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Mattel Optigan

Description : Organ type keyboard with autokomp rythms and accompaniement all stored on 12” optical celluloid discs.

Production period : 1970-1976

Numbers made : 10 000

Keys : Need to check.

Used by : Optigannally yours, Blur, Tom Waits, Steve Hackett, Steve Fisk, Freddie Wadling, Celestine, AK-momo, Nanook of the North, Pineforest Crunch, Mitchell Froom, Elvis Costello, Aimee Mann, Rufus Wainright, Neil Finn, Jon Brion, The Clash, Sparklehorse.

"The Optigan Music Maker. The most revolutionary musical instrument ever.
Because it's EVERY musical instrument. And every combination.
You've never heard anything like it because there's never been anything like it.
And you have all the talent you need in your little finger to play the OPTIGAN.
The "soul" of the OPTIGAN is the Music Program Disc.
Organs try to mimic or imitate different musical sounds.
But with the OPTIGAN you actually play the real sounds of pianos, banjos, guitars,
marimbas, drums and dozens more. The sounds are on the Programs.
You choose the sounds you want -to play the songs you want- on our piano-style keyboard
and left-hand accompaniment panel. And you choose from Classic guitar to old time Banjo Sing-Along to Nashville Country to Rock and Roll. It all depends on the Program and there's a Program for every musical taste."

- From the Optigan users manuals

Description : When I first heard about the Optigan in 2000 I went complete nuts. It was just at the start of my drummachine hunting days. I had bought the Mellotron a while back and started to form the idea of a studio and then I stumbled across Pea Hicks homepage and it completely blew me away. The Optigan was to become my new holy grail. Lo-fi drumloops and accompaniement, weird cheesy organs and everything stored on optical discs...It doesn´t get much better.

A couple of months later I picked up a copy of the brilliant band Optigannally yours first CD ( Great pop tunes played almost solely on Optigan ) and was hooked. My quest for an Optigan had started. I remember sitting at an airport in Oregon with Pineforest Crunch listening to the album on headphones and being completely floored.

The Optigan looks very much like your average homeorgan with chord buttons on the left side of the keyboard but with a big difference. The sounds for the Optigan are stored on round optical discs a bit like those flimsy flexidiscs you got with some of the pop magazines in the eighties. On these discs you will hear the scratchiest organs and the weirdest autokomp stuff you have ever heard due to the simple fact that it isn´t machinemade but actual recordings of real musicians playing. So for instance if you use the disc Nashville Country you will hear a real band playing the chords in a Nashville country style. The solosounds are usually different types of organs.

One very odd Optigan user is former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. This is what he had to say about the Optigan in an interview with Pea Hicks at Optigan.com

I wrote a track with Pete Hicks called 'Sentimental Institution' which appeared on my 1980 'Defector' album featuring the 'big band sound.' We recorded the Optigan in the gents lavatory at Wessex Studios in North London to get that authentic, dodgy, 1940's sound and recreate an era when the music business was still in diapers. We used to play this live with '40's lighting - ie uplit curtains (a la 'cinema of the period') plus art deco table lamps and a mirrorball - thus the audience was catapulted back in time to an era of crooners and bobbysoxers... It went down a storm every night - people definitely appreciated the humour. I used the Optigan for odd other numbers live but it came into its own as a deliberately non hi-fi send up - a kind of flexible record player with options on whichever chord you preferred - an arrangers dream! Totally convincing

Oddly enough I got my hands on a Orchestron ( a professional version of the Optigan, for more info check out www.roth-handle.nu/instruments/replay_vako_orchestron.html ) before I got an Optigan. So for me it was with great hesitation and lot of tension when I for the first time turned on my Optigan in a small village in southern Germany and was very pleasantly surprised. A lot of people seem to have fidelity issues with the Optigan….I love it. I love every crackle and weird snap that comes out of it.

Also one should remeber that it was made by the people who gave us Barbie so the quality of the actual instrument is the worst ever so it isn´t impossible to get a hold of one cheap at a fleamarket or so but the problem that are often really beat up and even when they work that have a very beat up feel to them.

So I guess it is hardly surprising to hear that I have used it quite a bit since I got it. One day I´ll get around to do a complete listing of which tracks and what discs are used. But that will be on a real slow day. There is some Optigan on almost every recording I do because it adds so much character to a track almost even more than the Mellotron and I prefer to use the Optigans Organsound than having to work hard at getting my ” good ” organs to sound scratchy and weird.

In 2003 I recorded an entire albums worth of material on the Optigan, Mellotron and Orchestron. The band is called AK-momo ( www.roth-handle.nu/bands_akmomo.htm and we have released one album called Return to N.Y. It is available from Exergy music and Parasol.

Foto: David Lundberg