Welcome to the Past, Present and

future of

optigan

Welcome to the world of the OPTIGAN (NOT “Optigon,” “Optagon” or “Octagon!”)! In the early 70′s, Mattel devised this OPTIcal orGAN to play back the sounds of REAL instruments, encoded on celluloid discs like concentric rings of movie soundtrack. The result was pretty crappy sounding and soon forgotten by the world at large, but if this sounds to you like perfect fodder for an obsessive, almost fetishistic website, then you’re absolutely correct! Feel free to browse our copious archives to your heart’s content.

Classic & Newly Manufactured

Optigan

discs

Starting in 2008, Optigan.com in association with Robert Becker of Quilter Labs have been the only maker of NEW disc titles for the Optigan & Orchestron since the original discs were issued in the 1970s. We continue to issue new discs periodically, many featuring sounds sourced from the original Optigan master tape archives that were never utilized in the 1970s. All of our Optigan & Orchestron discs will play on the original vintage hardware instruments as well as on the brand new Panoptigon from Quilter Labs. Additionally, we have a completely new type of disc that will only play on the Panoptigon, allowing for a full 60 note chromatic scale (ie a "Super Orchestron" disc). Stay tuned for new releases in this format coming soon! For the purists, we also have a limited selection of vintage Optigan disc titles in stock.