Long story: born in 76 grandparents had one as a child and all us kids would play it. I always got told don’t bend the records. I used to play the Polynesian album on it alot I liked the jungle sounds it had. But I talk to all my family about the thing and nobody remembers it. Thank God for TH-cam and for people like you that create content to show this instrument. Cause man you filled a childhood memory void I swear. Amazing technology for the time using light to read the sound. I remember having to push hard on the foot pedal to get volume and would push to hard that thing got super loud. We would get yelled at for having it wailing in the room😂 Anyway cheers and again a big thanks to you for making this!!
So much mechanical and electronic creativity back in the day before the digital fog descended. There's brilliance in the limitations of this thing. You can still pick them up cheap too
@@lookoutleo They were. At least they were distributed. I worked in a music shop when the Optigan (and an almost-identical machine called the Ordiscan) came out. We had one in stock, and had much fun playing the discs backwards, putting two in at a time........we only ever stocked one, and I don't recall what happened to it.......maybe it got written off as 'we need the space for something that people might buy.' So when you say they weren't SOLD, technically you may be right !
Because it uses an optic disc reading system to play back to sounds, you could almost think it’s digital. I keep thinking that’s what CDs and DVDs are.
@@Shred_The_Weapon I understand why you would think so, but it is not. Remember LaserDisk/LaserVision? They looked like a CD of 12 inch LP-size. They were analog! I wouldn't know how, but they were analog.
Just saw this as a prize on a 1973 episode of “The New Price Is Right” and I had to find out what it was. Thanks for the fantastic demonstration. Now I’ll be on my way in my Chevrolet Vega.
Wow this thing has a gorgeous sound, those old tape/record machine instruments just had such a slightly warped imperfect sound that is just so beautiful and impossible to replicate nowadays.
I kept hearing an eerie, psychedelic tune playing in the background when my 6 year old son played on Minecraft. Did a bit of research and it turns out that tune was called Chirp and inspired by or played on one of these machines. Wonderful demonstration of it. As I can't afford a real one, I've downloaded the Optigan app on iPad.
@@VintageKeysStudio I'm no musician, but I can play Chirp, using the app and a plugin for Garage Band for the lead. Quirky little app that emulates a quirky little organ rather well and had my son amused when I played it to him (my wife less so). Great channel, love the presentation and sense of humour. I'm a new subscriber.
In the late 90s/early 00s, the duo Optiganally Yours put out a couple of albums based around the Optigan and its cousin the Talentmaker. OY featured Pinback’s Rob Crow on vocals and Pea Hicks on the Optigan.
Your channel is amazing as an archive alone, but the dead pan delivery is going to keep people laughing for years. It is really cool to see the inner workings of such an odd object, the Optigan is also cool. Great work man!
Thanks for the grand tour. If you are not aware, there is an "indie" label project from San Diego California named "Optiganally Yours". They are a studio duo consisting of San Diego underground music genius legends, Pea Hicks and Rob Crow. They bring the OPTIGAN to life like you couldn't imagine!! Addictive listening for all OPTIGAN fans. Optiganally Yours!
Great studio plumbing!. You're maintaining a noble tradition, we need more like yourself. It would be good to hear you talk about your history of being a musician and engineer/plumber on a podcast or something like that.
Magic!. The tiger on the sleeve of the Big Top Matching Band looks very similar to a famous Salvador Dali painting. I don't remember the whole title but it's something about being "woken from a dream by a bumble-bee five minutes before something of other"?. I wonder when that record was released?. That would be great if we could get to hear you on a podcast.
That expression pedal is also called a "swell pedal". On pipe organs, there are the "great" pipes, the ones which are visible and always loud, and there are the "swell" pipes, the ones hidden behind windows with swell shutters which move when the organist moves the swell pedal. That is why pipe organs have at least two rows of keys, called the "great" and "swell" keyboards. Any additional keyboards are given other names, like "melodic", or "harmonic", or "choir", etc., and they are also "swellable" using other swell pedals. Electronic organs have swell pedals on volume controls, and Optigans have them on sliding windows.
You are wrong about working of pipe organs. Each row of keys have sets of pipes registers which can be individually enabled and there are also some presets for fast activating combination. For example you have 15 register organs and 1-6 registers are on first row, rest on second. You can slightly regulate pipes loudness by not pulling back register. There are several pedals for opening, closing wooden doors to make pipes softer, but its not actually doing much in small church because organs are still too loud for room. These metal outside pipes are not loud, they quite soft.
This is the first time I've heard one actually played. Prior I've only heard samples of the sounds. Seems to me there's a huge ability to modify and upgrade these to more robust amp, speakers, and light source.
I stumbled onto this while looking on a synth forum after some guy asked what this "weird haunted synth thing" was, which made me check it out. Unbelievable! Also, cracking delivery! Will definitely check the channel out! :)
Interesting video. I'd heard of the Optigan (and the earlier Welte organ that used photo-electric tone generators) but I'd never knowingly heard one. Interesting.
so it's like a low budget mellotron... very strange. It's amazing how well it works, actually. I never would have imagined you could read audio through a photoresistor that way
The way you are able to play all these instruments with the exact level confidence is crazy ! Including the ancient synth on springs ! While doing amazing solos with it ! incredible! Next film you get a call for sure. Peace Christo👽
Tom Waits has played optigan on several albums. I understand that he also has a “soft and velvety” tongue, which he uses to massage his vocal cords after wheezing out songs like Filipino Box Spring Hog and Jockey Full of Bourbon.
Mom bought one new in the early 70s. Us kids played it a lot. Then it sat for years, I suspect mom sold it. Would be cool if it was stored in the attic. I am not a musician at all, but would be cool to have the thing again. At the time I did understand how it worked.
Something about this instrument awakens my inner child. Perhaps it's the tempo knob that raises and lowers the pitch. Old cartoons like Teddy Ruxpin and Flintstones often had pitch modulations, especially during scene transitions. Perhaps they used the optigan? Great video 👍.
I was reminded of the Mellotron from the beginning. Such wonderful ingenuity in these designs, it’s a real shame that modern digital devices and apps have replaced character with convenience.
Incroyable. Je savais que des appareils comme celui-ci existent mais je n'ai jamais vu. Merci infiniment de partager cela. Ça me rappelle un peu certaines musique dans la série le prisonnier. Numéro 6
I remember seeing these things for sale at my local White Front store when I was a little boy. I'd almost completely forgotten about it 'til now. I didn't even know that any of this instrument still existed, let alone were still functioning.
I had a high school friend who is aunt gave his mother an Optigan. I thought it was pretty cool, it’s a bit limited. After fiddling with it for a bit, my friends, younger brother said “Here, let me show you something.” He then proceeded to put two discs into the organ. I don’t remember if the rhythms worked at all, but the sounds, the keyboard made reminded me of cats fighting in an alley.
Oh yeah, “Worried Man” is like, a well known blues song. If you want an extremely chipper yet extremely despondent take on it, check out Devo’s version lol
Wasn't the Optigan the cheap toy cousin of the Orchestron? I like the way the black keys are brown, to colour coordinate with the rest of the instrument.
The optical concept of the Mellotron... The modern version would read a QR code where the parameters for the sounds are stored and have a synth interpret it... :-)
Holy.Fucking.Shit, I just discovered that the amazing song Benton harbor blues by the Fiery Furnaces uses an Optigan with this same disc. Sounds at 10:38
I had one. It barely worked. Kinda missed it though. Replaced it with a Wurlitzer Funmaker that I payed thirty bucks for, and eventually replaced that with a Hammond M3 that I payed fifty for.
Amazing instrument! I love bossa nova so of course I also fell in love with this preset and what you can play with it! This is maybe a stupid thing to ask but is the tune played from 11:00 to 11:23 inspired by anything? It sounded nice :)
Did you say right at the end that you were called 'Steve'? I don't believe you, that seems so implausible. Now if you had said you were, 'Cathcart Spindlebeam' I'd have been with you.
Perhaps you know the answer to this: I always assumed Trans Europe Express was played on a Mellotron. But I recently heard that it might have been an Optigan. I wonder if that's possible.
Like a train - or an automatic dishwasher? In the 70s when former Moog Music employee Dave Van Koevering marketed a keyboard model known as the Orchestron. It was derided as being too similar to the Optigan. What I always wondered is if the Orchestron (in its different variations)was intended to be more of a professional-grade rendition of Optigan. Any thoughts, Steve?
This, I’ve seen in pictures, @@VintageKeysStudio. Optigan has three regular octaves. The keyboards on the Orchestron models are from F to E. Thanks for responding.
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Long story: born in 76 grandparents had one as a child and all us kids would play it. I always got told don’t bend the records. I used to play the Polynesian album on it alot I liked the jungle sounds it had. But I talk to all my family about the thing and nobody remembers it. Thank God for TH-cam and for people like you that create content to show this instrument. Cause man you filled a childhood memory void I swear. Amazing technology for the time using light to read the sound. I remember having to push hard on the foot pedal to get volume and would push to hard that thing got super loud. We would get yelled at for having it wailing in the room😂
Anyway cheers and again a big thanks to you for making this!!
So much mechanical and electronic creativity back in the day before the digital fog descended. There's brilliance in the limitations of this thing. You can still pick them up cheap too
You can't pick them up in the UK, never sold here
@@lookoutleo They were. At least they were distributed. I worked in a music shop when the Optigan (and an almost-identical machine called the Ordiscan) came out. We had one in stock, and had much fun playing the discs backwards, putting two in at a time........we only ever stocked one, and I don't recall what happened to it.......maybe it got written off as 'we need the space for something that people might buy.'
So when you say they weren't SOLD, technically you may be right !
I played one for many years and it was one of my earliest piano and organ experience has taught me how to play like I do today.
Like the Mellotron this must be one of the worlds first sample players.
And the Chamberlain came first.
A cross between a Chamberlain, Mellotron, and Chord Organ. Very interesting instrument indeed.
Because it uses an optic disc reading system to play back to sounds, you could almost think it’s digital. I keep thinking that’s what CDs and DVDs are.
@@Shred_The_Weapon I understand why you would think so, but it is not. Remember LaserDisk/LaserVision? They looked like a CD of 12 inch LP-size. They were analog! I wouldn't know how, but they were analog.
It doesn’t hurt to have that kind of information, @@meneerjansen00.
Just saw this as a prize on a 1973 episode of “The New Price Is Right” and I had to find out what it was. Thanks for the fantastic demonstration. Now I’ll be on my way in my Chevrolet Vega.
Thank you! Enjoy your Chevrolet Vega! :) maybe pop on an 8 track cartridge of Dark side of the moon while you are cruising
Wow this thing has a gorgeous sound, those old tape/record machine instruments just had such a slightly warped imperfect sound that is just so beautiful and impossible to replicate nowadays.
I kept hearing an eerie, psychedelic tune playing in the background when my 6 year old son played on Minecraft. Did a bit of research and it turns out that tune was called Chirp and inspired by or played on one of these machines.
Wonderful demonstration of it. As I can't afford a real one, I've downloaded the Optigan app on iPad.
Well spotted! I've just had a listen. You will have to let us know how you get on with the app.
@@VintageKeysStudio I'm no musician, but I can play Chirp, using the app and a plugin for Garage Band for the lead. Quirky little app that emulates a quirky little organ rather well and had my son amused when I played it to him (my wife less so).
Great channel, love the presentation and sense of humour. I'm a new subscriber.
@@superbracey Good to hear. Welcome to our club!
Little big planet Músic??
Is a shame that nobody could make something like that now as even for folk that can't play well it would be great fun
In the late 90s/early 00s, the duo Optiganally Yours put out a couple of albums based around the Optigan and its cousin the Talentmaker. OY featured Pinback’s Rob Crow on vocals and Pea Hicks on the Optigan.
You're like if Matt Berry went and became a keyboard wizard in a parallel universe.
Brilliant.
Strangely, myself and Matt Berry have never appeared in the same place at the same time.
@@VintageKeysStudio 😦
Berry is a really good musician - you knew this right?
He's already a keyboard wizard!
Your channel is amazing as an archive alone, but the dead pan delivery is going to keep people laughing for years.
It is really cool to see the inner workings of such an odd object, the Optigan is also cool.
Great work man!
Thanks so much! :)
Thanks for the grand tour. If you are not aware, there is an "indie" label project from San Diego California named "Optiganally Yours". They are a studio duo consisting of San Diego underground music genius legends, Pea Hicks and Rob Crow. They bring the OPTIGAN to life like you couldn't imagine!! Addictive listening for all OPTIGAN fans. Optiganally Yours!
Great studio plumbing!.
You're maintaining a noble tradition, we need more like yourself.
It would be good to hear you talk about your history of being a musician and engineer/plumber on a podcast or something like that.
Great idea. I'll speak to my producer!
Magic!.
The tiger on the sleeve of the Big Top Matching Band looks very similar to a famous Salvador Dali painting.
I don't remember the whole title but it's something about being "woken from a dream by a bumble-bee five minutes before something of other"?.
I wonder when that record was released?.
That would be great if we could get to hear you on a podcast.
That expression pedal is also called a "swell pedal". On pipe organs, there are the "great" pipes, the ones which are visible and always loud, and there are the "swell" pipes, the ones hidden behind windows with swell shutters which move when the organist moves the swell pedal. That is why pipe organs have at least two rows of keys, called the "great" and "swell" keyboards. Any additional keyboards are given other names, like "melodic", or "harmonic", or "choir", etc., and they are also "swellable" using other swell pedals. Electronic organs have swell pedals on volume controls, and Optigans have them on sliding windows.
You are wrong about working of pipe organs. Each row of keys have sets of pipes registers which can be individually enabled and there are also some presets for fast activating combination. For example you have 15 register organs and 1-6 registers are on first row, rest on second. You can slightly regulate pipes loudness by not pulling back register. There are several pedals for opening, closing wooden doors to make pipes softer, but its not actually doing much in small church because organs are still too loud for room. These metal outside pipes are not loud, they quite soft.
A very charming bit of vintage fun...delivered by a charming man
Thank you very much! :)
I love oddball machines like this. If you haven't already check out the Japanese musicians making music with bar codes for more audio from visuals.
i'm so old, i remember these in the late 60's. it was really cool back then.
cool
We had the exact same model in our living room when I was a kid in the '70's. This really brings me back.
This channel is fantastic and Steve has jedi skills.
Man all these ingenious devices in your vids I never knew existed. Makes me wish I could play keyboards instead of wishing I could play guitar.
Amazing. It's not old technology. It's different technology.
You had me at "opti-mechanical"
Love those cool little accompaniment songs with the character recording…very 60’s and the organ is awesome! Really enjoy your videos, learning a lot!
That thing sounds incredible!
This is the first time I've heard one actually played. Prior I've only heard samples of the sounds. Seems to me there's a huge ability to modify and upgrade these to more robust amp, speakers, and light source.
I wonder why this never caught on among bands?
I stumbled onto this while looking on a synth forum after some guy asked what this "weird haunted synth thing" was, which made me check it out. Unbelievable! Also, cracking delivery! Will definitely check the channel out! :)
Thank you so much! :)
Interesting video. I'd heard of the Optigan (and the earlier Welte organ that used photo-electric tone generators) but I'd never knowingly heard one. Interesting.
Love your work so logical and informative !!!
so it's like a low budget mellotron... very strange. It's amazing how well it works, actually. I never would have imagined you could read audio through a photoresistor that way
Never seen before.
Amazing vintage device.
Thank you so much fior sharing this.!!!!!
Blur have a very haunting song called Optigan 1. I came here in search for what this keyboard looked like. Now I want one 😊
Haha, I think my grandmother had one in the mid 70's, but I don't remember it needing one of those disks, but I was also pretty young at the time
The way you are able to play all these instruments with the exact level confidence is crazy ! Including the ancient synth on springs ! While doing amazing solos with it ! incredible! Next film you get a call for sure. Peace Christo👽
Thank you so much Christo! 😊
@@VintageKeysStudio you are very welcome and also super deserving! Peace Christo👽
Tom Waits has played optigan on several albums. I understand that he also has a “soft and velvety” tongue, which he uses to massage his vocal cords after wheezing out songs like Filipino Box Spring Hog and Jockey Full of Bourbon.
Hahaa
Mom bought one new in the early 70s. Us kids played it a lot. Then it sat for years, I suspect mom sold it. Would be cool if it was stored in the attic. I am not a musician at all, but would be cool to have the thing again. At the time I did understand how it worked.
A very Melotron alike sound, such an imperfect mid tone biased sound works very well in a modern recording.
Something about this instrument awakens my inner child. Perhaps it's the tempo knob that raises and lowers the pitch. Old cartoons like Teddy Ruxpin and Flintstones often had pitch modulations, especially during scene transitions. Perhaps they used the optigan? Great video 👍.
It's like a mellotron with delicious looking kitkat keys
Wow, what a fantastic bit of kit, so inventive !
I was reminded of the Mellotron from the beginning. Such wonderful ingenuity in these designs, it’s a real shame that modern digital devices and apps have replaced character with convenience.
Curious light / mechanical / electronic machine. Has that domestic home entertainment feel to it. Curiously has links to the Mattel toy company.
Incroyable. Je savais que des appareils comme celui-ci existent mais je n'ai jamais vu. Merci infiniment de partager cela. Ça me rappelle un peu certaines musique dans la série le prisonnier. Numéro 6
Clever piece of tech for the time.
I remember seeing these things for sale at my local White Front store when I was a little boy. I'd almost completely forgotten about it 'til now. I didn't even know that any of this instrument still existed, let alone were still functioning.
Lovely memories
Basically an early "CD" ... that is wild. With built in synth features and a player piano ... and an accordion o.O in a way ...
Love this; definitely getting cinema advert for a local curry house vibe from 11 mins onward.
awesome
Thanks Allen
"......very like my own tongue....."
i'm going to need one of those "dusters" for the coffee i just spit onto my laptop.
Vintage Coffee Stain removal coming to our list of services very soon.
Wonderful and informative! Thank you!
I had to read the booklet of Tom Wait's Franks Wild Years album to discover this fascinating instrument through this video! Thanks for sharing!!
the end of please wake me up, right? here this time for the same reason!
My god this thing is my dream instrument.
Really quite amazing! Still sounds pretty good after all these years! Wonder what could be done with today's tech?
I’m so impressed by how there’s no latency.
11:10 now i understand where 70's tv programs music came from
Interesting way of handling the volume; I wouldn't think that was the best way.
Light works better than a scratchy pot, eventually.
I had a high school friend who is aunt gave his mother an Optigan. I thought it was pretty cool, it’s a bit limited. After fiddling with it for a bit, my friends, younger brother said “Here, let me show you something.” He then proceeded to put two discs into the organ. I don’t remember if the rhythms worked at all, but the sounds, the keyboard made reminded me of cats fighting in an alley.
I’ve not tried two discs at once! Brilliant!
What an odd and lovely little thing.
You are a treasure.
I got one of those :)
(I took the base off so it's more portable and gotta rewire it someday)
...Also they used one of those on an Aimee Mann album
Oh yeah, “Worried Man” is like, a well known blues song. If you want an extremely chipper yet extremely despondent take on it, check out Devo’s version lol
It has a bit the same kind of lo-fi sound like the mellotron, I like it 😀
this video is so cool! i love this keyboard
That Rolling Easy is naughty.
So fantastic
Wasn't the Optigan the cheap toy cousin of the Orchestron?
I like the way the black keys are brown, to colour coordinate with the rest of the instrument.
Yes I believe you are right. Brown was the new black back in 1970. I had a bontempi blower organ in very early 80s with brown black keys too
Gloriously Lo-Fi.
Crowded House used one too!
Steve Hackett used It on a song called Sentimental Institution
I'm not familiar with that. I love early Genesis so I'll have a listen.
I had a similar BONTEMPI with a fan, that blew through pipes, no discs, though, in the 70ies i think, my first organ!!
Watch this space! :)
13:43 meme 😂
Very interesting and entertaining
Glad you enjoyed it!
First album I realized I was hearing the Optigan was Fiona Apple's "Tidal". Bizarre and moody tones for sure!
Damn, I want one!
The optical concept of the Mellotron...
The modern version would read a QR code where the parameters for the sounds are stored and have a synth interpret it... :-)
The red light should also note the beginning of the loop since it's circular and keeps repeating.
Vintage Keys Studio The Optigan is basically an Optical Disc Chord Organ which you play like an Accordion.
Just WOW! Never seen or heard of this before but I'm very happy I've seen it now! Could you make your own discs I wonder?
It's great - somebody did start making discs but the science and graphic design involved is mind-blowing. I wish I could work out how to make them!
I remember something like this at a Sears, a loooooooooong time ago
I have the iPad app , it’s excellent sample fodder
Holy.Fucking.Shit, I just discovered that the amazing song Benton harbor blues by the Fiery Furnaces uses an Optigan with this same disc. Sounds at 10:38
Listen to this quirky band Optiganally Yours to see this instrument put to creative use.
Thank you!!!
I had no idea you are in Hampshire! I must visit sometime to see the quirky instruments one has :D
Please do! You would be very welcome.
if someone had told me this existed i wouldn't have believed them
I had one. It barely worked. Kinda missed it though. Replaced it with a Wurlitzer Funmaker that I payed thirty bucks for, and eventually replaced that with a Hammond M3 that I payed fifty for.
On the film soundtracks the sound quality was a bit different, though ? They should have manufactured the disks on plexiglass.
Amazing instrument! I love bossa nova so of course I also fell in love with this preset and what you can play with it! This is maybe a stupid thing to ask but is the tune played from 11:00 to 11:23 inspired by anything? It sounded nice :)
It would be fun if you played that Upright Bass!
i subscribed merely because you make me laugh
Wow!!
And this begat the Vako Orchestron, made famous by Kraftwerk.
Cool
superb device isn't it?
Did you say right at the end that you were called 'Steve'? I don't believe you, that seems so implausible. Now if you had said you were, 'Cathcart Spindlebeam' I'd have been with you.
Hahaa - love that name! I am getting it changed to that first thing tomorrow!
Awesome, very pleased to encounter someone with such a distinguished background
I always think of the circus when I hear a happy colostomy. Toot toot!
The orb of dreams...
Worried Man by the Kingston Trio
or Lonnie Donegan. This is of the skiffle era.
Heath Robinson would be proud.
Perhaps you know the answer to this:
I always assumed Trans Europe Express was played on a Mellotron. But I recently heard that it might have been an Optigan. I wonder if that's possible.
It was an Orchestron.
Like a train - or an automatic dishwasher?
In the 70s when former Moog Music employee Dave Van Koevering marketed a keyboard model known as the Orchestron. It was derided as being too similar to the Optigan. What I always wondered is if the Orchestron (in its different variations)was intended to be more of a professional-grade rendition of Optigan. Any thoughts, Steve?
I think it was purposely meant to be a professional version of the Optigan - they are almost identical discs, however the note orders are scrambled :)
This, I’ve seen in pictures, @@VintageKeysStudio. Optigan has three regular octaves. The keyboards on the Orchestron models are from F to E.
Thanks for responding.