Top 20 Weirdest Instruments - The Optigan

This week it's the turn of the Optigan. The home organ that didn't actually make it into very many homes, but will forever leave it's mark on hardcore lo-fi fanatics due to it's incredible selection of scratchy loops and fills.
GForce Software's Dave Spiers gives us the lowdown on Mattel's domestic disaster.
Oh, and by the way. All the music you hear on this episode? Yep, you guessed it. It all comes from the mighty Optigan!

Simon Power

Links

• optigan.com
• GForce Software, home of the MTron and much more
• More weird stuff here

   12 Comments...  Post a comment    original story

When will GForce be releasing the virtual version?

14-Nov-08 08:42 AM

I can remember seeing one of these or maybe it was the later one (opsonar or whatever it was called) in a bric a brac shop, for 90 quid back in 1991. I thought "who the **** would use that on a record?"...

Brilliant bit of kit, and yet another instrument ripe to be turned into a virtual wonder.

14-Nov-08 03:11 PM

Well, I'm sure that Dave wouldnt mind me mentioning that there are quite a few Optigan samples in the M-Tron Pro library

14-Nov-08 03:24 PM

What a truely terrible instrument. Yet i've never seen Dave look so animated...Bless

14-Nov-08 07:22 PM

Really?!

You obviously have'nt seen him after a few at the old cantina.........;)

15-Nov-08 12:28 AM

Oh, how I miss the professor...

15-Nov-08 11:21 AM

Cool show! What I am curious about is how the fx buttons triggered those music phrases at the correct time since if I am correct the phrases are continually looping, each one on one track?

15-Nov-08 01:30 PM

Really enjoyed this one. Very funny & very informative.

15-Nov-08 04:28 PM

Aaahh... re-release please! Optigan Voyager...

17-Nov-08 01:09 AM

Brilliant piece of rubbish - wow! The radioactive head... now did that make it glow in the dark and did it also make random noises on its own? I wouldn't be surprised if it picked up some SW echo station HAH!

19-Nov-08 02:35 PM

Marc JX8P: The speed of rotation and the size of the discs insured that all of the graphic samples printed on them (actual visual representations of the waveform... like the audio track on a 16mm film) were in time with each other. There was also a little red dot on the disc which led to a little light hole which blinked in tempo!

08-Jan-09 11:29 PM

It should also be noted that this is the horrible stepchild of Daphne Oram's great Oramics machine. : )

08-Jan-09 11:30 PM

I used to have one of these! I picked it up from a st vicent de paul or salvation army store in about 1999. I later gave it to a good friend as I already had 3 other classic organs and well it was ugly as ****. I recall it being terribly heavy for what it was.

23-Jan-09 05:06 PM

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