Pipedreams

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

I guess that many of us have, at one time or another, sat down with a blank piece of paper and tried to come up with our ideal stop list.  Often these efforts end up being rather too large to be practical - at least in the UK.

I've opened this topic as a place to post stop lists of such dream organs and discuss their relevant merits - bearing in mind that the paper specification is never going to be the whole story.

I tend to try and think up minimum-size organs, so here's a stop list to get things under way:-

Great
Open Diapason 8
Stopped Diapason 8
Principal 4

Swell (enclosed)
Gamba 8
Flute 4
Fifteenth 2

Pedal Bourdon  16

What would you do within the confines of 6 manual stops?

Every Blessing

Tony

[Holditch]

My house organ is developing into quite a musical little instrument, so maybe my pipe dream is becoming a reality? Ultimately I would like to end up with the following (trying to stick to Tony's six ranks (Yes I am cheating as some of the stops are unified!)

Great

8 – Clarabella
8 – Dulciana (the Holditch rank is quite broad, so this is half to being an open diapason
4 – Waldflote
2 2/3 – Twelfth
2 – Fifteenth

Swell – Enclosed

16 – Lieblich Gedackt *
8 – Stopped diapason *
8 – Voile damour
8 – Vox Celeste
4 – Dulcet
2 – Piccolo
8 – Clarinet *

Pedal

16 – Bourdon *
16 – Echo Bourdon *
8 – Bass flute *

* means ranks not installed yet or that electronic generation is in use

I know there has been talk of the unsuitability of 2ft stops for house organs and whilst I do not use the twelfth and fifteenth all the time, it does add a certain tutti when required which in my opinion makes up for the lack of reed ranks when aiming for full organ.

Marc

[Barrie Davis]

The little Willis at Clive Shropshire takes some beating as well.

Barrie

[KB7DQH]

This would certainly qualify as a "minimum" stoplist ;D

*  Gedeckt 8'
    * Principal 4'
    * Quinte 2-2/3'
    * Octave 2'
    * Tierce 1-3/5' from Middle C

This is from the Forest Hills Middle School Students Opus 1...  A single manual portable tracker-action
instrument... Still under construction...

Seehttp://www.organmatters.co.uk/index.php?topic=594.msg2610#new
for details...

Eric
KB7DQH

[Colin Pykett]

It's an area where today's virtual pipe organs can play a part if one is so inclined.  Instead of just sketching out a stop list on paper, one can actually try it out on a VPO.  Although not unique in this respect, my Prog Organ system allows one to do this quite simply just by writing a different 'configuration file' (a text file) corresponding to the desired stop list.  The file associates each stop control on the console (drawstop or stop key) with the desired sounds which exist in a large pool of sampled waveforms, and hey presto, off you go.   You could use this method to actually test the result (to some extent) in the building which ultimately will house a pipe organ with the final stop list arrived at as a result of these trials.  At the same time you could do various regulation and voicing experiments which could give pointers to the voicer of the yet-to-exist pipe organ.  If pipe organ builders invested in some sort of VPO, they might find the technique useful to reduce the uncertainties in building a pipe organ in a given building.

I have discussed this in a lot more detail in an article on my website at:

http://www.pykett.org.uk/digitalaidstovoicing.htm

I've since had quite a lot of email correspondence with organ builders about this proposal, most of whom seemed genuinely interested in it.  However whether any of them have actually gone as far as trying it out, I don't know.  It would represent a significant overhead for them until they had acquired a suitable system and gained experience in its use, so I can quite understand that the problems of running their business profitably will often take precedence over ideas which might sound nice in theory!

But going back to Tony's original post, I'm strongly with him when it comes to minimal stop lists for lots of reasons.  I'm afraid very large organs, whether pipe or electronic, rather turn me off unless there's a strong and sensible reason for their size.

An interesting thread.

Colin Pykett

[David Pinnegar]

For my version, dare I swap the Swell Salicional for an Unda Maris (which of course has two ranks)? Is that cheating?

Hi!

Yes - it is cheating - and it is also an area where experienced players can get greater versatility out of this instrument.

Choir   Key action Tr  Stop action Me  Compass-low C  Compass-high g3  Keys 56
               2   Lieblich Gedact Choir   8   
               3   Principal Choir   4   
Great   Key action Tr  Stop action Me  Compass-low C  Compass-high g3  Keys 56
               4   Open Diapason   8   
               5   Flûte Harmonique   4   
Swell   Key action Tr  Stop action Me  Compass-low C  Compass-high g3  Keys 56 Enclosed
               6   Salcional Swell   8   sic, 1-11 stopped
               7   Hautboy Swell   8   
               8   Tremulant

The Unda Maris effect could be achieved with other stops in making the tremulant slow and light, dreamy, whilst taking out the Salicional would rob the instrument of tonal resources. The couplers are the heart of the function of this instrument and a Salicional plus Lieblich will give a Small Open Diapason option in contrast to the main stop and because the stringy sound has a lot of harmonics it will give brightness to the whole ensemble in a charming way where mutuations would instead be overpowering.

Best wishes

David P

[Barrie Davis]

I think this little organ formerly in the RCO, See details of N17325, takes some beating. Does anyone know where it went to?

Barrie

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

A couple of points - firstly, this is pipe dreams - nothing is cheating - and if you want to post some larger paper schemes, that's fine.

Secondly, I'm surprised no-one commented on the strange Swell stop list.  I'll come clean and confess that this is an actual organ at Hampsthwaite Methodist Church in N. Yorkshire, which I played last week.  When I first saw it, I found the Swell of 8ft String, 4ft Flute and 2ft principal rather strange - but it works. I suppose in essence, this is really a single manual organ spread over 2 manuals - and this isn't the original stop list - there are clear signs of alterations.  It has limitations - but actually worked surprisingly well, and despite its small size, was adequate for the 80 or so congregation for the memorial service that I played for.

Colin's point about trying stop lists in electronic form is valid, if you've got the requisite technical/computer knowledge - and remember that sounds produced by loudspeakers isn't the same as sound produced by real pipes!  I can however see advantages in deciding the relative balances between stops - the reason for the success, IMHO, of the Hampsthwaite organ.

How about some different schemes now?

Every Blessing

Tony

[Barry Williams]

The organ in Kilkhampton Methodist Church that Voix Cynique mentions has a unique feature that permits tracker action without the weight of couplers.  The Great Organ has two extra sliders, operating Swell to Great and Choir to Great by permitting wind to enter the other chest.  Obviously, this can only be done on a small organ, (that instrument was designed as a house organ,) but it does obviate a huge problem, albeit at the price of a Swell to Choir coupler.

Colin's suggestion of trying out a design electronically is superb.  Design mistakes with pipe organs are very expensive to rectify, so electronic experiment particularly for a house organ, is an extremely good idea.

Our house organ is bigger than Tony's six ranks, but we agonised over every stop, whilst insisting that all the pipes came from one source, so as to avoid mismatch problems.  An interesting aspect of the design was that to have an effective swell box we would have lost at least two and possibly three manual stops because of the space needed for the swell box. 

With six manual ranks I would have:  I 8' 8' 4' II 8' 8' 4'.

Another, perhaps rather more flexible approach, (adopted by Henry Willis III), is to have something like  8'8'8'4'4'2', but with all stops available on both manuals.

Barry Williams

[KB7DQH]

One can take this to the other extreme... Whilst we are dreaming, I ran across another organist who chose to dream... BIG!!! Really BIG!!!

http://www.1377731.com/temple/

Then came the tour de force, the sight that literally brought the house down: Out of that streaming, glowing hole in the sky descended an enormous, glowing, shining, radiant angelic figure. It processed downward headfirst until it came to rest, seemingly suspended in thin air just outside the unfolded opening, and hovered in the center of the dome.

This huge statue, made of translucent crystal, represents the Angel Gabriel. And it is a staggering rendition indeed. For the statue is 100 feet long and 70 feet wide. From the mouth of this huge image protrude hundreds and hundreds of gleaming bronze trumpet pipes — the largest of which are full-length 32-foot octaves. The angel's massive hands and arms support and cradle this gigantic Cor de Gabriel reed chorus, the pipes of which point directly downward toward the floor.

This sheds a whole new light on the term "Floating Division"... Doesn't it???

Eric
KB7DQH

[KB7DQH]

Making some really, really rough calculations in my alleged mind, the wind system for the "hypothetical 100,000 pipe instrument" would likely total some 6000 horsepower :o

And unless this behemoth were very carefully voiced, "full organ" would likely cause everyone in the
concert hall to go deaf in a matter of minutes...

Mind, controlling this would be no small feat but the technology exists today.  The control system installed on the Studio Acusticum  organ is an example of what would be required to make such an instrument a "reality"... 

Swell Box? With 1388 "ranks" one could implement a "register crescendo", with the "expressive" division being made up of several ranks of pipework per "stop", so for example the "Open Diapason 8' "  would consist of a rank of pipes voiced for every desirable step in volume... progressively higher scale, cutup, wind pressure... 

With this essentially "unlimited" situation one could conceivably only have around 200 "voices", but with a considerable flexibility in how one implements these voices in practice, if one did actually build an expressive division or two or three this leaves enough pipework to select among 7 different
tuning systems (without each rank having to "share pipes") as one example.

Other possibilities exist which would allow for the creation of a wholly "acoustic" tonal synthesizer.
Several stops could be built using microtonal scales which would in the presence of a live acoustic do a pretty fair implementation of some of the more "electronic" repertoire...  One of the "manual" keyboards would likely resemble a long skinny version of the "touch pad" mouse in this notebook computer, and depending on how the electronic control system is programmed, interpret the presence and position of fingers upon it and sound the appropriate pipework accordingly.  Or employ
a "theremin" style capacitive coupler to do much the same thing.
Hmmmm... Theremin stop :o :-\ ??? ??? ??? ;) :)

Eric
KB7DQH