Rosen Roxy 2/11 Mighty WurliTzer
Theatre Pipe Organ
Rosen Residence, Chatsworth, California.

This month's featured organ is the Rosen Roxy 2/11 Mighty WurliTzer Theatre Pipe Organ installed at the Rosen Residence in Chatsworth, California. It is the fiftieth instrument to be featured on these pages.

Located in Chatsworth, California, the Rosen Residence is home to many musical instruments, including the 2/11 Mighty WurliTzer Theatre Pipe Organ, two vintage Grand Pianos, two rare Reed Organs, alnog with some nice guitars and a set of drums.

The Mighty WurliTzer lives in a structure behind the house. There is a beautiful swimming pool between the two structures.

On July the 12th, the Bone Doctor and Cyrus Roton went down to Chatsworth to see this great instrument as a follow up to an invitation from the ATOS which was holding a concert with the legendary Bob Mitchell, showing off this wonderful little organ.

The first thing you notice about Bob Mitchell are his eyes. They twinkle with an innocent delight, especially when the conversation turns to music. He is tall and lanky, but still one of those men that makes a dark suit and trousers look dashing even on a hot afternoon.

When Bob was at age 10, his mother decided it was time for him to learn the organ so he could study the traditional music of the Episcopal Church. Not long after perfecting his skills on the organ, he also discovered the movies, and much to his delight, the integral part that the organ played in this then new form of entertainment.

When “talkies” ushered out the era of silent pictures, Mitchell made a successful career change to other burgeoning media. Throughout the 30s he was staff organist at various times for KMTR, KEME, KHJ and from 1940 to 1965 at KFI radio. Another contribution the church made to his musical life also included a love for choral music. He subsequently formed Mitchell Boys Choir, which provided the music for and appeared in dozens of films including Angels with Dirty Faces with James Cagney and the Christmas classic, The Bishop’s Wife.

More recently, Bob's 90th birthday was the focus of a fittingly lavish and affectionate celebration at LA’s Palace Theater hosted by actor Bill Pullman and Charlie Lustman, proprietor of the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax Avenue. The fans in attendance were treated to an episode of This Is Your Life, honoring Mitchell as well as a cameo by comedian Eddie Cantor, a regular fixture on the Orpheum Theatre circuit.

Below are some selections from Bob at the console of the Rosen Roxy 2/11 Mighty WurliTzer Theatre Pipe Organ, now 96 years young and still going strong as of 2008.

1. 
   Playing time = :, file size = .MB, bit rate = 128KB/sec.

Doc got some time on the bench following Bob Mitchell's concert at open console, which was no easy task! Doc was eager to play though, and his love of these wonderful instruments took over. Below are some selections from his performance.

1. I Could Not Love You Any More
   Playing time = 2:04, file size = 1.92MB, bit rate = 128KB/sec.
2. You Make Me Laugh Out Loud
   Playing time = 2:37, file size = 2.44MB, bit rate = 128KB/sec.
3. The Skater's Waltz
   Playing time = 3:34, file size = 3.32MB, bit rate = 128KB/sec.
4. Only A Rose - Vagabond Suite
   Playing time = 4:22, file size = 4.05MB, bit rate = 128KB/sec.
5. Remember Me
   Playing time = 2:47, file size = 2.59MB, bit rate = 128KB/sec.

These recordings were made live using a Zoom H4 digital audio recorder provided by the Founding Father of Walnut Hill Productions, Fred Willis. The recorder was placed at back of the room on a tripod. This captured the nice reverberation of the medium sized space. Once the tracks were uploaded to the computer at the Office of Operations, each was treated to the following post edit sequence:

1. Open the track in Sonic Foundry SoundForge 6.
2. Remove low frequency rumble below 20Hz to correct DC offset.
3. Normalize each channel to -3dB.
4. Run Waves Noise Reduction to eliminate any electrical noise.
5. Run Waves Click Reduction to eliminate any transient noise.
6. Run Waves Crackle Reduction to eliminate any residual noise.
7. Run Waves L3 Ultra Maximizer to make the signal broadcast ready.
8. Normalize the track to -0.3dB for maximum saturation.
9. Fade in the head and fade out the tail.
10. Add two seconds of silence at the head.
11. Save the track and open in Windows Media Encoder 9.
12. Save the file as a 128KB/sec streaming WMA file.

We have found this procedure to yield a file that streams well over most modern internet connections and plays back at the loudest possible volume with the least amount of noise with no distortion in the signal. The resulting files are good enough to burn to CD once stored on the remote computer after a download.