Tuning the Voile D'amour

[Holditch]

I wonder if I can ask the advice of one of the organ builders on this site? I have just installed the first swell chest to my house pipe organ. It uses two ranks with extension to one of the ranks. The two 8ft stops are Voile D'amour and an 8ft Vox Celeste.

From my novice understanding should I tune the Voile rank slightly lower than standard pitch so it beats with the Vox Celeste or should it be tuned the same? If this is the case how much lower should it be tuned? The organ is currently tuned to standard A-440 pitch

Many thanks
Marc

[David Pinnegar]

Dear Marc

A Viole d'Amour http://www.organstops.org/v/ViolaDAmore.html should be tuned straight to pitch whilst the celeste should be tuned perhaps 1 or 2 beats per second sharp.

A celeste should always be sharp, although there are examples of flat ones whilst a Vox Angelica or Unda Maris should be flat.

Best wishes

David P

[dragonser]

Hi,
an interesting topic. I just wondered if I was correct in thinking that if a rank of pipes were tuned one or two beats per second sharp for each note then this would mean that the difference in frequency between the main rank and the Celeste would change from the bottom to the top of the rank ?
I seem to remember that this is one reason some electronic instruments don't sound quite right as they have a Celeste rank which is tuned by a constant frequency above the standard rank.

regards Peter B

[Holditch]

Thanks David,

It should be an interesting job to do! I think I will try two beats to start with

Having said that, I still need to build the solid state system for the swell first so it could be some time before I get to tuning

Best Regards
Marc