The first item for the project was to provide for amplification for the channels. I was fortunate to purchase a used Rodgers 3 manual custom organ which had seen better days. This provided 14 ea. S-100 amps, most of which had problems. The plan was to rebuild these and then sell the newer S-100Cs that came with the organ.
The course of action was to lay out a new printed circuit board for the amps. After the layout the information was sent to Express PCB for manufacturing. They provided 14 new boards of G-10 fiberglass, through hole plating and full solder mask. Over the next several weeks these were stuffed with new parts. Each amplifier was stripped of board, transformer, filter and output caps. Then it was washed with 409, rinsed in a hot water bath and baked at 170 degrees for 1 hour. The caps were checked for leakage and capacity and along with the transformer, cleaned and reinstalled in the chassis. Then the printed board was installed, the output transistors removed and heat sink compound applied and re-installed. The power cord was replaced with a 12 inch cord since the power outlet in the new rack was alongside the amp. I used 3 wire cords but cut the ground wire off and did not connect it to the chassis. This insured that the plug was inserted the correct way in the outlet. The black (hot) wire was rerouted to the fuse holder first for safety.
Last but not least each amp was checked for power out and distortion. The bias was set and then they were installed in the equipment rack. There will be 10 amps used for organ voices, 2 for reverb and the last 2 were placed in a plastic bag and stored for spares.
Over time there were additional speakers added as well as maintenance repairing dead notes, etc. etc.
The organ did noty have a Tibis 5 1/3 ft stop so the task was to add that stop to the Great manual, next was to add the Posthorn to to the Accomp. manual and Pedals at 8 ft.
These required the standard Rodgers slides and point to point wiring.
Then in February 2008 the decision to install an Artisan Micro Midi system was made. It was driven by 2 goals. First to increase the capability of the combination action and second to provide Midi output from 3 manuals plus second touch and pedals allowing the organ to play sampled ranks as well as the original analog voices and provide midi out for all of the stops as well.
hfevans.com
Pictures of the left and right speaker lofts as well as the Rodgers 340 and Yamaha G3. The Yamaha is equiped with a PianoDisk player and also is playable from the Rodgers 340 under full expression.
THE MODIFICATION JOURNEY OF THE 340
A close up shot of the console. There are still 5 slots on the back rail where SAMs can be added. Otherwise the console is about topped out unless I start putting pistons to control stops. I have decided to stop adding to this since I have obtained a Roobert Morton 3 manual pipe organ console that will lend itself very well to the digital/sampled technology
A close up shot of the console top showing the installation of the Artisan Micro Midi boards.
In this picture you can see where the input boards for the keyboards and pedals were installed. By "piggybacking" them I was able to keep the wiring "mess" down to a minimum.
Currently the speaker compliment consists of the following:
Bass is Rodgers P32 with 2 ea. 15 inch speakers
4 ea. Klips LaScalas
2 ea. Modified Rodgers M3 cabinets with midrange horns added. Bass drivers are 15 inch JBL D-104s
6 ea. Rodgers W-13 consisting of 12 ea. 6 x 9 and 1 ea.HF Driver
2 ea Custom cabinets consisting of 16 ea. 6 x 9 and 1 ea. HF Driver
2 ea. Jensen 3 way cabinets for non tonal percussion.
2 ea. Dual 15 inch Pioneer PAT-38X cabinets for tonal percussion.
A sample of what the 340 sounds like. At the time these were recorded the only reverb was the natural reverb of the room.
These were recorded on August 19, 2008 during the Annual Chapter Meeting of the Magnolia and South Mississippi Gold Coast Chapters of the American Theatre Organ Society. The Artist is Dolton McAlpin of Starkville Mississippi.
CLICK ON ONE OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THE 340 SPECIAL