Hi there,
I hope I have posted this in the best category - self promotion encouraged and taboo ideas.
I am a New Zealander who lives in Hungary (actually in Pécs in the south of Hungary - home of the relatively famous Angster Organ building company in the past and the Pécs Pipe Organ Manufacturer at the moment). At the moment I am helping a company to expand out of Hungary which has developed a self playing pipe organ system. As far as I know, this is unique in the world for large scale organs. By replaying pipe organ, I mean that an organist plays a piece on the original organ and all the actions the organist makes on the console, (including the keyboards, stops and swell shutters) are recorded meaning that the piece can be played back anytime in the future.
It has been operating at the Pecs Cathedral for the last 17 years and is quite a drawcard for visitors and money from the regular short concerts and donations are a significant source of funds for the cathedral. To give you an idea of the organ - originally an Angster organ built in 1887 and renovated in 1997 and 2007/2008 - the Pécs organ has four keyboards and 85 stops and more than 6000 pipes and the replay system can record and replay this without a loss in quality from the original performance.
Here is the taboo part... is this new technology putting organists out of work? Well not really ... the organists who use the system, after initial reluctance, have really learnt to value the system and now rely on it for tuition and practice. They have the luxury of recording a piece and going to where the congregation sits to listen to it or changing the register, etc, so they can perfect it before an important recital. They can even play over the piece while the organ is self playing.
So what about organ builders? Here in Hungary, organ building is rightly considered a skilled craft and organ builders are generally reluctant to add superfluous electronics to a pipe organ (no extra whistles and bells). The addition of the self-playing part is only a minor addition and doesn't affect the rest of the organ at all. All the electronics are enclosed in a small cabinet which can be built into the organ casing and the controller for the replay system is accessed using an android tablet.
Organ builders like that the pipe organ can generate an income which means more funding for maintenance and possibility of renovation of organs. For example, at Pecs, the cathedral has about 50,000 visitors per year who pay a couple of euros each for a guided tour of the cathedral with short organ performance.
Anyway...at the moment we are looking to work in partnership with a few organ builders in the UK where we would install the replay organ part on organs being rebuilt or newly constructed organs. We offer a 10 year guarantee on the components of the system which we manufacture. If an organ still has manual action we can also install the replay system but would much prefer to work in cooperation with a local organ builder rather than install the necessary slider magnets ourselves.
If you want more information about this technology, have a look at our website www.replayorgan.eu or pm me.
I'm curious about the opinions of organ matters members.
Do you know of any technology which is similar, that is, can be installed on large organs and plays back music through the original pipes?
Could it be successfully used on organs in your area?
Is adding a replay system to a historic organ taboo - even when there is no external modification to the organ?
Jube
I hope I have posted this in the best category - self promotion encouraged and taboo ideas.
I am a New Zealander who lives in Hungary (actually in Pécs in the south of Hungary - home of the relatively famous Angster Organ building company in the past and the Pécs Pipe Organ Manufacturer at the moment). At the moment I am helping a company to expand out of Hungary which has developed a self playing pipe organ system. As far as I know, this is unique in the world for large scale organs. By replaying pipe organ, I mean that an organist plays a piece on the original organ and all the actions the organist makes on the console, (including the keyboards, stops and swell shutters) are recorded meaning that the piece can be played back anytime in the future.
It has been operating at the Pecs Cathedral for the last 17 years and is quite a drawcard for visitors and money from the regular short concerts and donations are a significant source of funds for the cathedral. To give you an idea of the organ - originally an Angster organ built in 1887 and renovated in 1997 and 2007/2008 - the Pécs organ has four keyboards and 85 stops and more than 6000 pipes and the replay system can record and replay this without a loss in quality from the original performance.
Here is the taboo part... is this new technology putting organists out of work? Well not really ... the organists who use the system, after initial reluctance, have really learnt to value the system and now rely on it for tuition and practice. They have the luxury of recording a piece and going to where the congregation sits to listen to it or changing the register, etc, so they can perfect it before an important recital. They can even play over the piece while the organ is self playing.
So what about organ builders? Here in Hungary, organ building is rightly considered a skilled craft and organ builders are generally reluctant to add superfluous electronics to a pipe organ (no extra whistles and bells). The addition of the self-playing part is only a minor addition and doesn't affect the rest of the organ at all. All the electronics are enclosed in a small cabinet which can be built into the organ casing and the controller for the replay system is accessed using an android tablet.
Organ builders like that the pipe organ can generate an income which means more funding for maintenance and possibility of renovation of organs. For example, at Pecs, the cathedral has about 50,000 visitors per year who pay a couple of euros each for a guided tour of the cathedral with short organ performance.
Anyway...at the moment we are looking to work in partnership with a few organ builders in the UK where we would install the replay organ part on organs being rebuilt or newly constructed organs. We offer a 10 year guarantee on the components of the system which we manufacture. If an organ still has manual action we can also install the replay system but would much prefer to work in cooperation with a local organ builder rather than install the necessary slider magnets ourselves.
If you want more information about this technology, have a look at our website www.replayorgan.eu or pm me.
I'm curious about the opinions of organ matters members.
Do you know of any technology which is similar, that is, can be installed on large organs and plays back music through the original pipes?
Could it be successfully used on organs in your area?
Is adding a replay system to a historic organ taboo - even when there is no external modification to the organ?
Jube