bombarde32

Absolutely - turning up with a pre-voiced organ (or one which subtle voicing cannot be carried out effectively) and a few speaker cabinets of varying sizes plonked on the floor just isn't going to do it, really. In a Wyvern church installation, 15/30% of the cost IS the installation!

I praise Tony and his team to the hills. Many times I have had to fetch up at a church to play for a funeral/concert/wedding etc. and I have been ever grateful with the information on NPOR. Especially as often, a phone call to the establishment concerned often reveals a comment like "we have an ORGAN? - really, do we?"

Some of these modern gadgets are such a pain.......like the auto wipers on my Audi. Grrrrrrr.

More really great photos! Isn't technology wonderful, and to think that when this organ is finished, there will be a fantastic timeline of it from the very birth of the project, meticulously laid out for all to see. Thank you very much!

What are your feelings on the Reiger in Christ Church Cathedral? Am interested as my 8 year old Son is going there as a chorister in September. I will probably be hearing it a lot!!

................All together now: "There's Bombardes on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow; There's Bombardes on the starboard bow, starboard bow, push 'em in, Captain!" ............back to my bunker, sorry!

Wonderful pictures - thank you very much!

Me too! The Westminster Contra Bombarde is a real snorter!

I quite often have to play a Walker organ for weddings and funerals (1845ish) which has an odd pedalboard compass of CCC-d (27 notes!) As far as I can remember, I have not met another English organ with this pedalboard compass.

What seems to work quite well for me is: For the note Treble C, play the following five notes: E below, Treble C, G above, C above, and F above that. For the next note (D for instance) play: F# below, Treble D, A above, D above that, and G above that. To simulate a Carillon effect, use the same notes, but substitute the lowest note for an E flat (for a C bell) and an F natural for the next note up etc.

I prefer my women dirty, thank you very much!

The fame of which has gone out all over the land! Colin, I should very much like to come and see it. Regularly play in Winch. on Sundays.

I think that Rogers started to produce hybrid instruments in the 1970's It might raise your ire, but try telling that to the young mother whose baby has just crapped itself in church because there are no toilets or changing facilities within the building. A pipe organ V Digital debate is just not going to cut it with her, me thinks. When it comes to a new roof/heating system/toilet facilities etc.etc, a digital organ is going to win every time. Sad, but true. In Scotland, 3-4 pipe organs are being replaced by digitals every month.

Definitely, yes. When the heating is on and the weather is cold and dry, an organ generally needs all the humidification it can get, even more so if it is in an elevated position, slowly being cooked to death.

I would agree with this in that since I have been married, we have gone through 3 toasters, but only one (er!) organ.

Rubbish!

I had a look at this, but has anyone seen the placement of the chair at about 25 seconds into the clip? Hell's Bells - you wouldn't catch me sitting there!! EEK!

My theatre organ teacher, the late Reginal Porter-Brown had almost no sight towards the end of his long and distinguished career. .....didn't seem to worry him one bit. He could whizz his way around the 137 stop classical console at the Guildhall Southampton with no trouble at all. He also had little trouble with the Theatre console there too - it has 240 odd tabs!!

The trouble with trying to record low freqencies with a small 'single point in space' device is not always the small mics, but that you quite often get the 'one note boom' in smaller venues. You know the kind of thing when the person 10 feet away from you says 'listen to that glorious 32' purr', and you can't hear a blessed thing! Seperate microphones can obviously go some way to alleviate this, if they are carefully placed.

I'll ask him next week - He is conducting a Duruflé Req. with me as accompanist.

'Twas Conn, for sure, and titter all you like about the name, some of the larger ones were very good indeed, like the 580 and the 650, 651 and 652. The thing that made them quite different was that they had some degree of independent tone generation. Their first instrument was made in 1947 and by 1979 the company (well, the organ side of things anyway) had breathed its last. The large model with two leslie cabinets on it and four straight cabinets could produce a very good theatre organ sound, and made the Hammond look (and sound) poor by comparison.

I 'did' the Widor (op36) a couple of years ago in Swindon with a 120 strong choir at a large Catholic Church. My pal Simon Bertram was orgue 1 (pipe organ)and I was orgue 2 (imported digital organ with 2200 watts of audio :eek: The performance was quite an event and we also performed the Langlais Equisse Gothique (duet) as well. Fair blew the roof off, it did!

............and presumably earing a damn site more dosh, I wouldn't wonder!