Possibly The WORST MUSICAL INSTRUMENT Ever Invented?
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
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I'm a fan of this organ...
Needs more MIDI
witch organ in particular is the worst? in your body.
Can't wait to hear the intro you make ;)
Nice pun :P
Probably the best vacuum cleaner ever invented Hahahahaha!
At first I thought the middle C on mine was out of tune... then I found out the middle C was in tune and the rest of the organ was a 1/2 step out of tune.
Maybe someone tried to tune it and just went, "You know what, fuck it" after the C.
Exact same thing is wrong with mine, except the middle c is out of tune too. But it's only a little bit off lol
Honestly, would prefer that to random notes being out of tune
@@heggy_69MINE ORGAN C4 IS AT 265 HERTZ MAN
This sounds like a melodica for people who don't have lungs.
The iron melodica
@@adrianlerma9778, I laughed harder than I should at that. Slight sense of guilt now...
Jon Batiste needs this
I was thinking "oh, this is kind of cool! I should try and build one."
And then I realized its just a shitty melodica.
It works basically like a melodica.
"worst instrument ever" "Everyone should have one"
this the kinda thinking that lead to public schools teaching recorder instead of flute
also flutes are like $200-2000 and recorders are like $2
Naruhito Da Grandaddy of Japan EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE BOTH.
It's possible to make a recorder sound good with enough practice and the right music. The problem is the way it is taught and the way music is treated in schools by both students and upper management as "one of those wishy-washy arts subjects for people who are too stupid to do science". If music was respected as a subject like it should be, then maybe more kids would actually try harder to get good at it.
Same with ukeleles
A sliver flute is not accessible, a plastic recorder is, I played both in elementary school
And ukelele
Edit - and omnichord which is another worst instrument everyone should have
It’s called a chord organ. And is related to an accordion. I had one with 40 bass buttons and two reeds per note to produce a slight chorus or musette sound. I could teach you how to tune the reeds but on a bontempi it would not be worthwhile.
That sounds spectacular with the double reeds per note. I tried google out before I recorded this video and had a hard time finding a good rabbit hole to fall down for proper info on when the idea of turning lovely intstruments into massproduced plastic came about.
Im swedish so I very much grew up to the sound of the accordion. But the swedish chord organs I’ve come by over here are just embarrassing 😅 even worse than these bontempis.
Would love to know how to tune anything with reeds since it most likely opens up my mind to more experiments.
That what I figured. Sounds like an accordion, except it's got a machine to blow the bellows for you.
I thought it sounded a lot like an accordion, I actually really dig the sound
I just bought a '76 chord organ 3 months ago for 15 bucks. i have been using it in a lot of tunes and have sampled it for a drone. Worth the money but I have no space for it.
Would like to see one taken apart.
Simon The Magpie Instruments such as accordions melodeon harmonium harmonicas melodicas etc are called free reed instruments because they have reeds that are fixed at one end and free to vibrate when air is pushed through at the other. In instruments such as accordions melodeons harmoniums the reeds are attached to a metal plate which sits on a wooden or sometimes plastic block with holes in to allow the air to pass through and make the sound.
In instruments with bellows ie accordions and melodeons each plate has 2 reeds. One on the top right hand side of the plate which operates when air is pulled through the bellows and one on what would be the left hand side when the Reed plate is on the block but underneath the block which sounds when the air is pushed through the bellows. Both reeds have covers on the opposite side of the reed plate made of leather or more recently thin plastic whic lift when air is going through the reed so you get no leeks, ie. the reed on the bottom will sound only on its own as the air going to the top reed will also push the cover for the bottom reed to stop air getting to it. The reed plates re usually held in place with beeswax. To tune these reedsyou must first insert some paper thin wood or metal underneath the reed at the free end to stop the reed from bending. When this is done you file at either the free end to raise the pitch of the reed, or the fixed end to lower it. You can get special tools to do this but I use fine Emery paper. If you have too take the reed plate off the box to get to the underneath reed make sure to seal i well with beeswax around the outside does of the plate so it will remain airtight when innolace again. I use a soldering iron for that. You could also experiment with adding small amounts of solder to the top of the reed at the free end which will have the effect of lowering the pitch. Just file or solder a small amount at a time and reference with a chromatic tuner.
Some instruments like accordions mat have multiple sets of reeds per note.4” 8” and 16”foot reeds named after lengths of pipe on a pipe organ. The 8” reeds also called clarinet reeds may be detuned so one set is at 440 and another set is slightly higher. Sometimes you have 3 sets of 8”reeds and would also tune one slightly lower. This creates a chorus when all reeds play together which is known as musette. Like french accordion sound. With 1 set at concert pitch the further you tune the other reeds away from concert pitch the greater the chorus effect will be.
These days I play Roland digital accordions capable of playing 4 part multitimbral on different midi channels at once.
There was one of these at my grandmother's house, I used to "play" it when I was I child.
I was about to leave the same comment
Me too haha
I cant imagine a combination worse than a child and this
@@mattsmith7962 hahahahaha
Same.
The late Daniel Johnston’s famous weapon of choice for a handful of his albums. I have one with a “Hi, how are you?” Sticker on it that came with my “Yip/Jump” poster. I regret not paying to get it signed by him when I had the chance for an extra dose of his magic. Learning about him and listening to and loving his music gave me the push I needed to get started myself and to not get hung up too much in the growing process.
Oh shit, so that’s what he used. It has such an interesting sound, and the slowness certainly must have impacted his playing style
@@gabrielraines655 I have one like what he used and thankfully some chord organs don’t have such dramatic attack and latency like the one in the video
This is the musical instrument equivelent of an Easy Bake oven.
The word 'Bontempi' used to be used by me and mates to denote something shoddy and crappy, back in the 80s. You have managed to produce good music from these monstrous devices, and changed my opinion of them.
Come on it’s great for walking the cows with Daniel Johnston
S/O Daniel Johnston
Sounds like something Neutral Milk Hotel would use.
it is
my exact thought!
I want to hear a whole orchestra of these playing at once.
Playing the "Symphony of 2020"
Surely someone out there is drunk enough to create this masterpiece of tootling insanity.
Daniel Johnston + possibly Neutral Milk Hotel’s debut album (specifically “Naomi”)
I think it sounds unique and it belongs in the hands of talented weirdos
Pretty sure Tom Waits has a shed full of these organs.
Fan organs land around a B rating on the tier list of sheds full of organs
Five minutes in, and you’re not unselling me on this.
I used to jam on one of these with a friend who had one at his house. We made up crazy songs like “King Airplane,” “Super French Bread Man,” and “This Fish Has an Eye.” Sometimes I would intentionally bend notes flat by pressing the key only partially (like at 11:09 in the video). Good times!
I very much want to hear super French bread man
Reminds me of the song names me and my twin brother would write as 10 year olds. our first song was "banana suicide"
@@CULTOFMIDNIGHTSTORM holy fish in soy sauce what the heck man
@@doomslayerplushie6662 The song is about getting home from the store and putting banana's on the counter and leaving the room. you come back and find your banana's on the floor. banana suicide
"This is awful because of the loud spinny thing inside... On an unrelated note; check out this sweet Motorsynth!"
I live for "I'm the Magpie!" ❤
the delivery is always so funny
I had a battery Bontempi just like that one when I was a kid. They truly are awful things. The one good feature of them is that they build a resolve to obtain something better.
I remember various Bontempi organs from when I was a whipper snapper, there were some okay ones and then some ba...... fucking terrible ones!
My bro had one (the battery powered) and it sounded like it had asthma when you pressed more than 4 keys down and struggled to get those notes out. It was shit on the lower notes with a shit attack that was more like a non-attack so there was no chunk organ bass and more of a wheezing old fart box. I still sampled it and layered it and then vocoded them to make a fucking wicked organy drum beat.
To make one work properly just help the fan along, with an air line/compressor, and that helps a little!
I always figured that my bontempi battery organ was completely worn out, but yours sounds identical XD
I mean... he said he found it on a sidewalk and it smelled of piss so I'm gonna say his is more than a little worn out too lol
I always wanted to try to adapt one of these to use compressed air.
I always thought these were like for grand mas who couldn't afford one of those brown Yamaha organs
I had one of those. Orange as well. The good thing about it is it came with a music book which used a bontempi graphic notation to help newbies learn music by playing classic masterpieces. You should not consider this as an instrument itself, but as a resource to help children learn. As such, it probably was the best instrument around.
It sounds like what I imagine living in Finland is like
Sounds like something is dying, and the fan sounds like a cow at 4:37
Sounds like a UFO abducting him 4:33
I had one of these Chord Organs way back in the mid 1970's ! The fan was EXTREMELY loud too. It was a Brownish colour ,same size as your orange one. Also had those terrible sounding chords section which were always out of tune. It came with a plastic seat as well as a songbook which taught you how to play old songs from the 1930's -1940's ! They were all Cowboy songs, " Get Along Little Doggies ", "On Top of Old Smokey", etc. But I was a kid and too young for a Synthesizer and this was the closest thing the parents would buy me. So I learned how to play the keys on this thing and ended up loving it. Except for the chord key section as it sounded horrific no matter what key your finger pressed down ! 💥🎹👀💦
Same here. In fact I made a patch in a modern synth to emulate it. :)
You just smashed my belief that they certainly were in tune when they were new.
I bought one just like it for cheap at Erikshjälpen. I've been thinking about making a virtual instrument from it. It would make fan noise optional (provided I can get good samples), attack times shorter and no problems with struggling fans at high polyphony.
if 2020 was an instrument
The out of tuneness reminds me of the aesthetic of out of tune pianos, which is cool so i like it
For absolute silence: do a water cooling mod. :-P
the fan isn't to cool it down, its to push air through reeds :)
@@TheNaughtyMessiah Oh sorry, forgot to mark the joke as such. ;-)
This did give me a good idea for an experiment, tho. Playing a melodica with a vacuum cleaner? hand held fan? Air compressor?
A balloon
@@benjaminmarks8765 If only someone would make a toy that powers an organ with a balloon... That would be sweet!
@@andrewfaraday8918 Maybe ask the Scots. They keep trying to experiment with such an instrument.
It seems like a motor working a bellows could be a lot quieter.
I have rocked soem serious funk on an old chord organ, you need to try harder and bust out of your usual groove. It has a slower attack and sweet slightly detuned sound for, you guessed it, fat, warm, chords.
Hering did some of these in Brazil in that same time period. Never played on one but heard many a complaint
It's the lazy mans accordian (you don't need the shoulder/back strength to play- trust me, you need to pump iron to play an accordian for more than 5 minutes!!!). It's very easy to play, But, it has no control over volume, tremolo, or swell control, which an accordian has with it bellows. Never thought i'd be defending the honor of accordians, but in this case, i am!
I had one of these as a kid, as did my friend. some had less latency than others, it depended on the construction and how powerful the fan was. back in the day, if you had one of these and a tape recorder, much fun was had. we have much more efficient fans now, so a retrofit would definitely improve one.
I love these things (I learned to play keyboards on one, and I'm also a huge Tom Waits fan). They weren't all super cheaply made. Mine is a German or Italian model called Roxy, which is enclosed in a tweed suitcase body and has five octaves and no chord buttons.
We boutta get that orange song after all, aren't we
YEEESSSSS
Oof im not sure guys. I think the worst organ is the appendix... i mean its a really useless one.
Oh man, my first ever keyboard was the brown Bontempi organ complete with plastic legs attached by wing nuts, it also had the chord buttons. Imagine being 8 years old, seeing Herbie Hancock on Top Of The Pops (Rock It) and wanting to do what he does. Then your parents get you one of these! Haha, still, I taught myself every song in the book and the following year I was rewarded with the first of many Yamaha keyboards. Still have a soft spot for the clunky plastic humming brown turd though 🙂👌
The best use one could have this for in this modern era is random background noises
Example:
every other song on This Heat’s Deceit
Needs a "Better Gear", maybe using a leaf blower?
Does Austria have E-lec-tricity? 🤔
Sounds like a melodica, which makes sense.
Play some Daniel Johnston songs on it !!!
I have something like this in my apartment, a big wooden one the size of one of those little church lady home organs. I bought it at an antique store for $30 when I was a kid, and I've just dragged it with me since then. It's so extremely loud, it's like a small airplane when you turn it on, and it sounds like you would expect. It plays about the same as these plastic ones because it's pretty much made the same way, just... out of wood and wax with less plastic. It's horrible, but I still kind of love it. It has little chord buttons, tremolo, a foot pedal that doesn't do a whole lot, and a mute "switch" that just raises or drops a big wooden panel on the back, usually hitting the wall. It has a nice red pilot light on it, and turns on with a metal toggle switch. Excellent aesthetic value.
I come for the music, but keep getting distracted by the fashion choices.
I just realised Bontempi means 'good times'!
"Tempi" in italian means as a terminology in music theory the measure or speed of a music composition too.
@@mikedelicus Even though it's plural?
In french (my main language) "bon, tant pis." (A very common expression) can be translated like "well, too bad." Bontempi is pronounced the exact same way as bon tant pis. Pretty sure that's the origin.
@@tealeaf3210 No it's almost exactly the same in French 'Bontemps' -- "Good Times" -- It was a common surname it seems
@@annother3350 my bad, just checked, i didn't understood the context of that word, thought it was a pejorative expression but it's a brand. So bon temps is actually more fitting that way, who would sell an instrument with a pejorative name?
These videos are like Andrew Huang's "Weird Gear" segments, but for thrift shop finds.
The growl on that small fan organ is great.
Honestly I don't mind it, aside from the whole out-of-tuneness of it. (Which I suppose you can work around if you want to get microtonal.)
HI Simon, Joy Division used this on "Atmosphere" (mainly the chord buttons) and "In a lonely place" . It had its uses I guess!
We had an electric accordion that was similar. Loud, electric motor, reedy sound, but in an expensive wooden console. I think we sold it some years back.
I love how confidently you represent your very thorough research! 😄 I wish I could pull that off.
..And the ventilator demonstration!
I laughed, wheezed, coughed. 😂
Considering back in those days all electric keyboards were monophonic these were polyphonic and you could play more things besides twinkle twinkle little star.
We had one, it was all tan and very plasticy. When it was replaced with a real piano I got to take it apart and it was really disappointing inside. I was hoping for more mechanisms and things to tinker with.
You can find these .. very, very sheep ..
We had one of these when I was really young. As terrible as it was, I was super excited by it, as it was electric and therefor was more futuristic than our acoustic piano.
I don't miss it at all.
I bought one of these because I live on the second floor. there is no way I could get a proper organ up those stairs. Only cost me 20 bucks on shop goodwill. My fan is much quieter than yours though. :P it is an Eminee Audion fwiw.
Its like that one uncle everyone tries to ignore but somehow invites himself to every family event
I actually had one of these when I was a kid. There was a keyboard in the house, but it was good for nothing.
Replace the motor with guts of a leaf blower...Metal!
That's funny. I have quite a collection of crappy instruments. My chord organ is the latest and favorite of them so far.
Yeah I learnt on one of these in the 70s. Apart from being bright red and the flat keys being clear plastic with golden sparkles it was very uninspiring.
I'm a fan of the increase in ORANGE things :D
I sold one of the small battery operated ones just last week. It was a dumpster find. I "modded" it by adding a 5v power jack input :D Other than that I can only agree the sound of the fan was terrible! Heres a sound test: ua-cam.com/video/pQb_rJKcc6I/v-deo.html. I also have a bigger "nicer" one in teak wood and all. It is good to bring out when all inspiration is lost ;)
there was a time in the '70s when italian companies would export instruments that left a mark in pop and rock music. This... didn't.
@KromidenX
when i was young , bontempi was associated with toy/plastic sound, cheap organs .
i mean it sound good and also radiohead used one, i got a really old one from my dad that used to play these things too (he is gear tech guitarist and play stuff you play)
the whole point its that it have to be not in tune
It doubles as a sleep machine when you don't press the keys. Continuous noise oscillator.
the fan organ kinda sounds ok
I found one of these in the trash when I was a kid. I take it but I don't have it anymore. I don't know what happened to it.
Nice color, though.
UPGRADE that fan with smth bigger fester quieter.... we have 2020.. we have Internet now...😁
I found one in my grandma's adic. It's from national organ and it's great! The fan is much quieter than the ones in this video and the volume doesn't just effect the volume but the tone as well. I love gently pressing the key to create a sort of envrlope with a slight amount of pitch bend. Great little thing! And great video as always.
This is FANtastic! It would be perfect for playing an old fashioed sea chanty.
I wanna hear whale on top of the bontempi
It was not a dumb idea in the 1970s: Electronics were quite expensive so an accordion with an inboard motor was a very cost effective way of making a polyphonic keyboard instrument with a reasonable sound - if you are into accordion tones. They can become rather smelly and it is not (necessarily) because somebody has p*d on them: Some plastic just becomes smelly over time. I have had a couple of similar blower organs and they both had a moldy smell. So I ended up getting rid of them because of that.
OMG! I can't believe they made a portable!!
.
I was gonna suggest maybe moving the motor into another room, but really the noise is from the airflow, isn't it?
.
Thankfully it's in tune with itself.
*******Most of these can be tuned BUT with Patience!! Open it up and there are series of Brass Tines that the air passes thru to produce sound. BEFORE even considering sanding small bits of the tines to correct the Pitch you should FIRST Clean them with a mild Brasso cleaner or something! Another issue is that they are so old that the Rubber and Foamy rubber seals etc. Have become quite broken down many falling apart in your hands when inspected. I have a couple and have Either wanted to replace Fans with quieter PC Fans or even Mod with PEDAL BELLOWS for the air. Conceptually they are Just how a Melodica Performs but, For Intense Cigarette Smokers! LOL!*******
You can make anything sound good, real talent.
I've got one of these sort of things. Found it for like 20$ and picked it up because.. It existed. Haha.
I had one of those when I was a kid! Because I was a kid. And it's a toy.
We used one of these on the first track we did in this episode👉 vimeo.com/163055748
I also have a Silvertone reed organ that sounds amazing but you’re right... there’s a very wide spectrum of in-or-out-of-tune when you get into these Effn things....
I have one! Mine is BROWN!!! IT SUCKS!
Literally, it sucks air.
its a magnus, isnt it xD
This can work very well as a sax, but i'm way too interested on how would work on mexican regional music (norteño, corridos, banda, etc...) because sounds almost exactly like an accordion.
My neighbor gave me a very basic looking one that we we kept in basement for years. My friend found one beside the road once his was was fancier though. They're neat just can't play many keys at once
I have a light blue one but it doesnt have mass notes and resembles a traditional piano o more than it does an electric one. The chords are laid out like a small set of piano keys which looks cool and it plays both major and minor A,A#,C,D,F, and G chords but no bass. The 10th black note on the main part of the keyboard also sticks really badly. Still love the thing tough.
Fairly sure Joy Division used one of these in Atmosphere: ua-cam.com/video/1EdUjlawLJM/v-deo.html. Enough said?
You look very comfortable working the DAW hanging over that fishing tackle box with keys
The volume control can not break, it is like a vacuum cleaner when you want less suction, you use a slider to let in more air., I had a new red Hit organ with the plastic legs and with a footrest, when I was 12🤪Fun to see it again. Thank you for sharing.
If you didn't like that you would hate a Chamberlin. See at 12 mins in this video ua-cam.com/video/AUg_LpspJCM/v-deo.html
There are no good/bad instruments, only players lacking imagination and sense of soundscapes
The volume slider actually does attempt to block the air flow. If you open it up you can put some thick tape around the edges of the air channel. Even if you block it off almost completely enough air gets through to make sound. In this way you can get a volume control that actually works.
Thought it would be like an accordion or harmonica that replaces your lungs or bellows with an annoying buzzing fan and I was not disappointed!
Darn it, I was enjoying binge watching fan organ videos when I up comes a YT Star trying really hard.
First keyboard I ever owned was a fan Organ,
think it was 32 keys it was weird and had the cord section on the left side.
stuck a microphone in it cranked it up all the way and got some distortion out of the speakers and that’s how we used to jam with it!
Back in the 80's, I grabbed a full sized one of these at a tag sale and had it in my bedroom. It was wood. It was kind of large, standing four feet up, with a wood backboard. They made it look like a cheap, half sized piano. I removed the sheet music holder, and had a Casio keyboard on top of it so I could play them together. Not only was the thing awfully out of tune, but when you would press a key, on the higher octaves, there was a delay for when the sound came out. You would hit the key and the sound would just... slowly fade in. This was only the case for the higher up keys. The rest of the keys played normally. Of course it also sounded like crap. The chord keys sounded good, far better than the actual keyboard itself. I did a lot of sonic experiments and wrote a lot of strange tunes with it. And also.. of course... you had that ever present sound of that fan. These things were "Organs" for people who wanted one of those organs in their home (Organs with the drum machines built in were REALLY popular and I knew SO MANY PEOPLE who had them set up in their living rooms as a show piece.), but couldn't afford an actual organ. On a side note, the funny thing about all the people I knew who had real organs in their living room, all they ever used the things for were playing and singing church songs. I would often ask, "How about a rock song, or a funky Jazz song or something like that?". They would always look at me like I had two heads just for insinuating that the things were for playing more than church songs.
So it is basically a harmonium but with a fan instead of having to pump air with your feet. I like it, it's kinda cute :)
My granddad got me this in 1989 from a flea market when I was first learning to play piano, The sound makes me so nostalgic
My grandfather brought to my house when i was a kid an old like 1930`s small for a child wooden fan organ...fan was loud and it smelled like mold but wish i still had it what a trip