The Orla Ruby incorporates its rhythm section into a two-manual organ. CroWave’s 2020 repair account documents one surviving instrument; the original introduction date remains unresolved.
Listening archive
The Ruby Orla enters the listening record.
The Planet Drum Machine catalogue gives this scarce unit a useful public afterlife: a named source in a collection built for hearing as well as cataloguing.
Open the listening archive ↗The machine in the record
Jason Booth / Ruby Orla Drums.
Jason Booth sampled the rhythm section of an Orla Ruby organ in stereo for Ruby Orla Drums. This is a preservation-and-playability story rather than a vintage session credit: a compact preset instrument rebuilt for musicians to use in new work.
Read Ruby Orla Drums ↗The beat belongs to the keyboard
The Ruby’s drummer is part of an Orla organ, within reach of the player at the lower keyboard. CroWave’s documented survivor has eight rhythm selections, tempo and level controls, and further rhythm-shaping and activation choices. Accompaniment shares the instrument with two manuals and the provision for a pedalboard: the beat is one part of a larger playing surface.
Under the panel
CroWave identifies an M254B1 rhythm-generator chip inside its specimen. When acquired, the organ was not working; the repair account follows corroded connectors and troublesome sliders through to restored operation. That gives the rhythm section a physical history, tied to a particular surviving instrument. It does not establish every Ruby revision or a factory introduction date.
A keyboard becomes a sample name
Planet Drum Machine later listed Ruby Orla among its sample categories. The short label travels more easily than the original organ: it names a source in a commercial library, while the complete instrument remains the setting for understanding its controls.
Digital Redux — Planet Drum Machine machine list ↗ Orla Ruby service-manual index ↗
On record
- Jason Booth — Ruby Orla Drums sample board. Jason Booth sampled the rhythm section of an Orla Ruby organ in stereo for his Ruby Orla Drums board, carrying the machine’s compact preset voices into modern music-production software. Source ↗
Sources
The visual archive
Further visual evidence.
Sources for images shown earlier (1)
Additional visual sources (2)
Original publications and related image sources.
- Planet Drum Machine — machine-named demonstration catalogue ↗
1 November 2011 release metadata · Kalamazoo Public Library catalogue / Digital Redux metadata · Downstream Ruby Orla label - Elektronika CroWave — Orla Ruby organ inspection ↗
11 May 2020 · Elektronika CroWave · Ruby organ exterior, controls and internal-module photographs