Yamaha C-55 Electone Organ Demonstration - The Specials Ghost Town Clarinet Organ Sound! 

Cool!!

I had one up until recently when it basically blew up. Didn't know how to repair it and the electronics shop lost interest

Thank you:)

Thank you James!

Appreciated!

Thank you Jesus! Great name for a band ‘Sonic Diamond’

@@VintageKeysStudio Yes Steve, for sure it is a "Sonic Diamond" !!

Thanks so much this is great info! Cheers :)

(2 of 2) read other first...either way okay. [my notepad I wrote a while back]. You will want to use this web page as a reference- *Hammond S6 - Crasno Electronics* . s6 video and demo record on that page. (Schematics listed below MOD, below) I have a 1955 S6 with Hammond 3 spring necklace reverb and AO-35 reverb amp. Absolutely you can play modern music on it. I set a band in a box Yamaha keyboard on top with decent drum beats. It's an incredible solo w/ right hand and jam left hand on top keyboard. The knee volume is actually more dynamic and quicker to change levels versus a foot pedal. About the chord buttons, you clean the contacts by rapidly moving back and forth an inset lever directly under chord buttons (looking straight up from the pedals. THE MOD!: 1 wire mod, You'll need to reference this S6 PREAMP/ AMP SCHEMATIC- web.archive *DOT* org/web/20040525091507/users.rcn *DOT* com/clonk/ChordOrgan/Schematics/Figure6 *DOT* gif MOD- The chord buttons can sound like the heaviest thundering, but very controllable smooth guitar like distortion with the flip of of a switch spdt ( single pole double throw switch), The mod is 1 wire change. On schematic locate: V20 12au7 tube [v= valve aka tube] Locate Pedal output wire at V20 pin 2 Now the mod is simply moving the pedal signal _back_ one tube stage, thus doubling the gain. The tube stage is V20 pin 7. Yes, V20 is a dual triode, so the pin 7 is the adjacent stage directly before the pedal into pin 2 V20. WIRING THE SWITCH: [Note SPDT= Single pole Double throw, a 3 terminal switch, where center terminal '2' is the 'in'+1 or 'in'+3] If you want a totally invisible switch, you can change the " PEDAL BALANCER " control knob on the organs front panel [the 1 meg potentiometer R265 ], change to a *1 meg SPDT Pull pot switch* and wire it, [or a separate SPDT flip switch, your call...btw, you can mount the switch in a tiny metal box and velcro it under the key desk], Anyway, wire as: -------------------- lift pedal signal wire from V20 PIN 2 and solder to center [terminal 2] on the 3 switch. ------------------- run wire from the switch's terminal 1 to V20 pin 7 ------------------- run wire from the switch's terminal 3 to V20 pin 2 It is very worth while getting an S6 service manual. It also has playing tips. Fortunately I printed the full manual when Klonk uploaded it. For some reason it was removed, but I found the schematic above on the way back machine. It being Klonks, they saved some of it anyway.

​@@paulj0557toneheadive got a killer guitar amp i built out of an AO35 reverb driver amp I bought off of ebay. Those things are quite close to a vox ac15 and aside from the preamp stage, which i reconfigured to use an EF86 small signal Pentode tube, i mostly left the rest of the amp stock. Its a beast.

Bloody hell! What a find!

@Vintage Keys Studio The keyboard/gubbins could do with a refit but the amp is in lovely condition, even has it's old cover!. The amp is identical to your one so Selmer did indeed make them, I'm not sure why you're isn't branded Selmer?. An O.E.M thing and different sales areas.

Ahh yes - we did have a C55N about 10 years ago, but it was too big for the space we had so we had to dump it too. Somewhere there is a huge organ graveyard

i just get one one mont ago, got it in exchange for a guitar, im in love with this organ, this video hel me to pull the trigger.

Thanks! I’ll check this out and see what we can do. We have one of Dave’s old 910s here which we are hoping to feature in a video soon.

Thank you:)

Sadly not - I think it was an updated one of these though with better arpeggios etc, certainly looks pretty similar

@@VintageKeysStudio some really nice sounds on these old organ's, love watching your chanel its always good fun 😁

After the C55 model range came the C55N, which was a slight facelift and included the big drum fill-in button that lit up green. I believe the C605 was in the next range after the N series.

Brilliant and love the word ‘swaders’!

Thanks I had not heard of this before - will try it out! :)

@@VintageKeysStudio I stumbled into the mod originally because half the dual triode tube was weak so I moved it back one stage. The gain sends the chord buttons into speed metal guitar territory. Have fun with it. It's great! I sit in front of the chord buttons (which you clean with recessed slider under key desk) and play quazi Sabbath meets Slayer...but it's more than that really, the sensitivity of the buttons allow for less notes if you press with less force. That and your L &R foot working the pedals, you've got a viable instrument. You can also put a pot or 'resistor decade box' between the signal wire and V20 PIN 7. I'll reply again with the service manual link (w/ gaps or spelling 'dot' or whatever). I'd downloaded and fortunately printed the whole manual 15yrs ago, but was removed from web. Bummer. However I found the schematic and chassis layout on the Way Back Machine. I put info on a 'notepad' doc. I'll copy and paste in next comment. BTW my '55 ebony S6 came with AO-35 reverb amp W/ 3-spring 'necklace reverb'. The greatest reverb ever imho. S6's benefit so much from reverb. Including the mod, but if you are jamming legato at breakneck speed with a drum track, dry is fine. lol Hey make a video if you like it. Short learning curve. Rock on \m/ \m/ !!

​​@@paulj0557toneheadone wire mods of that type are also commonly done to increase gain on simple small wattage tube guitar amps like Fender tweed era Princetons, Deluxes, and many others. Some of those old amps would leave one half of a dual triode completely unused making them ripe for experimentation. A one wire mod can be used about anywhere you have two stages in parallel, the wire connects them in series so the gain is increased exponentially instead of additively. Its great for getting a bit more dirt out of the earlier circuits.

Thanks for the info

Rather a lot of money - i would guess at over a grand, considering a Thomas organ of the same period was £1350ish

If we can find one or someone will let us access one, yes definitely!

Yes the tremolo (aka Leslie) speed control does have mains through it so yes folks, be very careful indeed!! Thanks John for your warning!

That’s the late great organist Don Shinn, Family friend and patron of the studio.

Yes, we have a broken one with matching amp and stool, awaiting repair - our late friend Don Shinn used to play one with 60s UK band The Soul Agents

@@VintageKeysStudio Excellent ! sadly, i had to scrap mine when my parents house was sold :-( I spent quite a bit of time restoring it, mainly failed carbon rod resistors on the oscillators, and a few dividers had stopped. lovely sound, and i liked the 12 top-end oscilators as opposed to a single 2MHz divider. I have a scan of the service manual - let me know if its of any use 🙂

@jonathan_ansell - yes a scan of the service manual would be amazing! Thank you - please send me a message via our website vintagekeysstudio.com. It is a pretty big undertaking restoring one of these, especially with only the half a schematic I have here. It’s got a lovely tone to it though so I want to get it finished sometime. You can hear it on ‘Gospel Train’ by the Soul Agents. Cheers Steve

Fantastic - yes my hair was press-ganged recently

Thank you very much :)

Had a cig lighter burn mark by the mute arm too

I don’t think it does

@@VintageKeysStudio for one year. I think 74. The engineers at Yamaha produced a speaker shaped like a human ear to see what it sounded like. Big and weird it does sound huge.

From memory, I think it was called the "Natural Sound" speaker. (Pretty sure our B20BR had one.) I think that name inspired the NS-10 studio monitors that became ubiquitous for recording engineers. @@zeusapollo8688

If we had one or access to one, then sure!

Not sure of the make - may be an old Goodmans - it is going into the ondioline at some point

Its a yamaha one, i opened mine a couple days ago

A variation in the organ part from Ghost town while I was finding the right sound, I think

I loved Noseybonk!

I do play improvised stuff quite a bit but my videos are meant to educate on the functions of the organ. There are usually lots of functions to talk about so it would make very long videos if I were to demonstrate everything properly. There are plenty of other videos of organ showroom/klaus wunderlich style music on RU-vid. Playing old standards on organs is something that I am not really into, but thank you very much for your feedback and for watching this far! I will try to play something nice for you soon! ;)