Jim Reid, fellow WHOC officer, asked me this question: Which is better - the MidiTzer or the Virginia WurliTzer for Hauptwerk 2? This is what I told him.

When I seriously dived into the digital world back in 2002, the aim was to improve my analog Rodgers. By then I had heard both the Allen and the Walker instruments. In fact, the first time I heard a Walker was at the Milwaukee ATOS Convention in 2000. My first contact with Bruce Miles' soundfonts was in early 2003 I think. I was really impressed and they sounded so much better than my analog stuff. When I retired in 2003 I could spend a lot of time on various organ items like MIDI-fying and testing various relay programs. The one that stood out was the MidiTzer. It sounded so good with Bruce's fonts.

We do change and our demands increase over time, however. When I bought my Rodgers in 1975, I was totally amazed by its sound. Today the same sound is no way near what a theatre organ should sound like and it is outright disappointing. Is that because it had deteriorated? No, I think it's because I nowadays have higher expectations.

The MidiTzer was the way to go although it couldn't compete with the Allen or Walker instruments. But, it was miles ahead of my old Rodgers. And it worked like a real WurliTzer, and this was important. The soundfonts improved steadily and we have a winner.

Enter the Virginia WurliTzer for Hauptwerk 2. This is an entirely different animal. Now there is a real thing, every pipe sampled. The tremulants were modeled instead of sampling pipes with tremulants on. With random detuning and tremulant speed and other devices simulating a real WurliTzer, this would be it. Finally, real theatre sound would be filling the house. I must confess that I was somewhat disappointed when I first installed it. The sound was no way near what I had expected.

What was wrong? Was my expectations way off target? Was there something wrong with the installation, like speakers, amplifiers or soundcard? As you know, Hauptwerk 2 recommends a soundcard with ASIO drivers. I decided to swap one of my Creative SB Live! cards with an EMU 0404. This was possible since the MidiTzer now had the Fluidsynth engine and did not require a Creative SB Live! card. The EMU card did improve things once I managed to understand how the patch panel worked. It's a normal two channel stereo.

The MidiTzer is a very good approximation of a WurliTzer, but the soundfonts are too perfect. There is no question, it does sound "electronic" but less so than any analog organ. I have tried the John Tay fonts but I don't like them. There are some voices in his fonts, like the Chimes and Chrysoglott, that are very good. The tremmed Tibias with their individual trems are not acceptable. Bruce's Tibias are better and even those have individual trems. But this doesn't bother me like the John Tay soundfonts.

The Virginia WurliTzer to me sounds more like the real thing. Together with the Hauptwerk 2 features it does take away most of the "too perfect" sound that most electronics suffer from. But why doesn't it sound like what we expect. All WurliTzers are individuals so there is no standard, but they all have a recognizable sound.

Here's my theory. Having had the possibility to listen to a few WurliTzers under different conditions, I would say that the Virginia sounds like you are in the chamber. I visited recently the only working Wurlitzer here and this is a home installation where the console is just a few meters from the shutters. The chamber is very small and the sound is very dry and it sounds just like the Virginia. To get my installation to sound like the real thing requires a lot of work and some heavy investments. Basically I think you have to simulate a theatre full of people. That has to wait, the primary objective is to get the Skandia WurliTzer up and running.

In conclusion, the Virginia has the edge, far more realistic than the MidiTzer. Which one do I like? Difficult to answer. I do like the sound of a vintage Hammond with the original, no Leslie, tone cabinet. The Hammond doesn't sound like a theatre organ but I still like it. Same with the MidiTzer, I do like it and the MidiTzer name plate replaced the Rodgers one and it will stay.

What I believe is that the Virginia is really the first try (not counting the Allen and Walker instruments) with the Hauptwerk 2 concept. We are just in the beginning and more work is needed, especially in the amplifier and speaker area, before we are done.

Some days ago I spoke about the only WurliTzer in Stockholm, Sweden, originally installed in the Skandia Theatre. It has been in storage for 35 years. To try to get it playing again, we now have a group that is dedicated to do just that. This group consists of several prominent persons, like the City Hall resident organist, an organist who actually played at the Skandia Theatre, an organ builder, a representative from the Skandia theatre, people from the Audio department at the Royal Institute of Technology, and some others with interest in theatre organs or organs in general and myself.

Today, the group has 17 people all interested in getting the Skandia 2/9 Mighty WurliTzer playing again. An inventory has been done at the City Hall and most of the pipework has been found. The traps seem to be OK but there are still some parts missing. After 35 years in storage things get moved around and parts are lost. It shouldn't be a problem to get everything, and spare parts are available.

One hundred years ago on September 18th of 1905, Greta Louisa Gustafsson was born in Stockholm. She later changed her name to Greta Garbo and moved to Hollywood. She died in 1990 and was interred at Skogskyrkogården (The Woodland Cemetery) here in Stockholm.

What has this to do with Theatre Pipe Organs?

The Woodland Cemetery was designed by G. Asplund, a famous architect. He also designed the Skandia Theatre, home of the only Mighty WurliTer in Stockholm. The Woodland Cemetery is inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list. Click here and here to learn more.

On September the 19th of 2005, the WurliTzer restoration group met at the Skandia Theatre. First a movie was shown, really a news reel from when the theatre was built, followed by more news from when the theatre celebrated its tenth anniversary. Finally, a short clip from 1944 showing a demonstration of the Mighty WurliTzer was screened. After that we were had a thorough look at the theatre. Below are some pictures I took.

The theatre is not used presently but the future is secured. It will be restored completely. It still looks OK but there are details that need to be repaired. As you can see from the pictures, it is well maintained and everything is kept in working order.

One of the main items on the agenda was to look for traces of the organ. There has been persistent rumors that the chamber is gone due to redesign and new buildings around and parking space below. This is not true. The chamber is still there. It is located on the stage level and is now used for storing stuff. An inner wall has been installed so that it doesn't look like a chamber. Also, the opening where the shades once were has been closed.

This gives renewed hope of actually putting the organ back into the theatre. The management is in favour of this, but the owners are somewhat hesitant. We can't just show them a lot of dusty lumber and say one day it will sing. We have to install it some other place first, fix it and then get it going. The key thing is to convince the owners that money can be made. That will take some time. Right now, all is go, and the next step will be a complete inventory of the parts in the City Hall.

Part of our continuing effort to bring back our 2/9 Mighty WurliTzer at the Skandia Theatre is to find all known documentation. That includes film clips and recordings. We have found some at "The Swedish National Archive of Recorded Sound and Moving Images" but we continue to search for more. One area is the National Radio archive. Since the radio was a government monopoly earlier, everything should be in one place. On the other hand, the radio archive is huge so it may take some time to do a full search.

Below are two clips of the Skandia WurliTzer. Skandia_1 is an early recording and I'm not sure of the date but it should be early thirties. Skandia_2 was recorded in the mid forties. I think the organ and the violin mix quite well.

Note that I have done no processing of these recordings, so there is some "frying tonight" background noise in them.

1. Skandia_1
   Playing time = 0:50, file size = 0.40MB, bit rate = 64KB/sec.
2. Skandia_2
   Playing time = 1:24, file size = 0.66MB, bit rate = 64KB/sec.