The Enchanting LoFi Textures Of An Optical Sound Sampler

[@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER]

fudging amazing! you tracked one down, themz be awesome!

[@Hainbach]

Absolutely! You gotta get some sun screen and head over to Italy to mate!

[@adejupe8308]

He'll fit it in the back of the mini somehow 😂

[@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER]

@@Hainbach ill need to go in winter hahaha. yeah blooomin awesome. btw im trying to find a magazine and reply about that machine you messaged about (not one int vid)!!! cus there is a very similar one i was researching but different, maybe itll make a surprise for the bach! such a cool machine the talentmaker

[@PorchBass]

Tom waits organs for years!

[@RiccardoPietroni]

We are waiting for you!

[@gusseDSX]

All of those early ”samplers” sound so magical. A friend of mine have managed to collect Optigan, Orchestron, Talentmaker and a bunch of Mellotrons and there is something mezmerizing with the grit and wobbliness of the physical media producing the sounds. Gets me every time ❤

[@duncan-rmi]

that's a fairly small number of people.... is his name brian? or pea? 😂

[@gusseDSX]

@@duncan-rmi Nope. Mattias in Roth Händle Studios (Stockholm/Sweden)

[@duncan-rmi]

@@gusseDSX yeah, he was my next guess! I was on the old mellotronists mailing list years ago, when there was the 'range war' going on over ownership... this was long before nord or the softsynth versions, & while people were still fighting over the master tapes. I have some of the old TD sets in my collection, but the poor old thing pretty much stays at home these days.

[@mannkejns4355]

@@gusseDSX I just saw his band Änglagård recently in his studio, and the studio was just filled with a million different synthesizers and keyboards, i've never been in a cooler place. Änglagård were also amazing

[@gusseDSX]

@@mannkejns4355 I was at one of the two shows in the studio as well. Awesome concert and magical chaotic studio

[@Niven42]

We definitely need more VST's of these classic instruments before they vanish completely.

[@rbrooks2007]

It's just what I was thinking about working on next. 😊

[@Meteotrance]

There is an optigan soundbank aivable, they also have the master tape use for build the optical disc.

[@rbrooks2007]

@@Meteotrance will people pay between $89.99 to $189.99 for the Optigan source material which a developer would have to purchase from the official Optigan site even if the VSTi was given away free?

[@creeke_alley]

ioptigan app

[@technopop1260]

yes yes yes i do😮😮😮

[@uhhhclem]

My dad was Mattel's director of product development. He left Mattel to become Optigan's marketing director. (He was responsible for such coups as getting Monty Hall to give one away on Let's Make A Deal.) This turned out to not be a great career move, but oh well. We had one in our home, of course. One thing the Optigan had that the Chilton does not is that there's a light that shone through the near-center of the disc and emerged in a little hole above the keyboard. There are four (or three, depending on the time signature of the chords) equidistant windows arranged around the center hole of the disc, one of them red. As a result you get a flashing visual indicator of the beat, a red dot on the downbeat and white ones on the rest. It looks like the Chilton's pitch control was better than the Optigan's, which was a thumbwheel controlling a worm gear, so that you could make fine adjustments in pitch but not broad ones. But! Here's something that works with the Optigan, and might with the Chilton. There's a linkage between the front door and the motor, so that the motor is stopped while you're changing disks, and goes back up to speed when you insert one and close the door. You can open the door slightly while you're playing, which will _reduce_ power to the motor, allowing you to introduce random warble, or, in the extreme position, get the same effect you got with half-speed playback on the Nagra. You've already discovered the double-disk trick. Try putting a disk in upside down. Making new disks was a crazy operation in the 1970s involving very expensive computer time and plotters. It seems like today it would be a relatively small matter of programming. Making an image of concentric soundtracks and printing them out as an image that can be transfered to a transparent acetate disk seems well within the skill set of someone who knows a bit about graphics software and printing. The biggest technical challenge is transforming the imagery of the sampled soundtrack into a circle whose circumference is comprised of the entirety of the soundtrack, so that everything plays back in sync and at the right pitch. Our Optigan did not survive a cross-country move, and in 1981 there wasn't an appetite for this instrument anymore, so instead of finding someone to repair it we relegated it to the barn in my family's old farmhouse in Maine, where it was not really protected from the elements enough. I'm sad to say we ended up breaking it down with a sledgehammer to make it easier to take to the dump.

[@Hainbach]

Thank you so much for sharing, that is wonderful information!

[@5roundsrapid263]

At 3:54 he puts the disk upside down.

[@RiccardoPietroni]

Nice story! Thanks! The product site was in Italy in the Gem Factory. Do you have some informations?

[@isaiahromero9861]

David Lynch, Devo, Kraftwerk... All of their art resonates deeply with my soul, and so does this piece of gear, wow, i really wish i could get my hands on this thing

[@Hainbach]

Look at Panoptigon, new remake of this

[@NDMagoo]

This video just solved a personal mystery! I have an early childhood memory of handling what appeared to be floppy, translucent, record albums, and could never figure out what I was recalling. My grandpa had an Optigan organ in his garage, which I used to play around with as a child. When you pulled out the discs, those memories came flooding back.

[@AlexBallMusic]

Is there anything more satisfying than Hainbach exploring strange, vintage gear? I love how you made it sound like you with the Nagra and experiments. Wonderful stuff. Edit: The triple disc! My word, what a sound.

[@Hainbach]

Thank you buddy!

[@chriswareham]

8:35 oh wow, that doubled up sound is incredible!

[@makers_lab]

What a wonderful instrument, and around 5:15 when you were leaning on the keyboard reminded me of sounds on a record of sounds effects I bought in the 80's from the BBC radiophonic workshop.

[@cyberprimate]

Someone should make a plugin with these sounds. Someone should also design a plugin that 'Opticalizes' any sound coming in. It's absolutely magical.

[@Hainbach]

Yeah the latter would really interest me. You can get the Geforce Mellotron plugin with the Optigan expansion. The sounds are there. And I have an artist pack with them, too, with my own sounds: www.gforcesoftware.com/products/hainbach-artist-expansion/

[@synthgal1090]

god, a sampling software that could emulate the "masking" effect of layering two discs on each other would be fucking amazing.

[@creeke_alley]

@@optigandotcomwill it include talent maker and orchestron for the Plug-in?

[@oldmanthompson]

There is already an iOS version of the Optigan it’s great fun and has many discs available. 😊

[@PC0067]

Ça fait rêver des premiers SF.

[@jaredwblack]

5:15 1960's sci fi movie/tv sound effect. Like some gadget doing a thing on original Star Trek, etc

[@giddyaunt9953]

"It's a Wonderful LIfe" by Sparklehorse is one of my all time favourite albums - Optigan/Orchestron plus Chamberlin and Mellotron. Hard to know what is used where but your examples really reminded me of that record. The stuff that happens when you turn the disk upside down or put in 2 is so cool. Thanks for giving us a chance to see it in action. The idea of a large floppy optical disk seemed so ridiculous to me but the analogy to film sound makes perfect sense now

[@danield9488]

❤ Sparklehorse too

[@bradshawvincent]

Yes I got the Sparklehorse connection! So sad he left us too soon.

[@atrus3823]

I had no idea Sparklehorse used these (or frankly that they even existed), but the second I heard that sound, I thought, "that sounds like 'It's a Wonderful Life'". Looked it up, and sure enough, that's what they used! Pretty cool.

[@vwestlife]

Hipsters loved Optigan samples. I used to hear them all the time in commercials about a decade ago. Although the audio quality was much worse, the big advantage with these optical disc organs is that you could play the samples repeatedly, whereas the tapes in a Mellotron would run out after about 7 to 8 seconds and stop until you gave them time to rewind. I remember reading that the engineers who worked on the Optigan planned ways to improve the audio quality of the optical discs, such as pre-emphasis and noise reduction, but since Mattel (who manufactured it) was a toy company, they couldn't justify the expense to implement these features. And in the '90s, someone found the original studio master tapes that were used to produce the Optigan discs (most of which were recorded in Germany), and used them to make perfect digital-quality versions of them, but people still prefer the lo-fi sound of the real ones.

[@stevethepocket]

Oh yeah, I remember seeing some commercial in 2015 or so that used, I think it was the "Swing It!" disk's samples, and being like "Ooh I should email Pea Hix about that so he can find the KZbin copy and post it on his blog" and then I never did. Also someone made a royalty-free backing track out of the "da-da-di-da"s from "Singing Rhythm" and Lindsay Ellis used it a few times in her videos.

[@danielpirone8028]

The band Optagonally Yours is fantastic!!!!

[@marshallhammond2603]

I knew id heard the samples on this before. Jon Brion used it for the soundtrack of eternal sunshine, specifically the song Phone Call. Such a beautiful sound

[@cAPSlOCKrOXX]

As a big Optiganally Yours fan, this makes me very happy!

[@optigandotcom]

Get in touch if you ever want to author sounds for a new Optigan disc! :)

[@Hainbach]

Oh you do that! Can you send me an email to Hainbach101 at gmail.com?

[@optigandotcom]

@@Hainbach we've been making new Optigan & Orchestron discs since 2008. We even make a new instrument called Panoptigon to play them more reliably than the old hardware. We've yet to make any new Talentmaker titles because there are so few Talentmakers out there that the demand is very minimal. Anyway, we'll send an email!

[@Jynxxxycat]

This is the most amazing machine, that I have ever seen! The grunge of age, gives the loops such an eerie ambience. They've matured to perfection. xo

[@TMSBRANDA]

Ein überaus faszinierendes Instrument! Ich erinnere mich an einen Besuch der Musikmesse Frankfurt anfang der 70er, wo ich dieses Instrument live erleben konnte, erst heute habe ich durch dieses Video erfahren, wie es funktioniert. Herzlichen Dank dafür ❣️

[@milksheihk]

Apparently on Beautiful World by Devo they had an Optigan & had every disc it came with stacked on top of eachother. Apparently you can also get acetate sheets & cut them into circles & free hand squiggles onto them in felt tip pen & get some interesting sounds.

[@JimPoltrone]

I once read an interview with Mark Mothersbaugh back in the early '80s. In one of the segments, he talked about putting in the disks in an Orchestron backwards (or upside down) and having it make sucking sounds.

[@maxmatson1578]

Huge mad props 👌 for mentioning coil. That's a group that deserves so much more love than it gets! 🙏🙏🙏✌️

[@parasiteunit]

Coil did a better mix of NIN closer than anyone should of been capable of. The film 7even was improved by the track's very presence.

[@maxmatson1578]

@@parasiteunit Amen brother!!!🙏🙏🙏 I'm on the same wavelength of that emotion 👍 the coil mixes that they did for nails change my LIFE!!! and is what led me to them. after I heard those mixes I got "black light district" and "unnatural history" 1 and 2 and never looked back! 🎹🎚️🎛️🎧😵‍💫👌... R.i.p. John and Peter 🙏✋✌️

[@markschroeder5559]

You have everything you need in a single machine to entertain all of your guests at the coctail party.

[@Masssshysteria]

wow it sounds so authentic, exactly the analog tone you want from an analog machine. some tape machines ive heard dont even produce this sort of texture and coloring.

[@FLH3official]

The main advantage of the Orchestron or this Chilton Talentmaker over the Mellotron was loops. On a Melotron your playback time is roughly 8 seconds only, the length of the piece of tape, hence you can't get a long sustained choir pad like, the most known, Radioactivity made with a Vako Orchestron. Some of the Orchestrons sample libraries were actulay made with the same sonic material as the one used for the Mellotron. The drawback of course is you don't get any attack or envelop from the sampled instrument, you play somewhere on the loop.

[@duncan-rmi]

I've been in the studio with so many people borrowing my m400, & always tell them "eight seconds is longer than you think!"

[@tonycowin]

@@duncan-rmi Yep eight seconds is a long time within the context of a song.

[@FLH3official]

​@@duncan-rmi Yes, most of the time 🙂

[@bricelory9534]

Would be fun to have two of the same discs, with one upside down to get a forward/reverse effect - fascinating!

[@RiccardoPietroni]

I’ll try tomorrow! Great idea!

[@rebours]

That's the most idiophonic instrument I've ever heard, the keyboard sounds you got from putting a second disk in it were so fragile, warm and intimate !

[@PhillipRaymondGoodman]

That bit at the end is like an alternative history of EDM if it developed 40 years earlier

[@blackmoofou6385]

The Rhythms and sounds are so space age pop/exotica such a cool machine thanks so much for sharing.

[@mpchead]

Beautiful sound

[@jamwrightiam]

I absolutely adore these types of machines, i def don't have room now but I can hope for one day to have my own space just for sounds

[@id.unknown1283]

This thing is super cool and it seems to have endless possibilities within it

[@TruIIing]

Incredible!! This NEEDS to be an AudioThing plugin 😉

[@NicleT]

The sequence at 1:43 reminded me Brian Eno's _I'll come running to tie your shoes_ from Another Green World album.

[@Hainbach]

Listen to the EP I made with the Talentmaker here: hainbach.bandcamp.com/album/talentmaker-takes

[@Fygee]

Steve Hackett used these on his first solo albums and live concerts. Really amazing sound, then and now.

[@personmcperson4440]

3:20 Holy shit that's gloriously depressing. Really powerful, especially if you're backing a visual medium like film or stage.

[@peffken8834]

Cool Idea, nice that it was realized and is honored and presented here. Thanks man, again!

[@johnunkerman]

8:35 - This part’s magic!

[@lundsweden]

This thing is beyond lofi- it's practically nofi. I love the idiosyncratic sound of this thing!

[@sonofsound]

I had fun watching this, I can't imagine how much fun this must be to explore in person! Great work!

[@zaprodk]

This machine is freaking fantastic. Layering of the discs, even in reverse is such a nice hack!

[@Humble_Electronic_Musician]

11:17 sounds awesome!

[@Jefflantern483]

Yup a gnarly sounding keyboard that uses optical discs & will make great space themed chill tunes!🙂👍🙂 Sounds great!🎵🎵🎵

[@ATOMOCDOG]

I love those sounds

[@johntait5141]

Glad to have you BACH.....

[@traitortotheliving]

I can think of no one more perfect to demonstrate this amazing instrument ❤

[@francescoforesi6206]

I really like your work, greetings from Rome

[@singerguitaristmunna]

best music instruments best best best super excellent 70s style of music very very very touchy

[@richsackett3423]

I love my Sennheiser MD-21. It's been my desk mic for 15 years.

[@Hainbach]

I love them - one is always with me, and the other is always on my old AKAI sampler

[@jayqsamo]

Absolutely love it.

[@bradshawvincent]

I was a massive fan of Sparklehorse back in the day and I can definitely hear this instrument in his Lo Fi tracks. Of course I had no idea it was this producing the sounds!

[@chrisschulz2000]

Holy Guacamole, ... Not a clue this thing existed, and I am 54 and deeply into music in my teens till late twenties, having played in 3-4 bands along the way ... And I am German!!!! ... I should know this, but no!!! ..... Just goes to show that you should know your music history so you don't sound ignorant (not stupid!) as me in this post ... Learn! Listen! Enjoy! ... So much to learn! .... Thanks for this video!

[@perigee1275]

I had two Optigon keyboards in my studio at one time, purely by coincidence. There was a folder with a set of those plastic discs. We used them to try and find that weird overdub to give a song that magical lo fi thing that everyone loves but nobody can figure out what it is.

[@veeseir]

70s lofi indeed fascinating

[@PsychedelicChameleon]

Thank You Heinbach!

[@quantumleap359]

Wonderful instrument, delightful video! Rare machine, thanks for showing it to us!

[@simonisenberg4516]

So much haunting beauty! And at other times you anticipate a phat beat dropping in at any second.

[@flywittzbeats4008]

This is one of those gem pieces of gear you can’t believe you haven’t heard of. Holy god

[@Lumibear.]

Fascinating. Thank you for this.

[@AmbientAssemblage]

this thing makes some really crazy sounds!

[@clemmcguinness1087]

I love these ancient machines, harking back to "modern" film makers and theatrical sound fun. Thanks for your review

[@SystemOfStrings]

This is so incredibly cool

[@unbearifiedbear1885]

Goldfrapp-y vibes.. beautiful

[@littlebritain64]

Sounds like a miracle. Pure genius!

[@archivedsound]

Every time I see u make one of these videos I feel like you could make the perfect dungeon synth album with whatever lofi instrument you’re using in it!

[@Andres-st9fj]

Thank you.

[@scienceofsound]

Dude, that dual disc instrument you created at 8:36 🤯❤

[@tomahzo]

"If it's not Kraftwerk I don't want to know what German band is!" - woah, so harsh! One might even say uncalled for ;D. Love this video!

[@KodakKid]

I fell in love with this after hearing Optigan 1 by Blur

[@AlexIsASeraphim]

This is so lo-fi it is glorious. Recording the sounds of this keyboard with a Nagra makes me laugh. Hi fidelity lo-fi. Thanx as always Hainbach.

[@stitchfinger7678]

What an absolute beauty Also your enjoyment of it was infections

[@macsnafu]

It's always fun to take an instrument and do unimaginable or unintended things with it. You can come up with some amazing sounds sometimes.

[@DouggieDinosaur]

Reminds me of low budget 1970s movies - a welcome sound for nostalgic ears 👍

[@kallemustonen]

So this must be the secret behind "Slow 30's Room" by David Lynch and Dean Hurley 😮

[@yorkshireteafan]

It's the Big Band Beat Optigan disc. There's a demo of it on KZbin

[@krytikal5615]

Was scrolling to see if anybody else had noticed this..

[@xavierberthelot]

thanks for the discovery

[@edgeeffect]

Ooooh! So very close to being a Vaco Orchestron, it may as well be one....... NICE! Looking forward to watching this tonight.

[@emdotambient]

The Orchestron and Talentmaker were both offshoots of the Optigan's technology. Mattel owned Optigan but it's president (F. Roy Chilton) left the company and in 1973 introduced the Talentmaker using the same technology but supposedly with some technical upgrades. Optigan went out of business and was taken over by Miner Industries under the company name Opsonar, who pursued legal action against Chilton (it wasn't Mattel who tried to get Chilton to stop producing the Talentmaker, as mentioned in the video). The Orchestron, however, was made by a former Moog technician and salesperson, again using the technology of the Optigan. In fact, the first Orchestrons (Model A) were identical to the Optigan. The later versions were based on Talentmaker designs. Some later included other things like sequencers and synthesizers (Model X and Phase 4) ... but those were mostly prototypes, I think.

[@skipper6528]

This is one of your finest finds Great review sir The sounds have use man!

[@robmooijaart5313]

Amazing find, this will keep you busy for a while!!!!

[@Zif-the-Old-Herring]

Love the bonus crackle. Reminds me of my 78 rpm discs. Very much part the experience. Vinyl is so passe. Shellac is it, Baby.

[@OscillatorCollective]

Sounds great.

[@johnny.storm-wolf]

Wow, this is very impressive, what a interesting concept !!!

[@svofski]

looking forward to seeing your collab with Tom Waits

[@burnthisghost]

So so nice! I love this one in Sparklehorse songs, specially in “It’s a Wonderful Life” ❤

[@diggitywaxenhausen9011]

lovely

[@SorryIwasntListening]

love this - very 70s!

[@DasDoktorchen]

Interesting device with nice sounds. Thanks for presenting to us 👍

[@ackamack101]

That is amazing. What sounds it creates! It is both magical and enchanting! 😌❤️ Thank you for the video!

[@sogggyyy]

Lovely

[@israelsgospelicdavidjseibu349]

Our family own a OPTIGAN that was sold in stores that came from the MATTEL COMPANY, the sounds that is used was identical to the real instruments, and TALENTMAKER, is basically the same, and just remodeled looking different. IF you own one hang on to that, they enhanced using electronic sound box. This means more sounds to use on the organ, it's now also a digital organ.

[@8-BitHeart79]

IMHO this blows the mellotron out of the water! Sounds amazing!!

[@uncled39]

Nope

[@olsmokey]

I used to repair Optigans in the 70s. Horribly crude mechanisms but surprisingly effective. They needed a stepdown transformer to operate in Australia (240 to 110 volts) and the drive motor would overheat due to running on 50Hz rather than 60Hz. The motor running on a partial DC supply (for the speed control) didn't help either.

[@_JellyDonut_]

By pressing down a special key it plays a little melody

[@wilfig]

Haunting.

[@radionicpowers5938]

SO fun ... u know years ago in a record shop they had a whole bunch of these optigon discs hanging from the ceiling ... I never knew till now what they WERE, Merci

[@TheLarryBrown]

I haven't watched the whole video and I had no idea what this was, but what I do know is that is the body of a Magnus Chord Organ model 890, which is a reed organ and a drop dead fabulous instrument on its own. They gutted it and installed all those electronic guts this guy is demoing to us. A Magnus chord organ #890 is a full blown version of a toy chord organ, and retains the (wonderful) cheesy reed organ sound, but in a full blown floor standing model complete with a professional looking swell pedal and fabric cloth in front of your knees/shins that looks like it houses an expensive amp and 15" speaker, but it doesn't. 890 sold for $200, which was dirt cheap for a floor standing organ but a mind boggling price to pay for a toy organ that normally would cost $5 or $10 from the local five and dime store. Internally the 890 would be similar to your usual toy chord organ with a few important enhancements: it featured 8 chords (8 major, 8 minor) whereas a toy might feature only 4 or 5, and the "killer feature:" bass notes. That is an extremely rare feature on chord organs and transforms the 890 from a toy into a beast and I love it. Chord organs are targeted at kids and students. This optical disc organ was not, it must have been frightfully expensive and targeted at pro users, and yet look at that numbered foil above the keys, which are there so that a kid that can't read music could "play by number." The inventors of this organ lacked a little ambition when they didn't peel that off of there. You can see a model 890 on the "chord organ" Wikipedia page.

[@ko83na]

instand portishead and silenthill vibes. love it!

[@loopinnerthe]

Thank you for bringing this little gem to our attention. But mostly thank you for taking the lid off and showing us the detail of how it worked. The innovations in music making pre-digital or even pre micro electronics are just amazing. The cross over between film and music here is magic. I wonder if there is a way to fabricate new and exciting discs for that by inkjet printing on a clear film...

[@vobchopper]

I love this thing ❤

[@BertClaes]

Love the sound!

[@stephensmith9795]

Love it!