optigan.com, a major source of information used in this article.
In the late 90's Optigan , Orchestron and Talentmaker samples were released as software sounds. This made the sounds of both instruments much more accessible to musicians despite Optigans being relatively easier to find in the USA. An Optigan sample was used on an episode of the Cartoon Network
series, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
, first airing on October 22, 2004. In it, a mirror image of the character Bloo played sped-up samplings of the vamps and endings of the "Dixieland Strut" disc through a horn which appeared on his body. Another sample was used in an episode of Freaks and Geeks
, as the soundtrack of an unseen porn film.
On the album White Chalk
by PJ Harvey
, an Optigan is played by Eric Drew Feldman
. Harvey also wrote much of her Let England Shake
album on an Optogan. She also plays it on several tracks.
Steve Adey
plays an Optigan on the song I See a Darkness from his debut LP All Things Real
.
Marilyn Manson
plays the Optigan on the song Target Audience (Narcissus Narcosis) from the album Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)
released in 2001.
AK-Momo
uses this instrument prominently on Return to N.Y. The album was recorded using only Optigans, Orchestrons and Mellotrons. Swedish producer Mattias Olsson has since the late 90's recorded several albums that features the Orchestron and Optigan prominently.
American producer Brian Coombes has used the Optigan on releases by singer/songwriter Christian Cuff (Silo and Chalkboard), singer/songwriter Will Kindler (Trifles for Queen Jane), and many other artists.
An Optigan sample is used on the track "Eat Yourself," by Goldfrapp
. The same sample was featured on Lily Allen
's 2009 release "It's Not Me, It's You," on the track "Chinese." Allen also featured the Optigan sound in two other tracks, "Not Fair" & "He Wasn't There".
Musician Jon Brion composed the soundtrack for the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(directed by Michel Gondry
), using the 'guitar' from a Talentmaker. "It's funny because you were talking about my grandfather inventing (sic) that keyboard," begins Gondry. "Jon has some old keyboards. My father, who is the son-in-law of my grandfather, took over his keyboard shop and he started to sell electronic synthesizers and organs and he had this very weird synthesizer called The Talentmaker. And I hadn't heard or seen one in 30 years. And when I went to see Jon he had this. So when you hear this very sad guitar that we use a lot [in the film,] that's [The Talentmaker]. So you had the nostalgia of my grandfather's shop."
The Optigan sounds were the basis of many tracks on the 2010 Crash Test Dummies
album Oooh La La.
A filtered sample of the C-major and F-major chords on the "Easy Does It With Vibes" disc opens a 2010 national television commercial in the United States for online business card printer Vistaprint.com.
The Optigan and the Orchestron also appear in the soundtrack of the 2010 Canadian film Primordial Ties.
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
designed for the consumer market. The name stems from the instrument's reliance on pre-recorded optical soundtracks to reproduce sound. Later versions (built under license and aimed at the professional market) were sold under the name Orchestron
Orchestron
The Vako Orchestron is a keyboard instrument, which produces its sound through electronic amplification of sound pre-recorded on an optical disc...
.
The immediate predecessors of the Optigan were the "Welte
Welte-Mignon
M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte in 1832.-Overview:...
Lichtton-Orgel" of 1936 and the Lumigraph
Oskar Fischinger
Oskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter. He made over 50 short animated films, and painted c. 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1 , which is now listed on the...
of 1950.
Production history
Engineering work on the project began in 1968 and the first patents issued in 1970. The Optigan was released in 1971 by Optigan Corporation, a subsidiary of toy manufacturer Mattel, IncorporatedMattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
of El Segundo, California
El Segundo, California
El Segundo is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located on the Santa Monica Bay, it was incorporated on January 18, 1917, and is one of the Beach Cities of Los Angeles County and part of the South Bay Cities Council of Governments...
with the manufacturing plant located nearby in Compton, California
Compton, California
Compton is a city in southern Los Angeles County, California, United States, southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The city of Compton is one of the oldest cities in the county and on May 11, 1888, was the eighth city to incorporate. The city is considered part of the South side by residents of Los...
. All rights to the Optigan, the disc format, and all previous discs were sold in 1973 to Miner Industries of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, an organ manufacturer who formed a subsidiary, Opsonar, to produce it. Miner had record sales for a time, in part due to Opsonar. However, sales declined shortly thereafter and production of the Optigan and its discs ceased in 1976.
Appearance and construction
The Optigan looked like a scaled-down version of the electronic organs of the day. The various cabinet designs and their matching benches were simulated wood made out of a molded plastic the manufacturer dubbed "Temperite" and finished with matching speaker grille cloth and occasionally reverb units inside the unit. A mechanical reverbReverberation
Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...
unit and cabinetry with genuine wood veneer
Wood veneer
In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm , that are typically glued onto core panels to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry...
were available as extra-cost options; the switch for the reverb on units so equipped is located below the power switch. Non-reverb equipped Optigans feature a metal plate which reads "Stereophonic" in raised relief and which hides the unused opening. Reverb-equipped units had a slightly different plate which read "REVERB Stereophonic" affixed immediately to the left of the rocker switches and above the power switch. According to optigan.com, two piano bar prototypes were produced. The Optigan played in stereo through two solid state
Solid state (electronics)
Solid-state electronics are those circuits or devices built entirely from solid materials and in which the electrons, or other charge carriers, are confined entirely within the solid material...
amplifiers with the right-hand keyboard assigned to the instrument's right channel and the chords and effects assigned to the left.
The optical disc format
The Optigan's playback system functioned much like the storage and reading of an optical soundtrack as was used in motion pictures, using a light bulb to energize a photoelectric cell on the opposite side of spinning, 12" diameter clear plastic film discs (officially referred to as "Program Discs") encoded with fifty-seven concentricConcentric
Concentric objects share the same center, axis or origin with one inside the other. Circles, tubes, cylindrical shafts, disks, and spheres may be concentric to one another...
optical tracks. The system then translated the analog waveforms on the disc to an audio signal. A flip-down door beneath the keyboard allowed access to the disc's loading area to the left of the unit and a disc storage area to the right. Program discs were loaded by simply sliding them onto the felt-covered platform; a V-shaped notch on the front of the panel aided in alignment. When power was applied and the front cover closed, a spindle engaged the center hole of the disc and a motor-driven idler
Idler
An idler is a mechanical device such as an idler pulley or idler wheel that is secondary to the main transfer of power in a mechanical system. They are support rollers on which conveyor belts move...
wheel spun the disc on the spindle. The power switch itself was mechanically linked to the disc's drive system; lowering the front panel dropped the spindle and disconnected power to the instrument, allowing the program discs to be changed without the need to fully power down. A broad, flat, white plastic cleaning tool with a purple, simulated velvet cleaning surface was supplied with each Optigan to allow periodic cleaning of the photoelectric cell, located near the rear of the instrument.
Thirty-seven tracks were sustained or repeatedly percussive notes in the timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
of a particular instrument and were played through a standard three-octave piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
-style keyboard
Musical keyboard
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
with the right hand; twenty-one were of a live band or soloist
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
playing chords
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
in different keys
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...
arranged per the circle of fifths
Circle of fifths
In music theory, the circle of fifths shows the relationships among the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys...
, specifically B-flat, F, C, G, D, A and E major, minor, and diminished and were played with the left hand in much the style of a chord organ or accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
. The remaining five were assigned to rocker switches above the chord buttons and featured (depending on the disc in question) percussion
Percussion instrument
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, sound effect
Sound effect
For the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...
s, introductions, vamps, and endings synchronized with the chord buttons. Pushing upward on the rocker switches locked them in place for use with percussion; pushing downward allowed momentary use for vamps, introductions and endings.
Metronome
A metronome is any device that produces regular, metrical ticks — settable in beats per minute. These ticks represent a fixed, regular aural pulse; some metronomes also include synchronized visual motion...
incorporated into the discs which showed as a red flashing light for the downbeat and white for the upbeats inside the Optigan badge above the keyboard. The advantages of this unique optical playback system were that the Optigan's range of timbres was infinitely expandable and that there was no limit on the duration of a note as there was on the Optigan's professional-grade counterpart, the magnetic tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
-based Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
. The disadvantage was that notes could have neither attack nor decay, as the tracks had no specific beginning or end.
The "Starter Set" sold with the Optigan contained discs with fairly self-explanatory titles: "Big Organ & Drums", "Pop Piano Plus Guitar", "Latin Fever", and "Guitar in 3/4 Time." More modern styles were represented by titles such as "Movin'!," which was a rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
disc and "Hear and Now," with a sound clearly based on the hit single "Sweet Seasons" by Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
(and cover art evocative of that of her Tapestry album). Other discs were marketed individually and packaged much like long-playing phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
records
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
. These individual titles were also bundled in much the same way as the "Starter Set" and sold as six-disc "Entertainment Folios." Some discs were available only as part of a two-disc "Style Pak" with titles such as "The Joyous Sounds of Christmas", "Country Style Pak.", "Polka" and "Songs Of Praise" - these last two being produced towards the end of production and in very low quantities. Music books of various styles and even arrangements intended for individual disks were also available and sometimes packaged with the different bundles.
The initial run of musical tracks were recorded by Southern California studio musicians in Hollywood and Torrance
Torrance, California
Torrance is a city incorporated in 1921 and located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Torrance has of shore-front beaches on the Pacific Ocean, quieter and less well-known by tourists than others on the Santa Monica Bay, such as those of neighboring...
. However, a musicians' union strike meant that some of the later discs were recorded in Germany. One disc is of particular note. The instrumental tracks for "Bluegrass Banjo" were recorded by members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is an American country-folk-rock band that has existed in various forms since its founding in Long Beach, California in 1966. The group's membership has had at least a dozen changes over the years, including a period from 1976 to 1981 when the band performed and recorded...
. The Vox Humana disc keyboard sound was used for the "Vocal Choir" Orchestron disc.
For the benefit of those unable to read music, the notes in the books were numbered in correspondence to a numbered and color-coded foil strip above the keyboard. The Optigan's songbooks were written and arranged by Optigan Corporation's music director, Johnny Largo. Largo, an accordionist and session musician, was a contemporary of Johnny Marks
Johnny Marks
Johnny Marks was an American songwriter. Although he was Jewish, he specialized in Christmas songs and wrote many standards, including "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" , "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" , "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" , and "A Holly...
, a composer best known for his popular mid-20th century Christmas melodies. As such, many of the songs in the Christmas books were Marks compositions.
Problems
Despite its use of recordings of actual musical instruments in lieu of internally generated sounds, the Optigan suffered from poor tonal quality due not only to the bandwidth limitations of its optical system but its mechanical system as well. The Optigan concept was really similar to that of the Mellotron (early sampling technology) but while the Mellotron used magnetic tape, the Optigan borrowed its technology from motion picture optical soundtrack technology and its amplitude modulatedAmplitude modulation
Amplitude modulation is a technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. AM works by varying the strength of the transmitted signal in relation to the information being sent...
format.
The disc could be sped up or slowed down via a thumbwheel next to the chord buttons to cause a corresponding change in tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
and pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
; however, faster speeds tended to roll off
Roll-off
Roll-off is a term commonly used to describe the steepness of a transmission function with frequency, particularly in electrical network analysis, and most especially in connection with filter circuits in the transition between a passband and a stopband...
the lower frequencies, slower speeds rolled off the highs and moderate to slow tempo lent a slightly muddy quality overall. Natural imperfections on the celluloid
Celluloid
Celluloid is the name of a class of compounds created from nitrocellulose and camphor, plus dyes and other agents. Generally regarded to be the first thermoplastic, it was first created as Parkesine in 1862 and as Xylonite in 1869, before being registered as Celluloid in 1870. Celluloid is...
discs as well as dust and dirt came through as scratches, clicks and pops, much like a worn phonograph record. Furthermore, the pitch change brought on by the tempo adjustment made session work with live musicians a difficult proposition, especially since the pitch varied greatly from disc to disc.
Even though the technology of the day was more than sophisticated enough to avoid them, there were numerous mechanical problems with the disc's motor drive due to its having been engineered to be as affordable as possible. Changes in environment which had a physical effect on the photocells frequently led to crosstalk between tracks. One common example involves the F at the upper end of the keyboard; press this key, step on the volume control pedal and the C-diminished/A-diminished chord can often be heard in the background.
These same diminished chords intentionally found their way onto the row of major chords. And as pointed out earlier in this article, not all of the chord buttons had their own track assignments. In a very unusual move, A-major utilizes the same soundtrack as B-flat-diminished, G-diminished, and E-diminished while E-major shares space with F-diminished and D-diminished, thereby making it impossible to play in the keys of A or E, at least with left-hand accompaniment. Apparently, this was done to save space on the disc, further explaining the lack of dominant seventh chords or any chords in the keys of E-flat, A-flat, D-flat, B and F-sharp.
Vako Orchestron
Vako Synthesizers Incorporated, founded by electronic instrument pioneer David Van Koevering, and who built licensed versions of the Optigan under the name Orchestron in the mid 1970s. Intended for professional use as an alternative to the Mellotron, the Orchestron featured improved recorded sounds over the Optigan. Some models included sequencersMusic sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
and synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s. While the same fidelity limitations of the Optigan applied to the Orchestron, these instruments were built to be more reliable and were used successfully in commercial recordings.
Use in the music industry
Regardless of its limitations and its problems with pitch, many notable musicians have used the Optigan. Among them: Trace, Steve Hackett, Third Eye BlindThird Eye Blind
Third Eye Blind is an American alternative rock band formed in the early 1990s in San Francisco. The songwriting duo of Kevin Cadogan and Stephan Jenkins signed the band's first major label recording contract with Elektra records in 1996 resulting in two multi platinum albums. The band's lineup...
, The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
, Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, Jon Brion
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
, Blur
Blur (band)
Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...
, Marco Benevento
Marco Benevento
Marco Benevento is a pianist, organist and composer from Brooklyn, New York. Benevento is known for his effected piano work with his trio as well as his Hammond Organ and Wurlitzer Electric Piano work with the Benevento Russo Duo...
, Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Apple met international acclaim for her 1996 debut album, Tidal, which was a critical and commercial success...
, Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
(Orchestron), Money Mark
Money Mark
Mark Ramos-Nishita aka Money Mark is a producer and musician who has collaborated with the Beastie Boys many times. He also appears on the first Banyan album in 1997 as the "Freeway Keyboardist".-Career:...
, Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...
, Michael Penn
Michael Penn
Michael Penn is an American singer, songwriter and composer. He is the eldest son of actor/director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan, and the brother of actors Sean Penn and the late Chris Penn.-Career:...
, Steve Fisk
Steve Fisk
Steve Fisk is a Washington-based audio engineer, record producer and musician.Fisk joined the instrumental rock band Pell Mell in 1982. With vocalist Shawn Smith, he formed Pigeonhed, which released its first album in 1993....
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Nan Vernon
Nan Vernon
Nan Vernon is a Canadian singer and actress". She is notable for providing the end credit music of both of Rob Zombie's Halloween films and for being part of the "singer-songwriter trend" of women nurturing folk music's rebirth.-Early career:The Eurythmic's Dave Stewart discovered Vernon...
, Hala Strana
Hala Strana
Hala Strana is the name of a recording project of American musician Steven R. Smith. Smith began recording under the name in 2002 as an outlet which allowed him to explore the traditional music of Eastern Europe more fully than possible with his solo work...
, TISM
TISM
TISM was a seven piece anonymous alternative rock band from Melbourne, Australia. The group was formed in 1982 and enjoyed a large underground/independent following. Their third album Machiavelli and the Four Seasons reached the Australian national top 10 in 1995...
, The Real Tuesday Weld
The Real Tuesday Weld
The Real Tuesday Weld are a British band, fronted by lead singer and founder Stephen Coates. They are known for producing jazzy cabaret-style music with subtle electronica influences, a style dubbed "antique beat" by Coates. They have six albums, several singles and eps and many tracks on...
, Mark Mothersbaugh
Mark Mothersbaugh
Mark Allen Mothersbaugh is an American musician, composer, singer and painter. He is the co-founder of the new wave band Devo and has been its lead singer since 1972. His other musical projects include work for television series, films, and video games....
of Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
—who mixed in parts of the "Banjo Sing-Along" disc on a later remix of Devo's 1981 single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
, "Beautiful World."
One of the earliest recordings that used the Optigan was an album by European dance music pioneer Alan Steward
Alan Steward
Alan Steward is a Producer, Song Writer and Recording Artist who produced hits for Grammy winning and Platinum selling artists like the multi-platinum selling Baha Men and five time Grammy winners Dennis Edwards and Eddie Kendricks both original members of the The Temptations...
. On his 1970s album release "Just Listen", Alan made extensive use of the Optigan. Six out of the nine tracks on the album including the title track "Just Listen" feature the Optigan. Alan also made extensive use of the "breakbeats" and the samples of the Hammond B3 organ that were part of the backing tracks found on many of the soul and R&B oriented Optigan discs. The European distributor of the Optigan used Alan Steward's album for promotion and in-store demos.
Steve Hackett
Steve Hackett
Stephen Richard Hackett is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. He gained prominence as a member of the British progressive rock group Genesis, which he joined in 1970 and left in 1977 to pursue a solo career...
has also made frequent use of the Optigan. Hackett's 1980 album, Defector, features an unusual number called "Sentimental Institution," recorded with a solo Optigan spinning the "Big Band Beat" disc behind his own vocals. Hackett made use of all five of that disc's vamps and its ending; that particular disc featured no percussion tracks. His 2003 release, To Watch the Storms, features sonically expanded samples of the Opsonar "Champagne Music" disc on the track, "Circus of Becoming." Also of considerable note is the band Optiganally Yours
Optiganally Yours
Optiganally Yours is a band formed around the Optigan, a toy organ produced by Mattel in the 1970s that plays the sounds of instruments that have been recorded onto celluloid disks...
, featuring keyboardist Pea Hix
Pea Hix
Dan Hicks, or Pea Hix, is a musician living in San Diego, California. He is half of Optiganally Yours, with Rob Crow. He was the man behind the found sound project Lucas & Friends and a member of lo-fi band Tit Wrench.- Discography :...
; they base their original compositions around the Optigan and employ it and similar keyboard instruments on virtually all of their recordings. Hix is also the founder and webmaster of Optigan.com, a major source of information used in this article.
In the late 90's Optigan , Orchestron and Talentmaker samples were released as software sounds. This made the sounds of both instruments much more accessible to musicians despite Optigans being relatively easier to find in the USA. An Optigan sample was used on an episode of the Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
series, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an American animated television series created and produced at Cartoon Network Studios by animator Craig McCracken, creator of The Powerpuff Girls. It first premiered on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2004, as a 90-minute television movie, which led to a series...
, first airing on October 22, 2004. In it, a mirror image of the character Bloo played sped-up samplings of the vamps and endings of the "Dixieland Strut" disc through a horn which appeared on his body. Another sample was used in an episode of Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks is an American teen comedy-drama television series, created by Paul Feig and executive produced by Judd Apatow, that aired on NBC during the 1999–2000 television season...
, as the soundtrack of an unseen porn film.
On the album White Chalk
White Chalk
White Chalk is the eighth studio album by PJ Harvey, released on 24 September 2007 in the UK, and on 2 October 2007 in the US.Work on the album started in 2006, with producer Flood and John Parish, who also worked on her To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire? albums...
by PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
, an Optigan is played by Eric Drew Feldman
Eric Drew Feldman
Eric Drew Feldman is an American keyboard and bass guitar player. Feldman has worked with Captain Beefheart, Fear, Snakefinger, The Residents, Pere Ubu, Pixies, dEUS, Katell Keineg, Frank Black, The Polyphonic Spree, Tripping Daisy, Reid Paley, Charlotte Hatherley, Custard, and PJ Harvey.He was...
. Harvey also wrote much of her Let England Shake
Let England Shake
Let England Shake is the tenth studio album by PJ Harvey, released on 11 February 2011 in the UK. Work on it began around the time of White Chalks release in 2007, though it is a departure from the piano-driven introspection of that album. The album was written over a period of two-and-a-half...
album on an Optogan. She also plays it on several tracks.
Steve Adey
Steve Adey
Steve Adey is a musician and singer-songwriter. His music is characterised by slow tempos, minimalist arrangements, underpinned by a rich baritone vocal and chordal piano playing...
plays an Optigan on the song I See a Darkness from his debut LP All Things Real
All Things Real
All Things Real is the debut album by English singer-songwriter Steve Adey. The album was released on March 6, 2006, through Grand Harmonium Records...
.
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson may refer to:* Marilyn Manson , an American rock musician* Marilyn Manson , the American rock band led by the singer of the same name...
plays the Optigan on the song Target Audience (Narcissus Narcosis) from the album Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)
Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)
Holy Wood is the fourth studio album by American rock band Marilyn Manson, released in November 2000 through Nothing and Interscope Records. The album marked a return to the industrial and alternative metal style of the band's earlier efforts, after the modernized glam rock sound of Mechanical...
released in 2001.
AK-Momo
AK-momo
AK-Momo are a musical duo from Stockholm, Sweden. They met through mutual friends at a bar in central Stockholm. Olsson invited Malmborg to his studio for a visit. The group consists of Anna Karin von Malmborg and Mattias Olsson...
uses this instrument prominently on Return to N.Y. The album was recorded using only Optigans, Orchestrons and Mellotrons. Swedish producer Mattias Olsson has since the late 90's recorded several albums that features the Orchestron and Optigan prominently.
American producer Brian Coombes has used the Optigan on releases by singer/songwriter Christian Cuff (Silo and Chalkboard), singer/songwriter Will Kindler (Trifles for Queen Jane), and many other artists.
An Optigan sample is used on the track "Eat Yourself," by Goldfrapp
Goldfrapp
Goldfrapp are an English electronic music duo, formed in 1999 in London, England, that consists of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory ....
. The same sample was featured on Lily Allen
Lily Allen
Lily Rose Beatrice Cooper , better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative...
's 2009 release "It's Not Me, It's You," on the track "Chinese." Allen also featured the Optigan sound in two other tracks, "Not Fair" & "He Wasn't There".
Musician Jon Brion composed the soundtrack for the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American romantic science fiction film about an estranged couple who have each other erased from their memories, scripted by Charlie Kaufman and directed by the French director, Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction, psychological...
(directed by Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
), using the 'guitar' from a Talentmaker. "It's funny because you were talking about my grandfather inventing (sic) that keyboard," begins Gondry. "Jon has some old keyboards. My father, who is the son-in-law of my grandfather, took over his keyboard shop and he started to sell electronic synthesizers and organs and he had this very weird synthesizer called The Talentmaker. And I hadn't heard or seen one in 30 years. And when I went to see Jon he had this. So when you hear this very sad guitar that we use a lot [in the film,] that's [The Talentmaker]. So you had the nostalgia of my grandfather's shop."
The Optigan sounds were the basis of many tracks on the 2010 Crash Test Dummies
Crash Test Dummies
The Crash Test Dummies is a Canadian folk rock/alternative rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba, widely known for their 1993 single "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm".The band is most identifiable through Brad Roberts and his distinctive bass-baritone voice...
album Oooh La La.
A filtered sample of the C-major and F-major chords on the "Easy Does It With Vibes" disc opens a 2010 national television commercial in the United States for online business card printer Vistaprint.com.
The Optigan and the Orchestron also appear in the soundtrack of the 2010 Canadian film Primordial Ties.
External links
- "Grooving to the Sound of an Optigan" from NPR.orgNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
. - From Roth Händle Studio:
- Optigan.com - Resource for learning about the Optigan, Orchestron, and the similar Chilton Talentmaker.
- The 'Optigan' and 'Orchestron at Obsolete.com - A page on the history of the Optigan and a word about the Orchestron