Compton Melotone

The Melotone samples will be available in three different Hauptwerk sample sets. The first sample set is this Melotone (and Tibia bass) stand-alone set, and will be of interest for Compton installations where a real Melotone is no longer extant or serviceable.

Melotones are an early form of electronic organ, and were fitted to some Compton Organs from 1935 until 1939. 74 units are known to have been installed (The Cinema Organ Society).

A Melotone uses a rotating disc to generate tones electrostatically. The basic timbre is a modified sine wave, available using the conventional organ relay system, at selected pitches (usually 8′, 4′, 2 2/3′ and 2′). It is typically available on the Solo manual. Derived mixtures are also sometimes available (adding sounds approximating the Krummhorn, Musette and Carillon), and a vibrato and extended echo control.

The sound integrates well into the overall organ ensemble, and no doubt created a sensation when first introduced. They were a valuable additional resource on small organs, for example the ABC 3m/6r and minimalist Ritz 3m/4r organs. Notable installations included the Paramount Tottenham Court Road (with Al Bollington), Forum Southampton (with Reginald Porter-Brown) and, perhaps best of all, ABC Plymouth where Dudley Savage used the Melotone right to the end of his live ‘As Prescribed’ broadcasts in the 1970’s.

Post-war, Comptons further developed the same electrostatic tone generation principles for their pipeless instruments.

Hauptwerk Notes:

Samples recorded and Melotone pictures by John Leeming. Sample processing and noise reduction by Graham Goode and Olivia Nagioff. Graphics and Hauptwerk programming by Olivia Nagioff.

We are very grateful to David Shepherd for allowing this Melotone to be sampled and for technical information about its operation.

On a real organ, four of the Melotone stops use a bass octave supplied by pipes from the Tibia rank. To simplify the task of coupling this sample set to a real pipe organ, we include an octave of the Wyton House Tibia, to avoid the need for extensive modifications to the pipe organ. If this octave is not required, Hauptwerk can be configured not to load the Wyton House Tibia octave.

The Melotone was played from the Solo manual, which generally had octave and suboctave couplers. Again as a convenience, the sample set provides these couplers. Controlling the Hauptwerk couplers from the coupler tabs on the console may be easier than alternative modifications to the organ.

Some Melotone horns spoke directly into an auditorium and some were in organ chambers. The sample set provides an ‘enclosure’ for the Melotone, which can be linked to an expression pedal on the console, again as a convenience. The ‘shutters’ are always open when the sample set is loaded.