| DECAP ORGAN JOY
Decap organ 'JOY' was built in 1989 by Frans Decap and sons in Herentals, Belgium and imported into the UK by the late David Vipan of Bourne, Lincolnshire
 Originally it was two organs, the 'Tiroler' accordion band comprising accordion, drums and electronic accompaniment and bass with trumpet synthesiser, and this is still more or less as built as the right hand half of the combined organ. The Elka electronic organ was fitted with computer programming and was intended as s stand alone intrument for use in small cafe's or hotels for musical background.
Both instruments as orignally built were designed to play 105 key ( Decap standard scale ) music programmed onto cassette tapes ( pre-midi computer system, in a real-time machine code).
David Vipan discovered that the two organs playing together made a good combination and with the assistance of Mark Waltham, the two were combined into a single instrument, with a duplicate front made to house the Elka and extension speakers added by Mark. Later a second accordion was added from another Decap organ ( Emperor ) which was later sold back to Belgium and rebuilt in a different style.
After the passing of David Vipan, the organ had several owners, notably the late 'Judy' Neech, who added various novelties to the organ to 'enhance' the organ. However, these additions were contentious and not everyone who saw the organ appreciated the additions.
Apart from the addition of dancing clowns and other dubious visual enhancements, there were five additional amplifiers , two extra keyboards and some 18 additional loudpeakers, of which most were unable to deal with the volume level of volume and were distorting badly!
A few years ago the organ was offered for sale and I bought it. Time had taken it's toll and it was not playing very well. All of the additions were removed so that the sound was restored to as it had been in the ownership of David Vipan and how it was intended to sound. Over the last few years, the organ has been throughly overhauled and a great deal of electronic repairs have been carried out by Tony Yorke.
More music was acquired for the organ thanks to the kindness of Willem Wanrooy of Tilburg, Netherlands, who had owned an organ playing from the same system which had been converted to the newer midi computer system.
Decap organ JOY is named for my late wife, Joyce Simpson, who died in 2004 after a long battke with Mulitple Sclerosis and collections are made when the organ appears to aid MS research.
 The organ still plays on the original computer system, though the original cassette tapes have been electronically cleaned and filtered to eliminate deterioration and the streamed files are now stored in real time format as mp3 files ( at 192bps) and the organ is controlled by a Samsung mp3 player which contains the whole repertoire of over 460 titles and can play tunes at random, or on demand, or in a pre-selected sequence.
The organ is now a firm favourite at all kinds of events around the North and East Midlands, where it attracts crowds who love to see the intruments actually playing and all the moving features. In addition, the toe-tapping dance music make it popular with all kinds of people, and not only those who like mechanical organs.
 Currently, the organ is awaiting a new trailer which will include sleeping space for me, to save the expense of having to keep two vehicles on the road! |
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