Organ matters - Organs matter!

Of course there is a Wurlitzer organ in State Cinema, Kilburn; Granada, Tooting; Opera House Blackpool & of couse the one in the Tower Ballroom. So not quite the only one in Europe. There are also lots of Compton organs around including the one in the Odeon - Weston-super-mare, still in its original location and still regularly played for concerts.

One "organ" you may not have seen on YouTube playing parts of Mussorksky's Picture at an exhibition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q259PP4HdzM.

Not sure whether the action is Electric or pneumatic?

This firm made a great deal of organs in NE England. There is an entry in NPOR if you search for Blackett & Howden on the organ builders tab.

Established: 1890
Floruit: 1890-1975
Located: Newcastle upon Tyne
Trade: ob
tuning acquired by HNB 1924; remainder of business acquired by N.Church 1975

The organs were very pleasant. The firm also installed cinema organs for Comptons and even built some cinema organs on their own account (Pavilion Cinema, Stanley Co Durham)

They may have been instrumental in the development of the Diaphone when a tuner found a leaking windpipe produced a definite note.

Try this video to see what a decent  installation can sound like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44d4WqqAKnA

There's a Jeux d'org app for Android phones called Opus #1 which has Bourdon 16,8. Montre 8, Flute 4, Oktav 4, Doublette 2, Fourniture III, Trompette 8' and Cornett V

Compton's even produced an immensely heavy 88 note electronic piano in the late 1970.

By the way has anyone heard of rotary woofers for pedal notes.

see http://www.rotarywoofer.com/telarc/telarc%20carpenter%20recording.html

I regularly play a four manual Copeman-Hart organ which was originally installed in 1972 (at that time the largest electronic in Europe) and was digitised in 2003. The Bass speaker is built into a pair of huge brick chambers approximately 20 foot high. You can hear the 32' basses both reed and flue.

The other point to note is among the pedal stops are harmonics of 32' 10 2/3, 6 2/5 and 4 4/7' all correctl;y tuned (i.e. not derived from any other rank. When these are used with  reasonably loud 16 stops, a very convincing 32 reed tune is produced.

The Solo organ contains a full string chorus from 16' to mixture. ;D

Most of the Compton Melotones had the individual stops made up of differing amounts of the harmonics engraved on the rotors. This is very similar to the way that Hammond organs work and if a more or less sinusoidal set of harmonics was available engraved on the rotors a drawbar organ was feasible.

There was a very large 3 manual Compton Electone built for the Royal Festival Hall prior to the installation of the Harrison & Harrison. The specification is here
http://cdmnet.org/Julian/schemes/elec/rfh.htm

90 stops over 3 manuals