The History of the Digital Organ and Samplingby Steven A. Markowitz (4-15-2020)
Throughout industries there are examples of individuals that changed the larger world. Some are
well-known, while others focused on their trade and avoided publicity. In the electronic keyboard
industry, Jerome Markowitz not only invented the first fully electronic organ, but decades later
would be responsible for the introduction of the world’s first musical instrument utilizing digital
sampling. This is a history of how vision, ingenuity and dedication, along with a willingness to takeon risk, would change the way electronic musical sounds are produced with implications far beyond
the organ market.
Digital sound is now ubiquitous, a part of all sound producing products. However, not long before
the advent of CDs and MP3, all sound was created through analog technology. Remarkably,
the roots of digital sound production emanated within the niche church organ field from a small
company located in Macungie, Pennsylvania, USA.
In 2021 it will be 50 years since the world’s first digital musical instrument was offered for sale. The
development and commercialization of this revolutionary technology is a remarkable story of oneman’s dedication to creating electronic instruments of the highest fidelity. As the son of Allen Organ
Company’s founder, Jerome Markowitz, the individual responsible for this great leap forward, I am
blessed to have been a part of this entire history.
In a sense, the impetus behind the technology that would lead to the digital organ and digital soundproduction was set in motion by United States President John F. Kennedy who in 1961 declared:“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out,of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” This bold statement was notfrom a technologist, but a visionary. The technology required to meet this ambitious goal had not yet
been developed. However, the goalpost was set with scientists and large companies determined tomeet it.
There were technological hurdles that had to be overcome before NASA could fulfill Kennedy’svision. One was the miniaturization of computers so that complex
calculations, such as telemetry,could be made by astronauts in realtime on the Apollo capsule. In 1961 a computer capable of suchcalculations weighed thousands of pounds. It had to be miniaturized
to the size of a small trashcan requiring significant advancements
in Large-Scale Integrated Circuits (LSI) technology. The American
aerospace company tasked with resolving this challenge was North
American Aviation, later to become North American Rockwell.
Because of Rockwell’s expertise in rocket technology, it was also aprime contractor for the Apollo program with thousands of employees dedicated to it. In 1966,
three years before the first American would land on the moon, Rockwell understood that America’sspending on the Apollo program would wane in a few years. To offset this inevitable revenue loss,
Rockwell’s management created a strategic plan for the company to utilize the advanced technology
it developed for the space program in commercial products. These products would then require
Rockwell’s LSI circuits and create a longer-term revenue stream. As the home organ business wasbooming in the mid-1960s, an idea spawned by one Rockwell scientist was to use digital technology

to produce organ sounds.
Since Rockwell had no organ or music expertise, it needed a joint venture with an organmanufacturer to co-develop the digital organ. The plan was that Rockwell would supply thetechnology and LSI circuits, with the organ company supplying the musical and business expertise.
Also, Rockwell, using a practice common with government contracts, expected the organ company
to pay for the development cost for a commercially viable digital organ.
After a small proof of concept project, Rockwell contacted all the major American home organmanufacturers including Hammond, Conn, and Wurlitzer proposing a joint venture. While thesecompanies were interested in the revolutionary technology, they were unwilling to invest in it until
Rockwell would create an actual working organ. Rockwell was unwilling to make this investment
and the digital organ project was on the verge of being cancelled. As a last-ditch effort to save theproject, Rockwell contacted a small organ manufacturer, Allen Organ Company.
Allen Organ Company, founded by Jerome Markowitz in 1937, had
always been on the cutting edge of analog sound technology. Whileattending Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, myfather was enamored by the sound of the pipe organ in the College’schapel. In his book, Triumphs & Trials of an Organ Builder, he stated:“The intricate patterns of sound created by the big, sustained chords
especially fascinated me.” In the early 1930s, there was only one
electric organ, the Hammond Organ. It was compact and inexpensive
compared to pipe organs, which intrigued Jerome. However, theHammond’s electro-mechanical tone generation system could only
create sounds appropriate for popular music. It could not produce
sounds required for classical or liturgical music. My father then decided
to dedicate his life to producing pipe organ sounds through electronic
tone production means.
Jerome was a self-taught electronic engineer with expertise in radio and vacuum tube technologies.
During World War II he was sent to Hawaii to work on advanced radarsystems. Prior to the War he resolved the technical problem that hindered the production of musicalsounds by electronic means, the need for stable tuning oscillators. In 1938 he was granted UnitedStates patent US2140267A for the Stable Oscillator. This technology would lead to the first fully
electronic organ and the birth of Allen Organ Company.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, Jerome introduced numerous innovations and was granted patents
that included low frequency oscillators (US2190078A), space discharge harmonic generator(US2329069A0), rotatable loud-speakers (Gyrophonic) with stationary baffle (US2491674A), circuitfor tuning oscillators (US2939359A), Chiff characteristics (US2989886A), solidifying Allen’s
leadership in analog organ technology. The Company enjoyed significant success with thousands ofanalog organ installations made worldwide.
By 1967, when Rockwell approached Allen about the joint venture, Jerome Markowitz was theworld’s premier analog tone generation engineer. As a visionary, he immediately understood therevolutionary potential of digital tone generation, later called “sampling”. He focused on thetechnology’s ability to accurately reproduce complex pipe organ waveshapes. For years Jerome
had struggled with analog technology’s limitations to create realistic organ principal stops, thefoundation sounds for classical pipe organs, but by the mid-1960s he had concluded the technology
had limitations and reached its zenith. Therefore, he was willing to radically change the Company’s
technology and direction to accomplish his tonal goals. Ironically, this would negate the need foranalog tonal engineers, his field of expertise.
In 1967, when Allen Organ Company entered the joint venture with Rockwell, Jerome bet theCompany’s future on the technology, a risky bet. To produce a commercially viable digital organ
would ultimately require 13 unique custom LSI circuits, a project so large that nothing of similar
scope had yet been attempted by any commercial company in any field. In fact, the Allen digitalorgan would be only the second commercial product to ever utilize custom LSI circuits, with the firstbeing the Sharp calculator. The technology behind these circuits was then known as MOS (Metal–oxide–semiconductor).
As a young teenager in 1967, while aware of the digital organ project, I did not understand its
significance. I started to get a vison of this by 1969 when I visited Rockwell facilities in Anaheim
and El Segundo, California with my father. This was the same week that Neil Armstrong walked
on the moon, a time of great expectation at Rockwell. I had the privilege of then being instructed
on LSI technology by Rockwell engineers, and also to see a demonstration of laser technology thecompany was also working on. I recall being schooled on Epitaxy growth, a basic process for thecreation of MOS circuits. Heady stuff for a 15-year old!
The joint venture called for Allen to invest $2 million in the digital organ’s development, a massive
amount for a company with sales of less than $8 million. After the agreement was signed, theengineering work on the digital organ would take over three years and required resolving significant
technical issues. Over a year into the digital organ’s development, significant tuning deficiencies
were discovered by Allen, an issue Rockwell did not recognize during the development. Ironically,
this was an issue Jerome’s invention had resolved 30-years earlier for analog tone-generation
technology. The project was again almost cancelled. Ultimately, this problem was resolved, but
required additional hardware and increased the engineering development time.
While advanced technology was a crucial component for developing a digital organ, technologicalartistic input was also required in the recording and processing of pipe sounds. Cohesive ensembles
made the pipe organ The King of Instruments. This was also a requirement for a successful digitalorgan. These musical-engineering tasks were the responsibility of Allen Organ Company, more
specifically my father.
Digital sampling begins with recording pipes with this information ultimately stored in the organ
for playback. Jerome spent months experimenting with different means to record organ pipes forsampling. The simplest method is to place the microphone out in the building in which the organ
is installed, distant from the pipes, and simply record from one location. This technique was foundto be unacceptable since the recordings would also include distortions caused by the building, as
well as extraneous room noises captured during the recording process that were accentuated by thehigher microphone input gains needed to capture the distant pipe sounds. Any attempt to eliminate
the unwanted noises through filtering mutated the original pipe sound. This recording technique isknown as “Wet Sampling”.
Some companies today offer “Virtual Organs” using PC tone generation and Wet Samples, arecording method that offers advantages to these suppliers. Wet Sampling is a simpler and lessexpensive process for recording pipes. In addition, Wet Samples require less processing power andtherefore allow for the use of less powerful tone generators. With Wet Samples there is little attempt(or ability) to optimize individual sounds or how they work together within ensembles. What isrecorded is what you get, including room distortions and extraneous noises. Finally, Wet Samples
include some of the original room’s acoustics that then comes in conflict with the acoustics of thebuilding in which the digital organ is ultimately installed.
To create pure pipe sounds, Jerome learned that the microphone needed to be placed very closeto each pipe, which also offered the optimal signal-to-noise ratio for the recordings. These puresounds could then be processed, as all sample sounds must be prior to being stored in a digitalorgan, without the distortions and extraneous room noises. This “DrySampling” technique, which Allen continues to use to this day, allows
the digital sounds to be individually voiced as a pipe technician needs tovoice individual pipes. This process leads to the grand ensembles foundin fine pipe organs. It is tedious work required whether the sounds areproduced from winded pipes or digital sampling. After the pipe recordings
were made, significant musical engineering work was required to preparethem for storage in the organ. In the late 1960s this necessitated the useof a large IBM mainframe computer that were rare. A financial company
in Allentown, PA, GAC (General Acceptance Corporation), allowed myfather access to their computer. These sampled sounds were then worked
on for many hours using the secret engineering model located in ourhouse. I went to sleep many nights listening to my father working on thesesounds. This work had to be nearly perfect since, at the time, all sampled sounds were encoded at
great expense in hard memories with Allen having to commit to the purchase of thousands of theseunchangeable LSI memory circuits.
After Allen introduced the world’s first digital organ in 1971 it was quickly
recognized for its tonal quality and revolutionary technology. The Allen
Digital Computer Organ would precede competing digital church organs by
more than 15 years. The invention earned Jerome Markowitz the coveted
IR-100 Award as one of 100 most significant innovations of that year. Also,
demonstrating the significance of Allen’s Digital Computer Organ is that thefirst instrument is housed at the Smithsonian Institution. This technology
brought sampled pipe organ sounds to churches worldwide, many of whom
could not afford a pipe organ.
The Allen Organ Company/North American Rockwell joint venture was not without strains. Afterthe introduction of the Allen Digital Computer Organ at the 1971 NAMM (National Associationof Music Merchants), in Chicago, Illinois, a conflict developed between the companies. To myfather’s surprise, Rockwell started to market the technology to other companies, even though theJoint Venture Agreement required Allen’s approval first. At this NAMM show Rockwell brought inapproximately twenty Yamaha engineering personnel, as well as its President, Genichi Kawakami,
for a private showing of the Allen Digital Organ. Mr. Kawakami’s reaction, which I witnessed, wasdisappointment that his engineers did not invent this technology.
In 1971 Allen’s focus was on stabilizing the digital technology and production requirements for theorgans. Rockwell’s focus was to maximize the sale of LSI circuits, which had them turn to the larger
home organ market in which Yamaha was a growing force. Rockwell pressured Jerome to allow thetechnology’s sale to Yamaha. When Jerome resisted, insisting on first focusing on the church organ
market, Rockwell, the sole source for Allen’s LSI circuits, threatened Allen’s circuits supply, whichwould have put Allen out of business. This resulted to a lengthy litigation that ultimately ended inAllen’s favor. It was during that litigation that I reviewed internal Rockwell documents that helped
offer clarity on much of this history.
By the mid-1970s Allen had resolved the technical and production challenges with the digitalorgan. Allen owned the musical instrument patents for digital sound technology and the digitalorgan dominated the church organ market. The Company then made the strategic decision tonot monopolize the technology, but instead offer patent licenses to other organ and synthesizer
manufacturers. Shortly after joining the Company full-time in 1975, one of my responsibilities
included negotiating these license agreements. We ultimately entered into agreements with most
keyboard musical instrument manufacturers, including Yamaha. Those that did not take a license
remained committed to analog technology until the patents expired in the late 1980s.
The basic Rockwell technology was utilized by Allen until 1982 withgenerational leaps made since. Allen’s latest GeniSys™ Technology
features not only advanced digital tone generation, but a user-friendly
touchscreen interface, convolution acoustics, smart phone accessibility/Wi-Fi connectivity, and 250 dynamic (changeable) high-definition voices.
In addition, through proprietary voicing software and its SoundMatrix™
Library, Allen voicers can meet the tastes and expectations of even themost demanding organist. Finally, Allen’s Stoplist Library™ allows
organists to explore different schools of organ building including
American Classic, English Cathedral, Cavaillé-Coll, Arp Schnitger,Schlicker, Aeolian-Skinner, as well as multiple theatre organ suites, at thetouch of a screen.
Thanks to my father’s dreams, vision and dedication, Allen Organ Company was the innovator forboth analog and digitally sampled organs. Jerome passed away in 1991 and I became President ofAllen a year earlier. The mission of the Company remains unchanged to this day; to bring the finest
pipe organ sounds produced electronically to churches and consumers worldwide. We also uniquely
support customers, supplying parts for organs that have been out of production for many decades.
Music and the instruments that help create it have been a significant part of humanity sincelong before the advent of digital technology. Digital technology has played a crucial role in theadvancement of man’s expression of music during the last half century. That all began with theAllen Digital Computer Organ. I am honored to have played a part in, and to have been witness to,this history.
I have been asked how the history of music technology would have been changed had Jerome
Markowitz not had the vision and ability to take on the risky co-development of the digital organ. I
am sure that would have ended the digital organ project at Rockwell without a commercial productand the advent of digital sound technology would have been delayed by years.
Throughout Allen Organ Company’s eight-decade history, it has installed some 80,000 instrumentsin over 70 countries and employed thousands of workers. This success is the result of Jerome
Markowitz’s vision, dedication to the art of organ building, and the willingness to take risk toachieve create that vision, a unique American success story.