gear: yamaha YC-20

22May11

a few years ago i was up at the tragically hip’s bathouse studio in the village of bath near kingston, ontario working on matthew barber’s album ghost notes. one afternoon a few of us decided to take a break and visit the local music shop down the street. you would probably drive by this faceless little store without knowing it. inside, the place looked a bit like a musical yard sale and it could take some digging around to see all there was actually in the store. but if you had patience and a resourceful brain you may have some luck. i wandered through narrow pathways of piled up instruments and electronics eventually arriving at this handsome piece smiling at me.

yamaha yc-20

having been recently exploring 60s surf and lounge music i had gotten to thinking about a combo organ not unlike this one. and actually, this same model keyboard (only red) had been left behind at my old house on clinton by an old roommate. he’d picked it up at a yard sale for $25 without testing it and it spent its lifeless days in the dank basement before being tossed. i’d ended up spending a lot of time with that one with the lid off trying to figure out why it didn’t work at all. i’d sent pictures to different experts through the internet to ultimately learn that the previous owner (or someone) had cut all the wires that went to each of the keys for some strange and criminal reason. the involvement in repairing it was staggering and likely fruitless so i abandoned the project. fortunately soon after, i came across this one at loyalist music in terrific condition still with its original legs and case for $300. i snapped it up immediately.

wikipedia defines a combo organ as: “A combo organ is an electronic organ of the frequency divider type, generally produced between the early 1960s and the late 1970s. The combo organ concept, at least in the context of mass-production, is thought to have been born from the accordion, probably in Italy, as the brainchild of necessity for portable organs of simple design, mainly for use in small groups playing jazz, pop or dance music. These groups were known in the early 1960s as combos, hence the designation for this type of organ. As accordions were nicknamed “squeezebox,” combo organs were likewise often dubbed “cheesebox.”

the vox contintental (used by the doors, the animals, the monkees) or the ace-tone from or from the 1960s are more widely recognized combo organs but this one is no slouch. the yamaha yc-20 was in production in the 1970s, a time when the combo-organ sound was going out of style so they never really gained the popularity of their predecessors. nor do they now fetch the same price if you can find them. $300 is a steal compared to when i’ve seen the odd one pop up in a toronto store or on craigslist for nearly any vintage combo organ.

since acquiring it it hasn’t left the house many times. it’s maybe been out to a couple of gigs and rented out once. being as heavy as it is one of the last times i lifted it the degraded leather handle broke in my hand. fortunately i caught it before anything bad happened.

this instruments sound has been an obvious choice for my instrumental surf/rock dean’s DRAGON! recording (that i hope gets released this summer). but it has also made its way onto many varied recordings i’ve produced in the home studio. the instrument itself can have many personalities, especially when combining it with other pedals and effects like fuzz, reverb, delay or run through a leslie or a guitar amp. both dafydd hughes and marcel aucoin did some incredible work with it on the bear lake.

here is a sample of it being used in ron leary’s spooky see this through from his latest dependant arising. (it is the whistly-sounding high drone behind the baritone guitar solo).

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Tags: bathouse studio, combo organ, matthew barber, ron leary, the bear lake