We are prepared
to use full legal means to protect our rights under such patents against
anyone making, using or selling any infringing organs."
Given this information, and the fact that I had never encountered (or known
anyone to have encountered) an actual Chilton Talentmaker, I assumed that
Chilton had simply given in to Miner's threats and ceased and desisted production.
However, last year my friend Brian Kehew (of Moog Cookbook fame) was pawing
through the back room of an old record store in San Bernardino when he came
across it: an actual, working, production-model Chilton Talentmaker. It
came stocked with all 20 discs, owner's manual, warranty card and various
brochures. This obviously laid to rest any idea that the Talentmaker never
made it into production. It was apparently sold from a store in Covina,
CA called "Exclusively Talentmaker."
Brian let me
borrow the Talentmaker for the purpose of archiving the sounds from the
discs. The primary difference between Optigan and Talentmaker discs is that
the Talentmaker discs have Eb major and minor chords as well as true A and
E major chords!!! Three extra rings of soundtrack minus one special effect
switch make this possible. Also, Talentmaker discs use so called "triple-track"
technology, which was essentially an attempt to reduce noise. The idea is
that each soundtrack is actually 3 parallel copies of identical material,
such that the signal is amplified by a factor of 3 whereas the noise stays
at the unamplified level. This may sound good in theory, but in actuality
it doesn't really work that way. For the most part, Talentmaker discs are
just as noisy as Optigan discs. The sound quality is a little bit better,
but I have a feeling this may be more due to a narrower collimator strip.
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A more substantial
improvement over the Optigan is in the disc drive system. The Talentmaker
features a direct, belt-driven flywheel, as opposed to the more archaic
friction-based system found in the Optigan. This results in a much more
stable pitch as well as a more smoothly and quickly adjustable motor speed.
Playing the Talentmaker is a joy compared to playing an Optigan!!!
Now,
there are still many mysteries about the Talentmaker. For one thing, it
is known to have been manufactured by Galanti in Italy. Further research
revealed that Roy Chilton had done business
with the American branch of Galanti- General Electro Music- since his departure
from Optigan. However, the keyboard assembly of the Talentmaker is (apart
from the actual controls) identical to that used on the Orchestron- a machine
designed and built by Opsonar. There is at least one possible explanation
for this. An obscure memo that Mike
LeDoux
dug up for me reveals that in 1975 Opsonar was considering a deal with Chilton
which would essentially merge the Talentmaker and the Optigan. The idea
was to use the Talentmaker's improved chassis and to adapt the current library
of Optigan discs to work with the Talentmaker's somewhat-different track
layout. This merger never happened, but my best guess is that since this
was happening at the same time that R&D was underway for the Orchestron,
Opsonar probably decided to scrap Optigan altogether and transform the Talentmaker
into the Orchestron instead. So in other words, this would indicate that
the Talentmaker was the "missing link" between the Optigan and
the Orchestron.
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This guess
proved to be correct, as I later talked to Dave VanKoevering himself, who
claims that the very first Orchestrons were in fact simply converted from
existing Talentmakers! Dave also claims to have personally manufactured
the TM discs, though this seems a bit odd to me because it's an absolute
fact that Mike LeDoux made the Orchestron discs. I guess the bottom line
is that the Orchestron grew equally out of the aftermath of the Optigan
and the Talentmaker.
The discs themselves
are, for the most part, paraphrasings of the Optigan discs. While none of
them directly steal audio from the Optigan discs, many of them copy musical
material verbatim or close to verbatim. Dave VanK claims that the music
itself was recorded in Italy by musicians that frequented a night club owned
by one of the head guys at Galanti. The primary problems with the discs
are to be found in the joints and the synchronization. Many of the joints
produced loud pops, and often there are rhythmic elements which are somewhat
out-of-sync with other elements on the same disc. Still, in my opinion,
these flaws simply add to the charm!!
Enticed by
the prospect of digging up more information, I of course turned to the internet
to search for Roy Chilton. To my great surprise, I found an email address
for a Ken Chilton (Roy's brother and right-hand-man was named Ken), and
lo and behold it turned out to be the right guy!!!
Ken informed
me that Roy had passed away several years ago. Eventually Llyswen and I
got the chance to meet with Ken and his wife Mary for several hours. They
were absolutely delightful folks, and Ken had lots of great stories from
the "old days" of the organ business. Sadly, however, his involvement
with his brother's Talentmaker venture was just about nil, and he remembers
almost nothing about the machine. Frustratingly, he could not point us to
anyone who might still have one or have materials or further information.The
Talentmaker was apparently in production from 1973 to 1976. It stands to
reason that there are at least a few of them still out there. WHERE ARE
THEY HIDING???
Rob & I
have written an album's worth of songs on the Talentmaker, with some Orchestron
overdubs. This album, entitled "Exclusively Talentmaker", was
released in April 2000 and you can find more information as well as some
samples in mp3 format on this page.