Modding an Old Electric Organ

Yesterday at the local junk store I found one of these-

(not my picture). It's an Orcana electric organ, which I believe is sort of like a Canadian knockoff of Hammond organs. It has two main sounds ("flute" & "strings", neither of which sound at all like the actual instrument & are much better off because of that), a vibrato switch, & chord buttons. The volume knob is iffy, there's noticeable detune over time, & an occasional unexpected blip of electrical noise. So pretty much exactly what one would want in a 40 year old electric organ.

Only problem, though, is that there is no CV input (figured as much when I saw it) & no audio output other than the internal speakers. Now, playing live & recording with mics definitely has it's place, but for firing out some quick demo tracks I usually prefer sequencing & line-ins. I'm wondering if it might be possible to wire these things into the organ without turning it into nothing more than a very large lamp stand. Any of you guys ever try something like this?

i'm in line to inherit one of those old dual console furniture organs from a mates parents... the bass pedal synth in it is fucking immense. fortunately it has a headphones out, and alo i can play without the need for a sequencer.

i intend to circuit bend the shit out of the boards attached to the two keyboards tho.

good times.

Indeed the bass pedals on those old organs are amazing. I bought a '69 Wurlitzer for around 40 bucks off of eBay in 2004, it has a headphone jack as well. I wouldn't know the first thing about modding it, but it would be interesting to see.

Some kind of output should be easy to fit, you could even fit a jack in series with the speaker inside if you're not worried about the output level or power.

A CV input meanwhile is much harder as these old organs work off keyboard matrices and you can't simply solder in a jack to a pitch point on the circuit boards. However, there are circuit boards which will convert MIDI or CV to a keyboard matrix style output. If you don't have any experience with electronics however, I'd either give this to someone else to do or teach yourself to a good level before you attempt it yourself.

I've got an old electric organ in my garage which I recently opened up to have a poke around in. I'm adding a printer socket to the rhythm board over the summer so I can alter the rhythm presets using my phono patchbay I built for my circuit bent TR505. Printer sockets ftw.

^I do have some electronic knowledge, but I find I do better at building things from the ground up than at modding. I don't know much about organs, so I should probably do some reading up on the subject before I go hacking one open.

try to find the schematics or service manual or service guide or servicing guide...

so much easier when you can see a diagram of the circuit design