The Gibson G-101 (or Gibson Portable Organ, also known as the Kalamazoo K-101) is a
transistor
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink).
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
ised
combo organ
A combo organ, so-named and classified by popular culture due to its original intended use by small, touring jazz, pop and dance groups known as "combo bands", as well as some models having "Combo" as part of their brand or model names, is an ele ...
, manufactured in the late 1960s by the
Lowrey Organ Company for
Gibson (guitar company)
Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation) is an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was for ...
.
The G-101 was produced in response to similar combo organs such as the
Vox Continental
The Vox Continental is a transistorised combo organ that was manufactured between 1962 and 1971 by the British musical equipment manufacturer Vox. It was designed for touring musicians and as an alternative to the heavy Hammond organ. It supp ...
and
Farfisa
Farfisa (Fabbriche Riunite di Fisarmoniche) is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy, founded in 1946. The company manufactured a series of compact electronic organs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Compact, FAST, Professiona ...
, though it had a wider range of features such as foldback as seen on a
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...
. It provided a 61-key manual with a variety of stops accessed by rocker switches and a separate bass system. Because the organ was manufactured by Lowrey, the G-101 can create similar sounds to that company's console organs manufactured at the time. The instrument was not as commercially successful as the Continental and Farfisa, and less than 2,000 models were sold. However, it was used by some popular musicians at the time, particularly
The Doors
The Doors were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential ro ...
'
Ray Manzarek
Raymond Daniel Manzarek Jr. (né Manczarek; February 12, 1939 – May 20, 2013) was an American keyboardist. He is best known as a member of the Doors, co-founding the band with singer and lyricist Jim Morrison in 1965.
Manzarek was induct ...
.
Production
The instrument was introduced by
Gibson
Gibson may refer to:
People
* Gibson (surname)
Businesses
* Gibson Brands, Inc., an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and audio equipment
* Gibson Technology, and English automotive and motorsport company based
* Gi ...
in 1967 but produced in the U.S. for them by the
Lowrey Organ Company.
Both companies were owned by
Chicago Musical Instruments
Chicago Musical Instruments Co. (CMI) was a musical instrument distributor, which at times had controlling interests in Gibson Guitars (1944 to 1969), Standel, Lowrey, F. E. Olds (brass instruments), William Lewis & Son Co. (stringed instrument ...
. Lowery had already produced several combo organs, beginning in 1946. The G-101 was first introduced in 1966 as the Kalamazoo K-101, as that name was used by Gibson for its budget range of equipment. The name was changed to Gibson G-101 shortly thereafter, in order to encourage sales, and production continued until 1969. A Gibson G-201 organ was introduced at the same time, which is a
spinet organ
An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed ...
with two manuals, but otherwise has the same electronics, but not as many features.
[
The original price was $995 ($ as of ), which was one of the most expensive single-manual combo organs at that time. Less than 2,000 models were produced (about a quarter of the ]Vox Continental
The Vox Continental is a transistorised combo organ that was manufactured between 1962 and 1971 by the British musical equipment manufacturer Vox. It was designed for touring musicians and as an alternative to the heavy Hammond organ. It supp ...
), making the instrument a sought-after model for collectors compared to similar instruments.
Features
Despite the change in name badges and model numbers shortly after its introduction, the Kalamazoo K-101 and the Gibson G-101 are the same instrument. Kalamazoo was a brand name that Gibson used for budget instruments. The only significant change in production was a cast Gibson logo added to the instrument's front panel.
The G-101 had two square, tubular, fold-out legs, and a "drop panel". The panel supported the legs, via secured thumb screws, and acted as a cover for them during transport. Other external features included an acrylonitrile butadiene styrene
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (chemical formula (C8H8)''x''·(C4H6)''y''·(C3H3N)''z'' is a common thermoplastic polymer. Its glass transition temperature is approximately . ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point.
A ...
(ABS) black plastic top, a tri-colored plastic keyboard, color-coded rocker-switch tabs, and a vinyl fabric-covered plywood cabinet, drop panel, and lid, using an aqua-and-gray color scheme. While superficially similar in appearance to many other combo organs in the 1960s such as the Farfisa
Farfisa (Fabbriche Riunite di Fisarmoniche) is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy, founded in 1946. The company manufactured a series of compact electronic organs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Compact, FAST, Professiona ...
Compact, it can easily be distinguished from competing models by identifying the cabinet colors.
Three optional accessories were available for the G-101: a travel bag, an expression pedal
An expression pedal is an important control found on many musical instruments including organs, electronic keyboards, and pedal steel guitar. The musician uses the pedal to control different aspects of the sound, commonly volume. Separate expres ...
(volume pedal), and a set of bass pedals
Bass pedals are an electronic musical instrument with a foot-operated pedal keyboard with a range of one or more octaves. The earliest bass pedals from the 1970s consisted of a pedalboard and analog synthesizer tone generation circuitry packaged ...
. The expression pedal is required, as without it, the organ will make no sound (though this can be fixed by changing the internal wiring). The volume pedal had a spring-loaded side-lever that could be used to actuate the "Glide" and "Trumpet Wow-wow" effects. In addition to a standard 1/4" jack socket for a standard amplifier, an additional jack also enabled users to connect to a custom external reverb
Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...
unit made by Gibson or Maestro. The "Reverb" tab is used to activate this; the organ itself has no onboard reverb unit. The instrument's top had a removable, fold-down wire rack for sheet music.
The G-101 was designed to be easily serviceable. The internal arrangement of the instrument's electronics makes it easy to find and fix components. Some parts are hinge-mounted, to allow easy access to others.
Sound
The G-101 has a single manual of five octaves (61 keys), divided into three sections. The bottom octave is for bass, using reverse-colored white-on-black
A light-on-dark color scheme —also called black mode, dark mode, dark theme, night mode, or lights-out (mode)— is a color scheme that uses light-colored text, icons, and graphical user interface elements on a dark background. It is often d ...
keys similar to those on the Vox Continental
The Vox Continental is a transistorised combo organ that was manufactured between 1962 and 1971 by the British musical equipment manufacturer Vox. It was designed for touring musicians and as an alternative to the heavy Hammond organ. It supp ...
and the bass section of Farfisa
Farfisa (Fabbriche Riunite di Fisarmoniche) is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy, founded in 1946. The company manufactured a series of compact electronic organs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Compact, FAST, Professiona ...
Compact combo organs. The next octave has gray and white keys and could be used as either a second bass octave or an extension of the main voice, like a Farfisa.[ The top three octaves uses the main (treble) voices.
The main section offers 16', 8', 4' and 2â…”' footages, with reed, string and flute ]voices
Voices or The Voices may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Voices'' (1920 film), by Chester M. De Vonde, with Diana Allen
* ''Voices'' (1973 film), a British horror film
* ''Voices'' (1979 film), a film by Robert Markowitz
* ''Voices'' (19 ...
. There is also a mixture
In chemistry, a mixture is a material made up of two or more different chemical substances which are not chemically bonded. A mixture is the physical combination of two or more substances in which the identities are retained and are mixed in the ...
tab that combines 4' and 2â…”' tones. From left to right, the controls are:[
* Rotary knob for bass volume
* Five tabs (color-coded) for bass:
:* (Green) String Bass; Sax Bass; Fuzz Bass
:* (Gray) Bass Normal/Percuss.; Bass Sustain Off/On
* Rotary switch to select extended bass or treble for the gray keys
* Twelve tabs, (color-coded) for voicings on the treble keys:
:* (Red) ]Glide
Glide may refer to:
* Gliding flight, to fly without thrust
Computing
*Glide API, a 3D graphics interface
*Glide OS, a web desktop
*Glide (software), an instant video messenger
*Glide, a molecular docking software by Schrödinger (company), Schrà ...
Normal/Trumpet Wow-Wow
:* (Yellow) Trombone 16'(Piano S-St-P); Clarinet 16's
:* (Blue) String 8'(Harpcd S-St-P)
:* (Yellow) Trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
8'; Kinura 8'
:* (White) Flute 16'; Flute 8'; Piccolo 4'; Nazard 2-2/3'; Mixture
:* (Red) Brilliance Normal/Full
* Eight tabs (color-coded) for effects:
:* (Green) Vibrato
Vibrato (Italian language, Italian, from past participle of "wikt:vibrare, vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch (music), pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. ...
Slow/Fast; Vibrato Light/Heavy; Vibrato Off/On
:* (Red) Sustain
In sound and music, an envelope describes how a sound changes over time. It may relate to elements such as amplitude (volume), frequencies (with the use of filters) or pitch. For example, a piano key, when struck and held, creates a near-immedi ...
S Med; Sustain SS Long; Staccato
Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and has appeared in music ...
St Off/On
:* (Gray) Reverb Off/On; Percuss. Off/On
* Rotary knob to control Repeat Off/On/Rate
Because the G-101 was manufactured by Lowrey, its electronics – and thus, its voicings – are similar to Lowrey's own T-1 and T-2 models (all of which use the same generator boards as the Lowrey TLO Holiday"spinet models); the G-101 is not, however, identical and does contain several additional distinctive features. Like other combo organs, the G-101 uses twelve individual tone generators with a frequency divider
A frequency divider, also called a clock divider or scaler or prescaler, is a circuit that takes an input signal of a frequency, f_, and generates an output signal of a frequency:
:
f_ = \frac
where n is an integer. Phase-locked loop frequency ...
to create the other notes. These are routed through a sequence of filters
Filter, filtering or filters may refer to:
Science and technology
Computing
* Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming
* Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream
* Filter (video), a software component tha ...
activated by the various tabs on the instrument, which gives it a wider range of sounds than a Vox.
The G-101 features strong and bright voices, which when combined with sustain, can cut through a mix to be the dominant instrument in a band. Like a Hammond, but unlike most combo organs, using the high voices such as Nazard 2â…”, the tones are duplicated as audio foldback. This allowed Lowrey to cut costs as they did not need as many tone generator circuits as would have been required otherwise. The "Repeat" feature sounds similar to tremolo
In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo.
The first is a rapid reiteration:
* Of a single Musical note, note, particularly used on String instrument#Bowing, bowed string instrument ...
, but uses a re-triggering circuit on the percussion board instead; the knob can be used to control its off/on and speed rate. This feature often faded in functionality because it used a photodetector
Photodetectors, also called photosensors, are sensors of light or other electromagnetic radiation. There is a wide variety of photodetectors which may be classified by mechanism of detection, such as Photoelectric effect, photoelectric or photoc ...
which contained a neon bulb that could dim over time, but this is fixable by locating and installing an appropriate replacement part.
The "Glide" effect pitches the notes flat by a semitone
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically.
It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...
when actuated by the side-lever on the expression pedal when the "Glide" tab was selected to "Normal".[ When the same tab is selected to "Trumpet Wow-wow", the side-lever actuates a " wah wah" effect. The "Piano" and "Harpsichord" tabs simulate the tones of those instruments. The tones can be given additional attack (note-onset time) when the "]Percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
" and "Staccato
Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and has appeared in music ...
" tabs are selected, producing a piano-like "bounce". The "Sustain
In sound and music, an envelope describes how a sound changes over time. It may relate to elements such as amplitude (volume), frequencies (with the use of filters) or pitch. For example, a piano key, when struck and held, creates a near-immedi ...
" can be used on these latter two voices to continue sounding for a while after the note is released.[
]
Usage
The most prominent user of the G-101 was The Doors
The Doors were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential ro ...
' Ray Manzarek
Raymond Daniel Manzarek Jr. (né Manczarek; February 12, 1939 – May 20, 2013) was an American keyboardist. He is best known as a member of the Doors, co-founding the band with singer and lyricist Jim Morrison in 1965.
Manzarek was induct ...
, who switched from the Vox Continental
The Vox Continental is a transistorised combo organ that was manufactured between 1962 and 1971 by the British musical equipment manufacturer Vox. It was designed for touring musicians and as an alternative to the heavy Hammond organ. It supp ...
to the G-101 during the recording of ''Waiting for the Sun
''Waiting for the Sun'' is the third studio album by the American rock band the Doors. The album's 11 tracks were recorded between January and May 1968 at TTG Studios in Los Angeles. Released by Elektra Records on July 3, 1968, it became the ban ...
'' in 1968. Manzarek later said the G-101 "had a little more versatility than the Vox; it could make the sort of piano-ish sound I used on "Back Door Man
"Back Door Man" is a blues song written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Howlin' Wolf in 1960. The lyrics draw on a Southern U.S. cultural term for an extramarital affair. The song is one of several Dixon-Wolf songs that became popular among roc ...
" (from ''The Doors
The Doors were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential ro ...
'' album); plus, it had a little knob sticking up on the volume pedal which could bend the note a half-step down. We used it on "Not to Touch the Earth". Even synthesizers don't really do that." Another important reason for using the G-101 was because it had a flat top, which meant he could put a Rhodes Piano Bass on top of it, to play basslines in concert. The instrument has consequently become sought-after by Doors tribute bands in order to authentically replicate the original group's look and sound.
Jazz musician Sun Ra
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific out ...
also began using the G-101 during the 1960s. The first documented use is on the ''Atlantis'' album, which was released in 1969. Ra, who often invented names for his instruments, lists the G-101 as the "Solar Sound Organ" in the credits. Don Preston
Donald Ward Preston (born September 21, 1932) is an American jazz and rock keyboardist. He is known for working with Frank Zappa from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s.
Biography
Preston was born into a family of musicians in Detroit and began st ...
used a G-101 with Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...
and the Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention (also known as The Mothers) was an American rock band from California. Formed in 1964, their work is marked by the use of sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows.
Originally an R&B band c ...
, and was seen playing one on the cover of his solo album ''Filters, Oscillators & Envelopes 1967–75''.
References
Citations
Sources
*
*
*
External links
1960s organs
– 1960s music blog (includes image of organ and sound samples of Manzarek using the G-101 in concert)
{{Electronic organs
Electronic organs