Today I found one of these electronic keyboards in a thrift store for $100. Does anyone want one of these? Is it valuable? I didn’t plug it in so I’m not sure if it works, but it LOOKS great, very vintage looking and clean. Thanks, Linda C.
I don’t think that they are, the Satellite was built into either a Wurlitzer or Hammond as well - there is a near perfect one in Toronto that has no takers at a few hundred cdn. From what I remember of them it was more of a marketing ploy to sell more organs due to having the Moog name on them but the Moog sound was very limited and almost dreadful. But this is me remembering a lot of years ago.
Thanks for your response. The one in Toronto, I believe, has 3 keyboards whereas the one I saw only had one, and not a full one either! I don’t know if it’s actualy a Satellite.
The Satellite was built in huge numbers by Thomas Organs as a “3rd Manual” on their home organs. In fact a large number of the stand alone Satellites were also made under licence by Thomas. A Moog-built Satellite is something of a rarity!!
Wurlitzers were often fitted with a (non Moog) synth called “Orbit” which was obviously a bit of a cribbed idea, and Elka/Orla organs often incorporated an Elka Solist.
The keyboard that you spotted as a single manual stand-alone was likely to have been a Satellite that was once built in to an organ. The Thomas Monticello 371 was, as gd states, a 3-manual organ. The Satellite unit would have been the bit of the organ on to which the nameplate was fitted!
It’s identifiable by having a row of buttons for pre-set sounds under the keyboard, and a series of slider controls to the left. It’s not a very versatile synth, but it is intelligently designed, and incorporates a real Moog filter for a real Moog sound. It was one of the handful of synths specifically designed (with the major controls under the keyboard at the front of the synth) to sit atop a home organ. Others included the Korg 700 series, original ARP Soloist, and Elka Solist.
$100 is about right for a stand-alone Sat, but pricey for one that has been removed from an organ. A genuine stand-alone will fetch about £120 here if they’re in very good nick, and a mate recently found a reasonable one for £50.
The only Celebrity Endorsement I can think of immediately is Mike Oldfield who used one to play the “Sailors’ Hornpipe” theme to the British Childrens’ TV show “Blue Peter” in the 1970s. I’m sure it can be heard noodling around in some of his other stuff too…
SCx