Re: M-3 Chop help

[Wim Rijnsburger <rijnsburger@ecn.nl>]

Hi Stewart,

Your idea of making the M3 a bit smaller sounds good! The
wheels make it more confortable to get from your car to the
stage and it still looks like a real vintage organ!

A couple of notes. Maybe you should mount the wheels first
on a two pieces of thick plywood so that the front wheels
extend more under the manual. Otherwise the mechanical base
could become to small and instable when you are wildly
playing on your piano. The base of my M3 is now just broad
enough, but with 4 steering wheels I doubt the stability...

Before you chop, measure the height you need for your knees.
In mine I have just enough room for my knees when I have my
legs a bit diagonally. For a comfortable sit behind the organ
it should be 5 cm more. But the M3 is now to high already for
comfortable piano playing while sitting. What I do is sitting
while playing organ and standing while playing piano. When you
make the organ lower than mine, I don't think you can sit
comfortable because of lack of knee room.

For me the most comfortable sitting position is the same as you
did in Paradiso:
- organ and piano standing apart in 90 degr on each other;
- organ left hand, piano right hand;
- organ expression pedal left, piano sustain pedal right foot.
But that is not possible in small clubs...

Try it out before you chop, Stewart. Place the piano on the M3
and make a plateau for yourself to find out the ideal height of
the organ. I used the case of my piano to find out!

If you place the wheels under the bottom, your expression pedal
becomes very high. Remember your knee length! Maybe you should
mount the wheels on 2 separate holders, mounted to the left and
right side of the organ, so that the bottom of the cabinet and your
expression pedal stays more close to the ground.

Maybe it is easier and more robust when you
- chop just above and just below the speaker;
- remove the speaker part of the housing;
- bring the remaining bottom part and the top part of the organ
  again together;
- make a free standing expression pedal, mechanically coupled via
  a brake cable, just as I did.

What do you (and others on tthe list) think?

W.

-- 
Wim Rijnsburger <rijnsburger@ecn.nl>
Netherlands Energy Research Foundation, ECN
P.O. Box 1, 1755 ZG  Petten, Holland
phone: +31 224 564097   fax: +31 224 561407