Saturday 3 January 2015

Malmsjö A 200 / Viscount S Dakota

Finally I made it! I just found out a little more about my Unknown Malmsjö Combo Organ. God knows I have been searching for info on it, thought i tried every combination on words that could match on Google. The label on it says Malmsjö but I was pretty sure it was a rebranded Viscount so anything from the obvious "Viscount Combo Organ" to specific parts such as the "Synth Effect" has been Googled with no success. But today I found this post on Infrequent Sound a Belarusian blogg which seems to be about odd gear of any kind.

So today I found out it was called S.Dakota (not a big guess that the S stands for South). Tried to search a little more on Google after finding out. But all I found was some Italian classified ads. Guess I'll get in touch with the guys at Infrequent Sound at first. And then if you as a reader by any chance has some info on the organ don't hesitate to contact me.

During Christmas I took the opportunity to open it up to get rid of some of the noise and tune it properly.  I got it in pretty good shape although I really don't think the synth-part is working as it should.

Here's some photos of the different parts on the outside and inside.













4 comments:

  1. I have one of those. Well, I have a Viscount Intercontinental Synth Dakota (the S is for Synth, not South). I've had it from new, it was my first keyboard, bought for UKP 675 in 1977. It's not functional at the moment - I suspect the power supply caps have died - but before it stopped working I did use it on one record: 'Heart Failed' on Saint Etienne's album from 2000 'Sound of Water'. This is the first time I've seen pictures of a similar instrument on the internet - I do a search for it every year or so. Hope yours is still healthy and you manage to find a use for its, um, 'distinctive' sound.

    Best regards, Gerard Johnson (London)

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  2. Hi Gerard! Glad to hear from you. I'm familliar with the Saint Etienne song, great work there, really cool to know thats it's the Synth Dakota.
    I'm really curious to know how the synth part is supposed to sound, something might be wrong with mine, but it might as well just need some adjustments.
    Haven't found use of it in any of myrecordings yet, but when I do I'll give you a notice.
    Thanks for the info and I hope you get your piece in working condition soon.

    Best Regards Niels

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  3. Hi Niels,

    I just started to collect some info on the Synth Dakota. I also have one, in working condition, but with a 100Hz hum on the output.
    Do you have further information on this organ, e.g. schematics, that could help repairing it? I have some experience in vintage tube-amps, but not in transistor organs.
    The synth section of my Dakota also works strange. Maybe its supposed to do.

    Best Regards
    Andreas, Germany

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  4. Hi Andreas -

    In what way is it ‘strange’? The synth-effect section works with the piano/ clavichord/ spinet voice. When the red button is pressed it routes the sound through a single filter which can be high pass (HF), band pass (MF) or low pass (LF) according to the three brown buttons. The two yellow buttons engage a frequency sweep which seems to follow the amplitude of the input and can sweep either upwards or downwards. Pressing or releasing both buttons engages a more extreme sweep. The brown ‘response’ slider adjusts the distance of the sweep, the yellow ‘intensity’ slider is the Q of the filter. The three green buttons and the two green sliders apply an LFO to the cutoff frequency, but it interacts with the sweep in an slightly unpredictable way so I always found it a bit unsatisfactory.

    Because it’s really just a filter, I always had most success with it if I had the piano/clavi/spinet sliders all set high, so the input signal was as harmonically rich as possible

    I’m just about to start recapping the PSU. Wish me luck!!!

    Gerard..

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