'Digital' Bells

[Hanako]

This is nothing interesting, but I've never seen something like this on top of a church before



They go off every weekday at 12 noon and 6 in the evening ^-^;

I hope it's not improper of me to put up a photo of outdoor speakers...I suppose it could double as an outdoor or all clear warning system ^-^;

[Trey]

We have those on the Baptist church in our town. We don't have a church with any of the "pull the rope-the bell rings" bells. I bet they do serve a double in case of a bad emergency.

[Daniel]

Yes -- an unfortunate consequence of our "quick and cheap" age. The church I grew up in had electronic bells made in 1954 by Schulmerich. Twenty-five bronze rods, about the size of chime rods in a mantel clock, were struck by tiny solenoids and amplified by guitar pickups to simulate bell sounds. A punched paper roll ran through a roll player to play hymns every afternoon at 5 PM. Amazingly, the system still works and plays the Westminster chimes every fifteen minutes, tube amp and all! My current parish in Salem has a real bell which was installed thirty years after the tower was built, but the speakers from the previous Schulmerich system are still on the roof inside a discreet, vent-like housing. I have often wondered what a laptop full of siren sounds and an amplifier could do for downtown events . . . .

All modern electronic carillons operate with digital samples or recordings from real bronze bells using hard drives or CD's, but THEY'RE STILL FAKE! When they play tunes, the melodies are simplistic, one-finger renditions and often accompanied by New-Agey "harp bells" (particularly Verdin, Maas-Rowe, and Schulmerich) which no real carillon would play. Only the electronic bells from Van Bergen actually sound like a real carillon in terms of playing style. I'd rather have one good bronze bell than any electronic system.

[SirenMadness]

We have a church nearby with electronic speakers doing Westminster, but slightly off-key. I don't know the exact church that's doing this, but I'll try to figure it out.
Also, those speakers in those pictures somewhat remind me of the three speakers on a school I knew in Germany {not the school with the E-57.} The speakers would go from one speaker, the highest tone, to the second speaker, medium tone, to, finally, the lowest-tone speaker; they would go like that in very close succession. I think this was to signal various shifts. I remember one of them has malfunctioned and was sounding for hours straight.

[Blasty]

Our community college has a couple loudspeakers on their clock tower that play the westminster chimes and number of hours. Since they're run off a different system than the clock itself, they often don't agree with each other.

[Hanako]

We have those on the Baptist church in our town. We don't have a church with any of the "pull the rope-the bell rings" bells. I bet they do serve a double in case of a bad emergency.

They could well ^-^; that actually sounds pretty cool when I think about it ^^;

Yes -- an unfortunate consequence of our "quick and cheap" age. The church I grew up in had electronic bells made in 1954 by Schulmerich. Twenty-five bronze rods, about the size of chime rods in a mantel clock, were struck by tiny solenoids and amplified by guitar pickups to simulate bell sounds. A punched paper roll ran through a roll player to play hymns every afternoon at 5 PM. Amazingly, the system still works and plays the Westminster chimes every fifteen minutes, tube amp and all! My current parish in Salem has a real bell which was installed thirty years after the tower was built, but the speakers from the previous Schulmerich system are still on the roof inside a discreet, vent-like housing. I have often wondered what a laptop full of siren sounds and an amplifier could do for downtown events . . . .

It would be very interesting to see what a laptop full of siren sounds can do at a downtown event...I wouldn't reccomend doing it as a prank though ^_^;

Electronic systems aren't for everyone. I can understand that, but call me foolish for this, I do see advantages ^^;

We have a church nearby with electronic speakers doing Westminster, but slightly off-key. I don't know the exact church that's doing this, but I'll try to figure it out.
Also, those speakers in those pictures somewhat remind me of the three speakers on a school I knew in Germany {not the school with the E-57.} The speakers would go from one speaker, the highest tone, to the second speaker, medium tone, to, finally, the lowest-tone speaker; they would go like that in very close succession. I think this was to signal various shifts. I remember one of them has malfunctioned and was sounding for hours straight.

Sounding for Hours straight?? That's crazy! The only time I've ever seen any electronic system malfunction was our Doorbell, while one of my parents was trying to fix(?) it(with a knife...not too smart in my opinion) it started letting out this horrible buzzing noise o_o

Our community college has a couple loudspeakers on their clock tower that play the westminster chimes and number of hours. Since they're run off a different system than the clock itself, they often don't agree with each other.

Erf...that bites o-o although it must be funny at times ^^;

[Chad]

Ah, the church down the street has a loudspeaker system on top. They politely share their music with the surrounding blocks all from 5AM to 10PM every day. They also double as a bell system, but other than that, they play very loud music all the time. Gets annoying after a while.

[Daniel]

If you've ever had the privilege of listening to a real carillon, especially if it is being played by hand, you would never want to hear another electronic. An automatic instrument with about 40 bells was recently installed in downtown Vancouver, Washington, and it is beautiful to listen to. Another amazing sound rarely heard here is English change ringing. This cannot be done electrically with real bells, but must be performed with a human ringer for each bell. The bells are held upside-down and swing full circle with each rope pull, stopping in the inverted position. They are sounded according to mathematical sequences and peals can last for hours. There are many ringing clubs in the UK, but English-hung bells are few and far between in North America. Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver, BC, and Westminster Abbey in Mission, BC, are the closest English rings to my location, each of which is about 8 hours away. Hanako might want to visit the cathedral on Dunsmuir Street, which rings them every Sunday morning for fifteen minutes at about 9:45 AM.

[kg4pto]

I think my church has a Maas-Rowe (sp?) carillon. It sounds very good. Before, it could be played from the organ console, but I don't think it works because the organ has a relatively old electro-pneumatic console.