Edward G.
Thomas founded the Thomas Organ Company in 1875. Their first
instruments were pipe organs and they later manufactured reed organs
as well. Thomas George invented the Thomas electronic organ after
having been involved with previous organ developments. In 1956, with
the financial backing of Joe Benaron, he reorganized the Thomas Organ
Company, headquartered in Sepulveda, California. Joe Benaron was the
president of the company for many years.
The first Thomas organs had one manual and about ten stops. These
stops were dial controls and operated just like the volume control on
a television set. One model of this type was the Talking Organ and had
a built-in phonograph, which used records for lessons and was called
the “Built-In Teacher”. These early models used a shared-generator
system, which utilized one generator for every two adjacent notes.
Soon, this clumsy system was abandoned
and Thomas went to master oscillators. Two-manual and pedal models
with a larger number of stop dials were introduced and the dials
eventually gave way to conventional stops with a minimum of dials for
less important functions, that is, vibrato depth and speed, pedal
volume, repeat percussion speed and manual balance.
The organs of the 1950s were huge monstrosities and the public loved
massive furniture then. Thomas was built as a home organ, and indeed,
this was their largest market. They were the first to develop the
“streamlined” console, which was more attractive for home use.
In 1966, Whirlpool purchased the Thomas Organ Company.
Thomas went to
transistors in a hurry. Because of the room inside the console this
saved, more features were developed that put Thomas into a position of
eminence. They introduced several features that became standard in the
industry. The most important of these was Repeat Percussion, which
could be played from either or both manuals. This had great appeal to
the organ customer as now one could produce the sounds of a banjo,
marimba, mandolin and a
host of others automatically. This made its way into all other home
and entertainment organs. Another famous feature was Vibra-Magic. When
this stop was activated, vibrato was withheld on short notes, but when
a note was held longer, vibrato was added gradually to whatever
vibrato setting the organist selected. It bore an uncanny resemblance
to a violin being played. Other companies followed with Delayed
Vibrato. In today’s modern instruments, it is built directly
into the stops and is no longer available on a separate control.
Thomas also included a trigger-attack percussion and a sustain system
for virtually any percussion effect. The built-in Leslie speaker added
great richness and depth to the tinny, poorly filtered sounds of the
organ.
A unique feature of the Thomas spinets was their 13-note pedalboard,
which was arced inward to simulate console pedals. They were too small
for heel and toe playing and they were only one octave. The Concert
Serenade and the Lawrence Welk had two 44-note manuals and 25 short
pedals.
There was one area of the market that Thomas cornered. They made a
successful line of small, inexpensive spinets perfectly geared for
home use. The manuals had 37-notes and there were 13 pedals with about
a dozen stops and a few dial controls. These “baby” organs had attack
percussion, repeat and a Leslie speaker. Not a bad deal for $500.00 in
the 1960s! These organs were found in homes and apartments and
purchased by parents who wanted to see if the children were interested
in playing it. If they were, a trade-in for a better instrument could
be made and if there was no interest, not much money was lost.
Thomas manufactured several smaller models of the Thomas organ in kit
form. These proved very popular as the price was lower because the
customer assembled it himself. Thomas also manufactured organs under
the name Silvertone.
In the 1960s, the Thomas Organ Company was the importer of Vox combo
organs from Italy. This brand of instrument was used by many rock and
roll groups, most notably, the Beatles. The Vox Continental was a very
popular model. The Thomas Organ Company bought the manufacture rights
to the Moog synthesizer. Professional entertainers bought many of
these. Thomas produced an organ using the Moog name utilizing the
synthesizer. They also produced Thomas Organ Model 1265 Cameo Supreme,
370 Monticello and 871 Celebrity Royale , which included a built-in
Moog synthesizer incorporated into the upper manual with its own
division of stops.
The Thomas organ was manufactured with an abundance of features. Many
households owned them and they were fun to play. The tone was not
acceptable to professionals but the features kept the general public
buying them. The instruments were cheaply built.
Another innovation during its heyday was Color-Glo, an instructional
system which illuminated the keys of the manuals (and therefore their
corresponding notes in reverse relief) from behind with fluorescent
lights. The lower manual had black, green, and red colored bands
behind the notes necessary to play a second-inversion C, a
first-inversion F and a root-position G. The C, F and G pedals had
colored bands across their tips corresponding to the chords. The idea
was that a rank beginner could create music simply by following the
very simple music books that featured lettered noteheads and color-coded
chords. "Matching the colors" was sufficient to play full-sounding
four-voice chords.
Thomas's three-volume course Color-Glo Plus: A Sound For Everyone
introduced "three simple rules" that allowed for more chords, by
changing the pedal notes and/or specifying a manual note to raise or
lower. The chord's letter name indicated the pedal to play, while as
before, the color-coding specified the basic C, F, or G chord shape on
the lower manual. Note name stickers were provided for the pedals.
These extended rules allowed for chords such as (black) Am7, +A7, and
−Cm; (green) Dm7, +D7, and −Fm; and (red) Em7, +E7, and -Gm. The
height of any + or - before the chord symbol showed which note to
raise or lower.
In 1979, Thomas Organ Company was one of the first big organ companies
to go out of business. It vanished as a corporate entity. In 1997, the
Thomas Organ Company was again reorganized using digital technology,
with Bob Ralston on the Board of directors.
By Frank Pugno |
