in keyboards.

Received an LP of it played by Franz Lambert, and then heard him play it live in concert, around 1978/9

Memories of old (Where have all the years gone)



Enjoy

Bill

Bill

I built one in kit form, it was a mess, motherboards and daughter boards, on the dining room table, instructions wrong from Germany, it was a nightmare, my baptism of fire with Wersi, I do hope that you built one too. Why Wersi ever did this I will never know, people must have blown things to bits when they were building the organs, most never got finished

I also built one; it was an Alpha DX350. I had been building electronic kits for years from Heathkit and thought the Wersi was so cool. I had loads of fun building it and lucky for me it worked for me on the first "power on"; although I will say I was scared to death at the thought of it not working. Took me a minute to gather the courage to hit that button the first time.

On the whole it was a very frustrating instrument. The support was lacking and over time it developed problems which I could not get resolved through Wersi and they finally went out of business. Sort of like my experience with Ketron. I eventually sold it at a Garage Sale. That was an expensive experiment.

Al.

You were luck, some of the instruction were wrong in the translation German to UK and the colors on the resistors, lots of people had burnt finger and popping caps and glowing resistors, I remember listening to the tone generator through headsets after building it. And all those wires between the PCBs if anything went wrong you were in big trouble. Happy days it will never happen again, it was a mad idea, most organs didn't work after a while, it was down to build quality.

Al,

Have you never thought of getting a Wersi Wing not certain if you can get them in the USA, it looks good and a hell of a size touch screen. Al you must have been rich, we had to buy the kit in bits, a section at a time, and test it as you built it, there was a test for some of the kits but the big PCB there wasn't, I rememeber blowing up our first color TV set, my soldering iron had a fault and it shorted out, whilst I was building some Wersi PCBs, the spike took out the main voltage regulator in the power supply to the TV, the Reg was about £10 that was back in 1976 me thinks.

Tony

What is the name of the piece that is played right
about 2:00 minutes? It has also been used in Tyros demos.

Sam

Sam, its " ABIDE WITH ME " usually played at funerals, do you want the dots?

http://www.wikifonia.org/node/2028

Hi Tony

Didn’t get round to building a Wersi until the digital line came out, I then built an Alpha 350S (Which is still working today, although it’s had a number of different owners) and also the updates that came out for it. I also had it connected via midi to my Atari ST computer for more advanced work.

I built it using the German instructions where possible, (Electronic components are pretty standard worldwide) so as to reduce the chance of a miss translation into English.

A factory demo of the Alpha (Taken from a 7” vinyl) can be heard here

In the late 80s I built an Arcus, (Which was part of the CD line) as well as a number of updates for it, and this served well until I ditched keyboards and playing in the early 90s.

Factory Demos (Taken from a cassette) can be heard here Sound Demo and here Accompaniment Demo

Moved into computer music software in the late 90s, (Including use of VST) based in my home office area until I purchased a used Abacus in about 2003/4 which allowed me to have all my music software in one easy to use box,(Keyboard) that could be kept and played in the lounge. (This is pretty much as it is today)

Bill

Bill, I still have an old Franz Lambert cassette that blew me away when I first heard it...I knew nothing about him at that time...this would have been back in the late 70's.

I still remember he did "As Time Goes By" in 6/8 Slow Rock style.

The cassette didn't have the original jacket, and I was trying to figure out what kind of organ he was playing.

Now I have a much better idea.

Used to see ads for Wersi organ kits in Popular Science/Mechanics magazines.

Ian

I kind of admire you guys who'd take on a kit build - maybe it falls into the realm of a sort of electronic masochism. I couldnt take the headaches associated with that activity.

Anyhoo, as to what instrument first got me interested in this game it would have to be one in common with many on the forum. i.e., the B3 Hammond in the hands of one James Oscar Smith. Nearly 50 years on those old Blue Note albums still blow me away.