Hollywood Theatre
Portland, Oregon
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The Columbia River Theatre Organ
Society is in the process of installing a theatre pipe organ in the
historic Hollywood theater in Portland. This installation is progressing
but it may be several years before the pipe organ is actually playing. A
Ken Crome built Wurlitzer replica console was purchased for the pipe
organ. This console had been attached to some Devtronix analog
electronics in its past. |
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The console specification has been completely revised
with the addition of some 60 new stops, 15 general pistons,
"junk" drawers and a Uniflex PC relay system |
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Custom Wurlitzer copy panel console |
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Technical Data: Computer: (supplied by Iguana Micro)
Audio and MIDI interfaces:
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Reconfigured keyboard stack with 15 generals
Gary
Nelson Custom built GN-15 3-way speakers
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Custom made "junk" drawer installation. These buttons select alternate traps. The drawer on the right (not shown) selects and displays the memory levels. Software
Audio system See table below: Console
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Audio Configuration |
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| Echo Audio Output Channel | Amps | Audio Group | Speakers | Mode |
Rank |
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| 1/2 | QSC GX3 A | Main 1 | GN-15 x2 | C/C# split | Salicional | Concert Flute | Oboe Horn | Chrysoglott | |||
| 3/4 | SLA-4 A ,bridged 2 channel mode | Main 2 | GN-15 x2 | C/C# split | Salcional Celeste | Quintadena | Tuba Horn | Harp | |||
| 5/6 | SLA-4 B ,bridged 2 channel mode | Main 3 | GN-15 x2 | C/C# split | Flute celeste | Open Diapason | Clarinet | Piano | |||
| 7/8 | QSC GX3 B | Solo 1 | GN-15 x2 | C/C# split | English Horn | Horn Diapason | Orchestral Oboe | Solo String Celeste | Vox Humana | Glockenspiel | |
| 9/10/11 | SLA-4 C , 4 channel mode | Solo 2 | GN-15 x3 | Tone Matching 2 | Trumpet | Saxophone | Tibia Clausa | Solo String | Kinura | Xylophone | |
| 12 | QSC GX5/ SLA-4 C, channel 4 | Pedal | Sub Woofer/ JBL JRX-12 | Mono | Bourdon | Diaphone | Tibia Clausa | Diaphonic Horn | Chimes | ||
Audio system description
All audio equipment is installed in a 6' high equipment rack in a room behind the stage. This includes the Echo Audiofire 12 sound interface unit that connects to the PC in the console through a firewire extender (Newnex 1394 over CAT5 repeater). This connection is an ordinary cat 5 LAN cable and is the only connection between the console and the audio rack . There are two separate and dedicated AC power feeds for the amplifier rack and another for the console.
The speakers are placed on the stage behind the screen, with the Main chamber speakers on the left and the Solo speakers on the right. Each speaker in its group is spaced about 3-4 feet apart.
Intermodulation distortion occurs to some extent on all loudspeakers and can be heard most easily when playing major or minor thirds on a bright reed like a Trumpet or Post Horn thru the same speaker. The resulting sub and super tones produced are not harmonically related to either one of the original tones. This distortion is very annoying and unmusical. That is why the C/C# split and especially the "tone matching 2" configuration is used, so major and minor thirds never come from the same speaker. Further discussion of IM distortion is found here.
C/C# split:
C side: all C, D, E F#, G#, A# notes from the ranks assigned come from this channel
C# side: all C#, D#, F, G, A, B notes from the ranks assigned come from this channel
| Solo 2 Group | Tone matching 2 note layout | |||
| Channel # | ||||
| 9 | C# | D# | G# | A# |
| 10 | E | F | F# | B |
| 11 | C | D | G | A |
There is no such thing as "string channels" or "reed channels" in this VTPO set up. That is a paradigm that belongs to obsolete electronic organ building. Dedicating a channel or group of channels to one rank or type of rank leads to the same inefficiency that pipe organs have, in that most pipes are silent when playing small combinations. If channels are dedicated to strings, as an example, they are silent when not playing strings. All that expensive hardware just gathers dust during that time. The current audio configuration is designed to reduce IM distortion and spread ranks over multiple speakers systems to maximize realism.
In addition, no string or flute unisons and celestes originate from the same audio group. The celestes are allowed to mix acoustically. When coming from the same speaker, celestes sound very "electronic".
Another consideration to group assignments was to separate the big reeds (English Horn, Trumpet, Tuba Horn) so each rank comes from a different audio group. Same for the color reeds, etc. Example, the Main Clarinet and Oboe Horn come from different groups. In the Solo, the Orchestral Oboe and saxophone are separated. All the tuned percussions such as Piano, Harp and Chrysoglott all come from different groups.
A full schedule of first run movies is available.
Silent films and special events are announced when available.
There is more information about the Hollywood Theatre on the following web site:
http://www.hollywoodtheatre.org.
To access a current schedule of events at the Hollywood Theatre:
http://www.hollywoodtheatre.org/frames/welcome.htm
To read a history of the original Hollywood theatre pipe organ, go to the following PSTOS web pages:
http://www.pstos.org/instruments/or/portland/hollywood.htm,
http://www.pstos.org/instruments/or/portland/imperial-rink.htm,
and
http://www.pstos.org/instruments/or/portland/imperial-rink_dapolito.htm