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Mechanical Rectifiers


Nick Flowers

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There was also a mechanical "CCD" delay device for reverb in early electronic organs. 

As I understand it, a rotating arm swept over a circular bank of contacts, connected to capacitors that slowly discharged. When a key was pressed, voltage flowed through the arm and charged the cap. When the key was released, the arm read the voltage... which slowly faded down as you moved from one cap to the next. 

I'd seen a description of this a long time ago, but can't find the reference any more, so I'm not sure of the operation. Or why the organ company chose this instead of a variable RC circuit. It's possible (though highly doubtful) that the arm swept quickly enough to preserve waveforms instead of envelopes. 

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