Hugh Robert Banton (born 1948, is a British organist and organ builder, most widely known for his work with the group Van der Graaf Generator in the 1970s. 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... An organ is the following: In anatomy, an organ is a group of tissues which perform some function. ... Van der Graaf Generator were a seminal 1970s English progressive rock band. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...

Career

Banton trained as an audio engineer at the BBC before joining Van der Graaf Generator in May 1968. In peformance with this group he played Farfisa and Hammond organs, adding a wide range of effects including phasing, tape echo, distortion and overdrive. He later modified a Hammond E112 organ to allow separate amplification, with different effects, of the output from the two keyboards and pedalboard, and added a remote reverb unit. He also played piano and bass guitar on recordings. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the largest publicly-funded radio and television broadcasting corporation of the United Kingdom (see British television). ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Farfisa is a brand name for a series of electric organs, and later multitimbral keyboards, made in Italy. ... Hammond is a family name that has also been given to several places in the United States of America and elsewhere. ... Pedalboard is the name of a large keyboard at the base of an electronic or pipe organ console that the organist plays with her feet. ... When sound is produced in an enclosed space multiple reflections build up and blend together creating reverberation or reverb. ... A grand piano A piano is a musical instrument which is classified as a keyboard, percussion or string instrument, depending on the system of classification used. ... Martin EB18 Bass Guitar in flight case The electric bass guitar (also called an electric bass, or simply a bass) is an electric string instrument similar in appearance to an electric guitar, but with a larger body, commonly four strings, a longer scale neck and tuned an octave lower in...

In 1975 he began building a custom organ based on a Hammond but with added electronic oscillators to closely approximate a full pipe organ sound, with bass notes down to 16Hz played through 24-inch subwoofers. Cross-section of a subwoofer. ...

Banton left Van der Graaf Generator at the end of 1976 to work on the development, design and installation of electronic church organs for the Makins company in Oldham, Lancashire. In 1991 he set up The Organ Workshop, at Lymm in Cheshire. His organs use individually generated waveforms to emulate the sound of given organ stops; they often incorporate these custom-designed electronic generators with existing ranks of pipes, and can be played from MIDI files as well as by a player at the traditional console. Location within the British Isles Mumps Bridge, Oldham Backwoods of Delph, Oldham Oldham is a large town in North West England, lying in the foothills of the Pennines on the north-eastern edge of the Greater Manchester conurbation: the town proper has a population of 103,544, including a large... Lancashire is a county and duchy palatine in the North of England, bounded to the west by the Irish Sea. ... Location within the British Isles Lymm (pronounced Lim) is a large village and civil parish in the county of Cheshire, in north west England. ... Cheshire (or archaically the County of Chester) is a palatine county in North West England. ... Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ...

He has continued to contribute to recordings by former members of Van der Graaf Generator, and a reunion of the group in 2005. 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Discography

Solo

• J.S. Bach - The Goldberg Variations (2003)

Van der Graaf Generator

• Aerosol Grey Machine (1969)
• The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other (1970)
• H to He Who Am The Only One (1970)
• Pawn Hearts (1971)
• Godbluff (1975)
• Still Life (1976)
• World Record (1976)
• Time Vaults (1982)
• Now and Then (1988)
• Maida Vale (1994)
• Present (2005)

Pawn Hearts is an album by Van der Graaf Generator. ... Godbluff is an album by Van der Graaf Generator. ...

Other Collaborations

• Fool's Mate (Peter Hammill) (1971)
• Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night (Peter Hammill) (1973)
• The Long Hello (Hugh Banton, Guy Evans, David Jackson, Nick Potter) (1973)
• The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (Peter Hammill) (1974)
• Nadir's Big Chance (Peter Hammill) (1975)
• Skin (Peter Hammill) (1985)
• Everyone You Hold (Peter Hammill) (1997)
• The Union Chapel Concert (Guy Evans, Peter Hammill) (1997)
• Curly's Airships (Chris Judge Smith) (2000)

Fools mate is the quickest possible checkmate in the game of chess. ... Image:Peter Hammill in Moscow 1998s. ... Image:Peter Hammill in Moscow 1998s. ... Guy Evans is a British progressive rock percussionist and composer, and a member of Van der Graaf Generator. ... David Jackson (?? - July 13, 2001) was the life partner of poet James Merrill (1926-1995). ... Image:Peter Hammill in Moscow 1998s. ... Image:Peter Hammill in Moscow 1998s. ... Image:Peter Hammill in Moscow 1998s. ... Image:Peter Hammill in Moscow 1998s. ... Guy Evans is a British progressive rock percussionist and composer, and a member of Van der Graaf Generator. ... Image:Peter Hammill in Moscow 1998s. ... Christopher John Judge Smith (born 1948 in England), is a songwriter, composer and performer, and a founder member of progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. ...

External links

• The Organ Workshop
• interview by Tim Locke at Van der Graaf Generator fan site