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Console Design For St. Peter's, Vatican


Guest Lee Blick

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This photograph sums up the vulgarity of it all I think. 

 

http://www.davidhegarty.com/images/photos/041107-Harrah2.jpg

 

-Well possibly but I would be quite interested to learn how the photographic effect was obtained assuming it was obtained at the stage of recording the image rather than as a result of using photoshop or some other image editing program. The console appears to me -and perhaps I need to upgrade my spectacles - to have conventional drawstops, but perhaps they look conventional but operate in a similar fashion to the Compton luminous touch type console which once graced Hull City Hall and is still to be found at Downside. Simply drawing conventional drawstops in that D H pattern would not lead to the effect seen in the photograph without the intervention of additional lighting but I am at a loss to explain how you could light to produce that effect. Perhaps it is just simply photoshop and the "eye dropper" ? Anyone actually know how it could have been done.

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Simply drawing conventional drawstops in that D H pattern would not lead to the effect seen in the photograph without the intervention of additional lighting but I am at a loss to explain how you could light to produce that effect.

 

Looks to me like they are illuminated drawstops, which I've seen on quite a few organs, usually toasters. I'm 99% certain that that is the case and that it's not Photoshopped.

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Greetings,

 

Good grief, I didn't even notice the DH pattern thing. I'm affraid I don't have much interest in such things; I wonder how much of it will still be working and how much will have returned to its natural state in fifty years.

 

- Nathan, unapologetic tubular-pneumaticist and pipe-onlyist

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Illuminated drawstops! OMG! Proof, if ever it were needed, of the brainless "size matters" mentality.

 

 

Greetings,

 

I have played an illuminated-drawknob console once; which was spudged onto a perfectly nice Kilgen instrument.... It was the most irritating experience I can imagine, totally distracting, and absolutely unnatural.

 

- Nathan - Neo-luddite of the pipe organ

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I have illiminated drawstops and thumb/toe pistons on my organ at home.  I like them  :rolleyes:

 

Greetings,

 

I should qualify my rant about illuminated knobs with a reason. To me, a knob being illuminated or not doesn't seem to have the same effect of an actual drawknob pulled out or pushed in. When I was playing and looking to change registrations on-the-fly, I found myself looking at the lights and thinking "okay, now what do I do". I found the rocker tablets to be particularly annoying in this regard. There's just something obvious about seing a knob stick out in the corner of my eye that is more intuitive.

 

Best,

 

Nathan

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There's just something obvious about seing a knob stick out in the corner of my eye that is more intuitive.
I totally agree. To my mind it's the obviousness that makes it intuitive. You just can't beat stop knobs that draw. Lights are never going to be as obvious as a physical protruberance (especially if the sun is shining on them!) and stop keys are always too close together - you loose nanoseconds making sure your aiming for the right one.
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Lights are never going to be as obvious as a physical protruberance (especially if the sun is shining on them!) and stop keys are always too close together - you loose nanoseconds making sure your aiming for the right one.

 

========================

 

 

Ah! There is a hidden advantage to illuminated stops if you care to read something in the quieter moments.

 

If it's a bit gloomy, you press general piston 10....voila....floodlighting!

 

JUST DON'T DROP THE BOOK!!!!

 

:rolleyes:

 

MM

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Guest Lee Blick
There's just something obvious about seing a knob stick out in the corner of my eye that is more intuitive.

 

Yes, there is that advantage, if you are into that sort of thing :rolleyes:

 

Whether it is drawstop traditional or light up drawstop, as long as it is drawstop and not boring stop tabs then that is fine with me.

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Greetings,

 

    Well, if we are going to go with illuminated drawknobs I think we should program them to make funny animations; plus program the solid state to provide a whac-a-mole-type game where you have to try and push the random illuminated knobs in as fast as possible.

 

    Best,

 

          Nathan

 

======================

 

:blink:

 

MM

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