110 Key / 125 key Razenburg organs
Hi, I am after information on the Dance organs built Razenburg... are there any left in original condition... do they use a particular keyboard.. scales.. pictures etc... they seem have been almost forgotten Cheers

Gerard Razenberg built quite a few organs, many electronic and accordeon type dance organs, of which quite a few still remain in existance. There are two in the UK, though both have been altered top play standard music. As Gerard Razenberg was a music arranger, he was often experimenting in scales, and there are several different ones used. There is a website set up by Carla, the daughter of Gerard, which can be found at http://home.hetnet.nl/~gerard.razenberg/razenberg2.htm though most of the content is in Dutch. I hope this helps, if you need to know more, send me a PM regards Stephen Simpson

Hi, I am quite interested in these organs, there is one that comes to GDSF called "The Parrot" that is 110 key, owned by Clive Bedford I think. In the official GDSF catologue it is listed as a 110 key Razenberg Dance Organ. But the information displayed with the organ describes "This Organ was built in Amsterdam, Holland by G.Perlee, its folding card music books are made my Mr. G.Rasenberg" I can see lots of similarities to other Razenberg organs, but what is the G.Perlee connection? I listened to the organ for a while at Dorset and soon realised it has no playing pipes at all. In fact the organ sounds identical to 105 key Decap electronic organs like "Strictly Ballroom", another visitor to GDSF. This is a picture of "The Parrot" at Dorset: This is "Strictly Ballroom" an 105-key Fr. Decap, Herentals organ.

Ian, The reason for the 2 organs sounding similar is because the Parrot was converted to 105 midi I am informed. Which is a great shame

This was the 'Parrot' organ as built, you will see that there are no fancy paint jobs, nor any reference to Perlee, which is spurious anyway and dates from the time it was owned by Brian Blockley, who imported the organ. The sound module for the electronic part of the Razenberg organ in this case was by Yamaha, though Gerard Razenberg used different types of electronic organs in his organs and different scales. The 'Parrot' organ was converted to 105-109 key midi system by Mark Waltham as the music is more readily available and the digital sound module is by Roland, the same make as Decap Herentals use is their midi organs, such as 'Strictly Ballroom'. I too have used this system in various projects, but my own Decap organ uses an Elka organ. regards Stephen Simpson>