Guitarhacker


I read a story some time back about the guy who is the master craftsman/restorer on the Wanamaker pipe organ in either Philly or NYC... This guy works full time on the restoration and plays it at nearly virtuoso level as well.  The store had let the organ set and of course, that mean it rusted up and started falling apart. Many of the pipes were non functional and had been removed and thrown in a back room or basement.  The store hired him to restore it, and IIRC he worked on it for several years before he was able to play it. The work continues, and I think now he has an apprentice with him.

 
 While I was reading this I thought of a friend of mine who is right down the street maybe 10 miles away. Educated at Juliard,one of the very best organists around anywhere,very eccentric and quirky. Has barely two pennies to rub together.  One heck of a nice guy. I took a few lessons off of him. Plays gigs locally here for extra cash. His specialty is pipe organ but he can whip the pants off of a piano too. It is scary how talented he is seriously........... He played the organ for an old silent film theatre and for lots of churches around here as well as numerous gigs at bars too.
  This guy has an entire pipe organ he got from some large church in his garage. I mean all of those tall pipes and the blower and the whole shebang. Always planned to rebuild it and play it I guess. I doubt it will ever happen. A shame to see such raw talent go seemingly unrewarded in a much bigger way and a shame to see that organ sit and gather dust as well.
  The place where I work has a large pipe organ and I have already been there to look at it. This thing is massive. Amazing thing to see and hear.

This has some very interesting reading about why the rotating speaker is hard to emulate with electronics.

http://www.strymon.net/20...echnology-white-paper/

When I had the music store people used to phone me wishing to sell their old console organs. If they were the original owners they would say they had payed thousands of dollars for them but no one would be answering adds in the paper after 1 year. . They end up donating them to churches and the old folks home. I took one off a guy's hands and found that all the E notes were dead. What notes that played were kinda not our cup of tea no matter which buttons and levers we moved. A $40 Casio would do better work. 
My son and I proceeded to take it apart. It had a Tube power amp that we couldn't figure out, A few good Pacer speakers 8" and 12"  A cool volume pedal, an Accutronics reverb with " made buy beautiful women in Wisconsin " on the label. Then it had this styrofoam rotating gizmo that I mounted in a box and played with. It didn't sound much like a real Leslie to me so I ended up tossing it after a few years in the shed. Best of all it was made out of 3/4" real walnut lumber core veneer we made some end tables out of.
I find those other smaller, I guess Transistor type, Organs mostly to be furniture than a useful instrument. I get excited when I find one but have yet to play one that sounds like the B3.
I have been with a band the keyboard player had I think it was called an A3? He also had the full on Leslie cabinet.
I've seen Leslie cabinets that looked like Fender Bass Speaker bottoms.