For quite a while, the Mass-Rowe Chronobell was broken and the sounds were silenced.

File Photo

The "bells" of Graham Chapel on the Hilltop Campus are ringing once again.

"We were looking at putting in some type of a carillon," said Ralph Thaman, associate vice chancellor of facilities. "A carillon requires a huge space and is also extremely expensive, well over a million dollars. And there was no way we could do that."

So, thinking the current machinery was all but unsal-vageable, Thaman and others started looking into purchasing an electronic carillon and saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.

But it turned out the original mechanism could be fixed after all.

"Rather than spend money for even a new electronic carillon, we were able to upgrade the existing (system)," Thaman said. "What we have are live, struck-metal bell rods, and they are superior to any sound produced by an electronic unit. Nothing sounds as good as authentic metal, struck live."

In the process, part of the sound machine made a 30-year leap forward in technology.

"If you can believe it, the old one had an eight-track tape player," Thaman said. "Obviously that was no good. But now, you can play a CD or you can have the bell sound, and we did it all for about $5,000.