I recently learned from my mother that my grandfather Jef Bossers made a lot of the robots for the Decap factory. I must say that it makes me proud to know they are still fully functional after a few decades.
Wow, what great memories. I had a collector friend in Sydney who taped me his album of Decap music but the cassette is now long gone. Thanks for sharing.
The Sax sound comes from a Hammond electric organ that is behind the curtain. The organ speakers are on each side of the robots. Everything is controlled by the book music seen early in the video.
Love the sound s from fair organs wish I could afford one It wood be on show every weekend s in summer time Uk I wood not like them to disappear as history never repeats its self. There’s nothing like this anymore in Doncaster South Yorkshire Uk . Thanks for these videos clips With out these I could not Think what I missed in the past years
Paul, why don`t you go to a traction engine rally and approach an organ owner and see if he`ll let you have a go ? Owners are not monsters and usually are quite happy to feed the joy of an enthusiast. Regarding no organs in the Doncaster area, why don`t you contact the F.O.P.S. or the M.O.O.S organisations and ask for the contact details of any south Yorkshire organ owners ? I think that there will be some. On the other hand, you could build your own. I know of a gentleman who built an 89 key organ when he was a young teenager at school. If you go down this route, be aware that the organ Bible (The Fairground Organ by Eric V Cockayne) has construction errors in the text.
That is a good question. Actually, the video was made by piecing many shots together and the audio came from the CD recording of the DeCap. The software used made the task awkward. A much better job was accomplished on the succeeding video, "Jackson played by Robot Band" New software was used on the "Jeux d'eau played by Benno Moiseiwitsch" and the sync is perfect.
The fingers ARE moving, you just aren't looking closely enough. After all, the sax player (and his instrument) is for show anyway, the sound is produced by the electronic organ as per the comment above. Do you realize how incredibly difficult it is to automate a reed instrument? I don't think anyone has done it except maybe for this Japanese laboratory which recently claimed they made one (like, in the past 5 years). Certainly not 40-50 years ago when this robot band was made.
