Keswick Moller

MÖLLER OPUS 5230

Update Sept 1 2010

KESWICK MÖLLER

The TOSDV Keswick crew had an entire week of access during the 4th week of August. This was used to complete re-enabling the Moller console’s 2nd-Touch facility, which had not been operational since at least 1967.

The tasks to get here included the following:
·         Mudler-Hunter Inc, the console restoration contractors, reset the second-touch springs on the Accompaniment and Great manuals and tested the existing wiring to the spreader pins, then ran unterminated color-coded wiring from the spreaders some 7 weeks previous to this week.
·         Beginning Tuesday, and over the next 3 days, Jack Swartzenberg validated the color-coded wiring, subsequently running the wires to the relay wiring board. (The wiring board was already in place from the installation of the relay some years earlier.)
·         Additional validation and testing of the wiring to the relay board followed on Wednesday and Thursday.
·         On Friday the input driver and controller boards were installed onto the relay wiring board. Modifications to the relay programming to enable the use of the second touch contacts from the manuals then followed. For this work, TOSDV had both the console contractor as well and the relay vendor, (Ulric Gordon-Lewis of Emutek Systems Inc) on site for specific technical assistance and troubleshooting.
·         Following the software programming download, a brief period of testing and troubleshooting followed. When the TOSDV crew left on Friday, the 2nd touch stops were fully functioning from the Great and Accompaniment keyboards, with no new issues appearing from the console controls when playing the organ.
·         A noted side-effect is the existing playback recordings have some glitches due to the reordering of the input boards necessitated by the second-touch installation. This is easily remediated by downloading the playback files, (saving a copy!), editing the board assignments to point to the reconfigured boards, then reloading the recording files back to the playback device. One new playback file was created on Friday to illustrate and prove out the second touch installation. The brief demonstration included use of the Posthorn in the tenor octave of the left hand for orchestral-style brass-section “blasts”, an accompaniment counter-melody played on the French Trumpet against the rest of the left hand, and a right hand single-note melody at the top of the right-hand block chord of softer stops.
The crew for this task included Jack Schwartzenberg, Tom Rotunno, Bernie McGorrey, with Bill Gellhaus having assisted in the preparation work, and Tom Smerke in coordinating the vendors. Particular thanks are due to Jack for his long hours and outstanding work, and to Tom Rotunno and Bill Gellhaus for providing funding to cover the gap between the remaining state grant funding and the final contractor labor costs for this work.
TOSDV now has one of only 4 fully-functional late-model Moller OEM consoles, (Atlanta Fox and Rylander Theaters in Georgia, Capitol Theatre of Rome, NY are the others.) Of these, the Keswick Moller is the only large three manual console with some 200+ stop tabs.
Again, thanks to the TOSDV board and the Keswick Theatre for their support.

Bernard J. McGorrey, III

Organ Crew	Work Schedule Tentative Dates
Project Manager and Crew Chief: Bernie McGorrey Assistants: Tom Rotunno Jack Schwartzenberg Tom Smerke Bill Gellhaus	Contact Bill Gellhaus 215-780-0831 Tom Rotunno 610-346-8494