Roland makes some good stuff. I have one of their Rodgers church organs in my home. It makes a great practice instrument.

I've got the C-180 portable organ (replaced by the C-190) and am very happy, though mostly these days I'm using it as a controller for Hauptwerk samples.

The C-30 is popular with busy harpsichordists who like the fact that they can carry it in their car and pop in for rehearsals, saving wear and tear on their acoustical instruments....sometimes even playing the concerts with the C-30.

I can help people find them, if they need help....the distribution is through some Rodgers Organ representatives, in other areas, Roland dealers have access to them...

The pricing on these is....interesting. Roland sets a Retail Price, and a Lowest Permitted Advertised Price.

They are available through Rodgers dealers, who are used to providing training and support....but also through some music stores that carry Roland, who will discount anything, including close relatives....especially in-laws...to get a sale.

After checking a bit, street price seems to about 4, which is what the last one sold for that I saw.

Wow! This thing is amazing! With the organ, you would never guess that it was coming from something like that (if you weren't looking, that is).

Will someone donate this one to our church?

http://www.organclearinghouse.com/instr/detail.php?instr=2072

If you want the harpsichord voices then it seems like a good instrument, although pricey. If for the organ, it is not recommended. An older Rodgers 525 with 2 manuals, full 32 note AGO pedal board, and 26 digitised voices sells for around $4,000, including bench, and has MIDI.

Retail price is $4,995.

Roland has shut down the online wholesalers so they can stop selling it so cheap that local cannot make a profit, making it more likely now that local dealers will actually stock them so you can play them and buy them.

It may surprise people that a piano/organ stock with inventory for you to try out makes a profit of about 6% on the average sale after all the expenses have been deducted. So when an online wholesaler sells something at 10%, knowing that they don't have to spend a penny until you order it, at which time they take your money and order it to be shipped to them and then to you, so making $200-300 on that sale is like found money.

The piano/organ store that has the instrument for you to try out has either paid for it or, worse yet and this is often the case, had to finance it so each month they are paying interest on it while still owing the full purchase amount. If it sits there of X months, it can eat up all the profit that they would have made. An harpsichords do not sell like pianos...

$4,000 is a great price, grab it before they raise it!

The bench costs more. I have a C-30 here for a development project, the bench is still in the box out in the barn, I use a straight-backed chair, more comfortable.

I do recommend the damper pedal (for the forte piano) but even more for playing the harpsichords....you can move from one registration to another back and forth...and the same with the organ stops. So it makes it very handy.

As far as the 525, it's a nice organ. However, the C-30 Rohrflóete and Principals 8' & 4', the two organ settings that can played on their own or combined, are much better sounding than the stops on the 525 due to advances in technology.

It is possible to add a used AGO pedalboard with a MIDI interface, have it fitted with a keyboard stand for the C-30 (or any digital keyboard you might have) and have a very affordable practice instrument at home. It's in my plans, especially because the C-30 fits in my VW Bug and I have been touring with it.

I am developing a package that includes all the music you need to play weddings, funerals...to go with the C-30, that includes parts for 1, 2, 3 or 4 players so owners of the C-30 (or Roland C-200, 230) can go to wedding planners, funeral directors, event planners and book themselves and whatever ensemble they want [we'd like a flute, please, and next week, how about a string quartet?] so that you become the booking agent for your own group of itinerant musicians...and being the keyboard player you are always booked, adding them as needed]

You know, when I bought that 20 oz coffee in Chattanooga this afternoon, I should have gotten decaf...

This instrument could be perfect for a TLM group meeting in tambourine country, as would be the c-200 or 230.

Anyone interested in these instruments, let me know and I can head you towards a reputable dealer....noel@frogmusic.com

Well, I don't call them pipe organs.

I call them digital-organs.

Since I can afford a digital-organ, then I can have one and sing/play music that does need one.

I call my Rodgers a good alternative to getting in the car, driving to the church, trying to schedule practice around other events, and practicing in a cold building. Does it sound like the Schantz at church? Of course not. It's a practice instrument. Why would I care if it doesn't?

Gosh! I haven't seen or even heard of Lowrey in years. They still make those?

Jackson, we are in agreement on every genuine aspect you advance, save for my intent was not meant to be clever nor seductive.
My appreciation of the physics of sound simply differs from yours. Tho' we labor in appreciably different vineyards doesn't affect those differences. And if we in CenCA could have afforded a new pipe installation, do you think I would have lobbied against that?
That answer would be just as unlikely as foregoing literature to be sung as our three manual digi Rodgers could accompany.
I feel blessed as our current pastor made that Rodgers a priority, after our late pastor personally nixed it after much fund raising, simply offering that the piano was the most suitable accompanimental instrument at worship. This was our reality.

You remain, and always have been, my semantical superior, Jackson, and I love you for that, my brother. No cat-o-nine-tails from this quarter, MJO. It is interesting for you to acknowledge that "charm" is a factor in these deliberations. I would advance that our disparate perspectives of that charm factor little towards the corporate advantage of our souls, particularly when in engaged in lifting our VOICES to the praise of the Creator of the Logos. "Ontological farce," along with all of our words and bickering, yet and still remain human faire, not revealed truth. Thank God, or we'd have to really deal with Ps.150.

In small churches a modest instrument of 3-5 ranks of pipes is often sufficient.

My college's chapel organ as a Stopped Diapason 8', Keraulophon 8' and Open Diapason 4', with a 56-note manual and 20 hitch-down pedals. You make do with a small instrument.

Even reasonably large churches do well with a 2-manual instrument of somewhere between 14 and 17 ranks of pipes. With modern direct electric action and judicious use of unification and borrowing quite excellent instruments can be made at reasonable cost.

Hey, if some insist on being purists, they shouldn't do it half-a***d. Down with Bach!

One thing I've noticed is how you can use a connected sustain pedal to switch between two sets of sounds.

So, for harpsichord literature which is played with two manuals, does this alleviate the need for a second manual?

Did you have a Hauptwerk experiment going with the C-30?

By the way, the C-30 fits into my VW Bug and now the MINI Cooper as well.

Frogman, I recall that the Taylor & Boody portative organ fit very nicely into my minivan when I took it to Blacksburg, VA for a performance of the Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine, (1610), when I sang the work with Zephyrus several years ago. Of course, it did take two of us to put it in and take it out of the minivan ... but, O, what an instrument!

Roland C-30 presentation I created while working on Playing the Invisible Notes, which traces the influence harpsichord techniques bring to the piano and organ.

I'd love to experience your gear as amplified through a less local and narrow sound window of your keyboard amp, and perhaps recorded more globally perhaps mid-congregational singing from the middle of church. If you were using (on the Handel) a choir "stop" I'd lose that and keep the string pad if you desire, just so there's less aural info to process. Nice job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewq9THM2238

This video was made initially in Germany, I believe, but the sound on the recording was not satisfactory and it was completely redone in California. Often modern video recorders can fail to adequately produce sound as well as they do video.

Will fit in VW Bug...and MINI Cooper without passenger.

Thanks for getting back and the nice demo. I've hankered after a harpsichord for years, but with a pile of harps, a hammered dulcimer, and a salterio, the last thing I needed is another instrument to tune. Definitely considering this.

very nice, ghmus.