A N E W C O N C E P T

P R E M I S E . . .

Our threefold concept is at once traditional and innovative:

First		Design organs to lead congregational and choral song and accompany solo voices

Second		Include in the designs as many resources for the performance of the organ’s solo literature as the size of the instrument will allow

Third		Treat the pipe and digital voices equally

O B S E R V A T I O N . . .

Today, we find many organs being designed primarily for “The Literature” – the vitally important body of solo organ music which has come down to us over the past 400 years – but with little or no regard for the organ’s primary role in Western culture: the leading and accompaniment of Judeo-Christian worship.

Today, we find digital organ manufacturers “expanding” their instruments with pipes, or pipe organ builders “augmenting” their instruments with digital voices. And this not for musical reasons but for marketing reasons.

Today, the buyers of digital organs are treated as second-class citizens. They are offered organs which are a collection of disparate sounds, each ‘sampled’ – that is recorded – in a sterile environment and having little or no relationship one to another. Some of the samples found in a single stoplist are taken from organs on different continents and built hundreds of years apart. They are regularly installed with little or no tonal customization, and their “tonal finishing” is often placed in the hands of relatively inexperienced salesmen or technicians who are neither organbuilders nor organists, and so is done by rote rather than with imagination and musical substance.

But what of tomorrow?

V I S I O N . . .

Tomorrow! . .. . We see - hear - a new instrument which plays music for people to listen to and sing with. It achieves this goal by utilising technology which allows the pipe and digital voices to be treated as tonal and musical equals from the very start. And by its makers treating their clients - the buyers - with due respect.

Our work in the building and tonal finishing of both digital and pipe organs over the past 30 years has led us to the conclusion that this simple approach will result in an organ more versatile and musically satisfying than its competition, no matter what its size.

Tomorrow?

This organ is no pipe dream… The technology and the will with which to build it is available here.

Today!

REALIZATION . . .

There are 4 essentials which need be addressed in order to realize the superior instrument described above:

I. Let the pipes and the digitals each do what they do best.
II. Settle for nothing less than digital voices which are as controllable as the pipes.
III. Allow the organ’s voices to sing.
IV. Use superior engineering, materials, and craftsmanship throughout the instrument.

Let’s look more closely at each of these points:

I. Let the pipes and the digitals each do what they do best.

Pipes are best, no doubt about it. However, when condensing an organ to its essentials, the pipes give superior sound quality to the primary stops of an organ, including the core Principal stops, the Mixtures, and the foundational Flutes.

Strings can easily be given to digital tone production, as can mutations and certain flutes.

Digital reeds not only sound well, but stay in tune with everything else.

II. Settle for nothing less than digital voices which are as controllable as the pipes.

This rules out any sampled sounds. Why? Consider these points regarding sampled sound:

Sampling is merely copying someone else’s successes – and failures. It does not allow the creation of new artistic and musical entities.
The attack and release transients, which impart liveliness, rhythmic impetus, and character to the sound, are part of the sample, and cannot be controlled at all, much less on a note-by-note basis.
Sampled stops include only 2-5 individual samples covering the entire 61 note keyboard. So, relatively large groups of notes will have exactly the same sound…even the untrained ear can detect this sameness, which imparts a static, boring quality to the organ.

Advanced Digital Modeling (ADM),on the other hand, provides a versatile canvas upon which to paint our sonic picture.

We are able to directly manipulate harmonics in order to create new and individual sounds.
The attack, continuing tone, and release of each note of each stop is individually controllable, as well as its bass/treble balance, volume level, and tuning.
Therefore, each individual note of every digital stop becomes a separate musical instrument, just as is each individual pipe within each rank…

III. Allow the organ’s voices to sing.

The pipes will stand on responsive chests and be fed their wind through a system of regulation which breathes like a trained vocalist. This imparts a vocal quality which allows the pipes and people to sing as one.

The digital stops’ software will incorporate routines which allow for the inclusion of random harmonics, pitch variation to emulate changes in the wind flow, and other factors which will allow these stops to attain a desirably supple, and vocal quality. This allows the pipes and the digitals to sing in chorus, never in opposition.

The digital information will be transformed into audible form by nothing less than audiophile quality speakers arranged in multiple groupings, gently driven by high-grade audio amplifiers.. This allows the pipes, digitals, and people to sing with one voice and one spirit, never in competition one with the other.

Pipes and digitals should be regulated with treble-ascendency in the manual stops, that is a gradual increase in intensity, from about middle C to the top of the keyboard. Similarly, the pedal must increase in intensity from about middle C to the bottom of the pedalboard. This basic regulating technique, which emulates the natural tonal characteristics of the human voice, insures that the inner voices of a chorale or a Fugue will always be clearly heard and the melody never obscured. This allows all the musical forces to sing together naturally and without strain.

IV. Use superior engineering, equipment and workmanship throughout the instrument.

This is of paramount importance.

The instruments must function well, must sound well, and must feel comfortable to the player. The look and feel of a fine organ can only be achieved by the use of the finest organ components.

Consoles made of real hardwood and veneers, using frame-and-panel construction. This gives a rich and elegant appearance, which will withstand decades of use.
Keyboards with wood playing surfaces, not plastic, and which conform to AGO recommendations, so that the musicians feel comfortable every time they sit down to make their music.
Control systems and their interfaces which are intuitive and flexible, and which offer the musician effortless control.
Console controls which are honest. If the console has drawknobs, they behave like traditional drawknobs and stay where you put them; if the console has luminous touches, they don’t try to make you think they are rocking tablets.

To sum it all up, we rely on two things to guide the way we build organs:

. . . the music the organs will play, and

. . . the people whom they and the music will serve.