The image quality doesn't matter, it's all about the content and wonderful to see these classic transistorised organs. The audio and video are slightly out of sync but otherwise good audio.
The Jaguar came out around november 1966, and was designed and manufactured by Galanti (GEM) in Italy, model V304. It is basically the exact same electronics and mechanics as the GEM model P slapped into a Continental case. GEM did the same "budget builds" for Eko (the Ekosonic) and Baldwin (the Howard Combo) As it turns out, it is a "re-clothed" GEM model P that itself came out around late '65/ early '66, before the Jaguar. Your example is a later one manufactured by EME (who built the Italian Continentals) model V304E2, recognizable by the black front plate, the additional "contour" tone knob, and pimple pattern tolex, flat tabswitches, and also differently shaped boards. Made from late 1967 onwards. Check out the serial tags inside, they're usually sport the manufacturing date. All the best to you to keep the old beasts alive!
Great Video I enjoyed it. That said I purchased my 1st Vox Continental brand new in 1968. Tried to buy one after graduating the 8th grade during the Summer of 1965 looking to start a band after 7 years of Accordion lessons. I couldn’t find my choice a Vox at that time so I purchased what I could find at a Music Dealer close to home being a Farfisa Combo Compact which was also one Heck of an instrument. It didn’t have the looks of a Vox but it certainly didn’t disappoint being my band kept getting better and better with more and more gigs to play at back in the day until my Junior Year of high school the 11 grade when Uncle Sam came calling for 2 of our oldest members looking to draft them for the Viet Nam War. At that point in time after almost 3-1/2 great years with the group I didn’t want to start over being I was only another year away from pretty much the same thing happening feeling it would be a waste of my time. At the same time I had no plans for college and kids that didn’t go to college Uncle Sam looked to grab first. Today at 73 years old I still own a Vox Continental and a Super Vox Continental both in great shape. I also own a B3 Hammond w/122 Leslie and have a 145 Leslie with Leslie Preamp to connect either of the Vox Continentals two. I should mention to you. If you ever get a chance to plug your Vox Jaguar into a Leslie do it. You will never believe the sound coming out of it. Through a Leslie it sounds like a Hammond B3. I am not kidding you. I also own a Vox Amp and it is perfect in catching the Vox Sound it was intended for but having a Leslie makes it into 2 different sounding organs. Keep up what you are doing. It sounds like you are getting to know a lot about Electronics. I had an Electric Shop Class in my Freshman year in High School between September of 1965-June of 1966. I learned a great deal in that class and built another Speaker Cabinent with 2 - 12” Speakers to connect through my Fender Bandmaster I used in my Band that came with 2 - 12” speakers.
The footage complement is: Oct 1: 16' (monophonic), 8', 4', 2' Oct 2: 16', 8', 4', 2' Oct 3: 16', 8', 4' Oct 4: 16', 8' And interesting mod to make the sound more consistent and less "always full", is to remove the 2' mixing resistors in octaves 1 and 2. Makes it sound less "foldbacky"
I built one fresh from a Heathkit in 1968. This has been a real time travel for me thanks, what a nostalgia voyage! FYI: Price was $299 + $50 freight from Chicago to PDX. There was a separate suitcase for the legs and crossbars, I think the pedal was encased in that case, but I could be wrong, its been 54 years.
Ha! No way! Yep you're right about the separate case. Stumbled onto one in Cincinnati and knew exactly what it was but the dude wanted way too much for a damn leg case lol. Didn't know Heathkit was based here in Chicago, cool!
[I was bored in a waiting room so I thought I'd share with you various Electronic organ info that will help fuel your passion of the most versatile, genre expansive musical instrument of all time. The electronic Combo and home organs are analog bliss that will never again be produced. SAVE THEM!] If you Love Vox and Farfisa F.A.S.T series organ [ Sly Stone plays the FAST 4 at Woodstock] ( basically transistor combo organ) then you will also enjoy the amazing snappy, biting, and warm 1964-1968 Wurlitzer 4300 spinet organ ( see *Internet Archive Wutrlitzer 4300 Organ Brochure* ) I had a '65 Vox Jaguar I loved!! That CONTOUR knob gave the organ that sizzle, Life needs the Contour knob! These are the 12 Tone Generator Divider organs that were common since the 1950's in Home organs and it's compact use of parts afforded the combo organ to happen. However don't assume the combo organ lacks in fullness because of this. Wurlitzer', Lowrey, and Thomas 12 Tone Generator Divider organs sound amazing! In fact Wurlitzer broke the myth that an electronic theater organ had to have an individual oscillator for every key and pedal on the organ ( for 8' Flute/ Tibia, the square wooden pipes. and what goes through the Tremulent- a.k.a. Leslie on electronic organs for the lush tone. WATCH - *Eric Lord Plays in the Style of Jesse Crawford*). The 1964-1971 Electronic Theater Organs (ETO) and the non-horseshoe shaped Wurlitzers ( The great "Straight cab"" Wurlitzer 4300 spinet and 4500 full console) had identical electronics as the Horseshoe 4520 ETO's , but to get more customer variety they didn't call these straight cab models "Theater", but they were. In fact it was the 1964 4500 and 4300 fully solid state Console and Spinet* models that introduced the first ever Wurlitzer ETO. It should have been a huge celebration since "WurliTzer" is synonymous _with_ Theater Organ! Seeing the big beautiful 4520 Wurlitzer Horseshoe ETO would have been great to see in 1964. However in 1964 at Disneyland Wurlitzer, " The Official Organ of Disneyland" played it conservative and introduced their ad campaign without any horseshoe model at all. The straight cab 4500, 4300, etc. 1964 organs were promoted as " Able to play Classical, Blues, Jazz, Popular, Theater, Liturgical". It wasn't until 1966 that Wurlitzer introduced the 4520 Horseshoe ETO _as_ the official Wurlitzer ETO. Even though it was identical internally to the 4500 internally and controls wise. *Console versus Spinet : "console organ" is always more keys and pedals at 61 keys x 2 or more manuals and 25 or 32 pedals, and the "spinet organ is 43 keys x 2 offset manuals and 13 pedal). Lowrey and Wurlitzer had "Pedal Glide" upper manual pitch bending. The volume expression pedal has a momentary lever switch on the upper left side and the inner foot can touch it. It bends the entire upper keyboard down one key ( 1/2 step). The best player of the Wurlitzer 4500/4520/4300 series organ is John LaDuca. I made a wonderful pictorial that plays along with his album, here: *Wurlitzer Organ 4500, 4520 (theater),4300 spinet- John La Duca Side 2* ( also posted side 1), but wanted you to start with side two (Do listen to the whole album it's great!) because side 2 has examples of the pitch bends on tracks 2 and 3. John actually tastefully imitates a jazz guitar on track 2. Side 1 track 2 is my favorite. You'll get to see and hear the great Wurlitzer Brass Horn on that track. Here is side 1: *Wurlitzer Organ 4500 4502 4300 John La Duca Side 1* Other organs to save are these *Wurlitzer Continuous Free Reed Electrostatic reed organs 1953-1963 models 44, 4600, 4601, 4800, 4410., 4420, 4430* THE REEDS ARE NOT USED FOR THEIR AUDIBLE SOUND, BUT FOR THEIR HARMONIC CONTENT THAT IS FILTERED FOR FLUTE/STRING/HORN. These organs have very sweet flute tone. ( the '53 44 spinet has no Sustain and all the rest do have sustain.) The 1955 holy grail 4600, it's spinet equivalent the 4410 introduced SUSTAIN and it was Wurlitzer's DC Keying ' cap+resistor' on each key [ 2 capacitors give short, med, long Sustain with the Long being both caps in parallel adding their values...so EVERY NOTE HAS IT's OWN INDEPENDENT SUSTAIN and in the case of these electrostatic reed organs there is SUSTAIN I and II. I is for FLUTE and II for STRINGS. See the WURLITZER 4600 Electrostatic Reed Organ Tech Article that even has automated diagrams here: *Wurlitzer Series 4600 Organ 1.. - Index or Home Page* , I play the 4600's spinet version, the 4410 here: *Wurlitzer 4600 Electrostatic Reed Organ aka 56' 4410 + Hammond HR40 , Spectratone + Leslie Horn V-21* People seek the SPINET vacuum tube Lowrey the 1961 Hetritage DSO and 1965 Heritage DSO-1, which are great, but these are also excellent analog solid state '66 TBO/ '68 TBO-1 Lowrey Berkshire spinets, and FULL CONSOLE Lowrey Heritage H25R, H25R, H25R-1 thru H25R-4, 1967-1977, [ for tone generator type in each see *Jan Giradot's Master Organ List PDF* ] they are amazing as well! Listen to the Eddie Baxter Lowrey Organ albums on the *Organ Jukebox* ytb ch. Eddie plays his Lowrey Heritage H25R-1 and H25R-2 organs through Leslie Speaker cabinets Don Leslie designed for the 1961 Gulbransen Rialto K ( the holy grail ETO, and it's not that big! ) The Leslie 101 Isomonic Channeling and Space Generator cabinet owners/ service manual on Captain Foldback's Leslie site is a great read! The Leslie 102 and 103 are what players used on the Lowrey H25R-1 thru -4 models. Those Leslies have standard Leslie Drums, a Rotosonic drum, and Space Generator. Check out KEN GRIFFIN WURLITZER 4600 electrostatic continuous free reed playing on his album 67 Melody Lane, and believe it or not his 1950's classic b&w TV show entitled: *67 Melody Lane* , on which he had guests. Very unrehearsed, but that's what made it special. see- ^Ken Griffin Special Effects* , where you'll see the first spring reverb units. Hammond organ company's Fluid Column Spring Reverb of the late forties early fifties. Laurens soon invented what we all know today as tank spring reverb. Hammond actually sent out a bulletin with techs telling them to remove the fluid column units, wrap in newspaper and dispose of in the customers garbage. The retrofit required the tech build a one off 1-transistor preamp for the included replacement tank spring unit. See Hammond HR40 Tone Cabinet Reverb Service Bulletin.
Thank you for the feedback! Unfortunately the demo was a bit on the backburner for this one cause this is my first time on an organ so my skills were less than par LOL.
You're way ahead of me on organ experience, at least! Even just the small segment at the end cut up in between as transitions might be cool I hate to be that person nit-picking on your video, bc i feel like you have a really cool thing going here and am excited for more! :D
@@AgonalRhythm No, nit-pick away! Thankfully I'm at the RU-vid stage where all I get are nice comments but not many actual critiquing ones, so I was actually excited reading yours lmao. Thanks for showing interest and I hope the image quality improves in the next video LOL
I love the sound of these, but would worry about repair for an authentic one as I am not mechanically inclined. Do you know of any present day combo type organs that have a Vox Jaguar sound effect setting so to speak? It seems that "Crumar" has such an organ?
Hi Tom, I'm not too well versed in the combo organ field, as this is the only one I've had. I wouldn't want to give advice I wasn't sure of, but what I do know is a lot of people still want them so they have to be worth something! lol
Very cool video! It was awesome hearing about all the specs and info on how it works! Very interesting and informative video! You did say it was from 1965 but I don’t think made them till 1966, though I may be wrong. To me the logo kinda looks like the 1967 one my friend has so it could be from that year. The one I have is from 1968. But they’re great organs and I find it fun them fun to play with a great sound! I upload covers of me playing them sometimes if you’re ever interested in seeing them
Nice resto! Regarding the footages 16' 4' 8' are not avaliable separately at the tabs on the jaguar. The ranks are premixed at the generator cards and the tabs are just global filters that the entire keyboard goes through.
$300 for just legs. I bought and built the entire organ in 1968 from Heathkit for $299. I never played it without the legs and crossbars. How I would love to know where that is now! ( I built it in Portland, OREGON)
The Mellow sound is just that. Mellow to almost inaudible. Never understood that, but I've had my Jag since the early 70s. The bass output in the back allows you to send the bass to a separate amp, or separate channel from the main keys. Gives you more control of the 2 sounds. After several decades of non-use, I put mine together thinking I might sell it, but have a few issues with it. Any idea why my vibrato (the switch itself works fine) but I don't get any vibrato. Also the high C crackles and every so often, I can hear a tone, but I can't seem to figure out how to get it to work properly. Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated...and I'm not great with a soldering iron, but if I had to change a capacitor out, I would give it a shot. Thanks for the video!!
Oh that makes sense then, thank you! This was the one thing out of all of my projects I had the least knowledge on repair wise, I was just told what to replace by someone smarter in the Facebook group haha. That would be where I would go to for help; sorry!
It’s all attached with wing nuts. Two on each side of the body that the legs hook onto, and two on the back that the crossbars hook onto as well. Also there are two at the ends of the z legs that the crossbars are screwed to
@@analogemmaTribbles are furry creatures that invaded the original Star Trek Enterprise. One of the corniest episodes: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Bprgl_4z6gY.htmlsi=Gtzg2M-rEL-cW8_E
I think you paid a little too much for the condition it was in. Plus you had to shell out more $$ for missing or messed up parts! Great restoration! ❤ Am waiting for Inna Gadda da Vida, or some Doors Ray Manzarak!
Think that's bad? Local listing for a Vox Continental V-301: "It turns on and plays most notes. The first white lowest draw bar has no sound. The next 3 white draw bars have sound, but are not making contact with some wires inside. The black draw bars work. Cant tell if vibrato works.The organ will need repairs to work perfect again. $1400 BO." 😹
