Organ Clearing House - Rescuing Johnson Opus 638
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- čas přidán 19. 07. 2012
- This video was shot in 2001 documenting the Organ Clearing House as it removed a pipe organ from a soon to be demolished church in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. This historically important pipe organ made in 1885 by the Johnson & Sons Organ Company of Westfield, Massachusetts would have gone down with the building had the Organ Clearing House and the Organ Historical Society not stepped up with donations and services to rescue this work-of-art.
The William A. Johnson Organ Company of Westfield, Massachusetts, which later became Johnson & Son Organ Company, was a highly respected firm which built 860 pipe organs throughout the United States and in Canada and Bermuda. The company operated from 1844 through 1898. All Johnson organs were completely mechanical (tracker action) organs, with Barker lever tracker-pneumatic actions utilized in larger organs after 1871.
New York Times Article
www.nytimes.com/2001/07/07/ar...
For more information about the preservation of America's historic pipe organs, adopting a historic pipe organ or the producer of this mini-documentary, please visit:
www.OrganSociety.org
www.OrganClearingHouse.net
www.VicFerrerProductions.com
© 2012 Vic Ferrer Productions - Hudba
So very thankful for the companies and donors who rescue and save these magnificent instruments as well as works of art, both in construction and decoration. These will never be crafted like this again. They have a unique never to be duplicated sound. Fortunate are those who get to hear the old pipe organs. Props to Organ Clearing House for the workmanship in removing, preserving and restoring these awesome relics.
This is one of the best educational videos on the pipe organ I have seen. It is a shame that such exceptional craftsmanship is so little appreciated today, but thanks for this video document.
Beautiful building! Those clerestory windows flanking the organ were a brilliant touch. Imagine the rays of colored light, coming down at raking angles, throwing the shapes of the pipes into high relief. It must have been astonishing to behold. The organ, by the way, had a really beautiful sound.
Hi Bunny. Thank you for the beautifully descriptive comment. Yes, it was a sight to behold. Unfortunately the building is now gone. I am pretty sure the windows were saved; so hopefully someone, somewhere is enjoying them.
The organ track is Saint Sulpice in Paris as we do not have a recording of this instrument.
For those interested the opening and closing organ music is played on the famous Cavaille-Coll organ of St Sulpice, Paris.
How Sad To See Another Elegant Church Being Demolished & Seeing Such A Incredible Instrument being Taken Apart. How You were able to save the pipe Organ & Give It A New Home.
I have cleaned organs this dirty. I was as dirty as it when working on it!!! Lovely instrument there! Glad that it was saved!
As a former organ tuner and devotee, I can only say thank you to the Organ Clearing House for saving what they could of this, and many other instruments of value.
During the 1970's and beyond, with changing demographics and rising heating oil prices, churches such as these were bankrupted in wholesale numbers; while the helpless and hapless instruments were left to fallow.
I watched may others pass on without such assistance. At least his one may rise again, somewhere.
Thank you for putting this video up to enjoy. The congregations---and many organists---are usually woefully unaware of how much specialized labor these works of musical art require. As a much younger man (and 65 pounds lighter too) I worked at small organ company, much like the young men in this video. This was a real reminder of just how hot, dirty and cramped it could get up there, and that was just on tuning and repair jobs. But to hear it sing when we were done was glorious.
I thank all of these wonderful people so much for saving such a beautiful work of art! I cannot believe someone would destroy it. I live in NC and maybe someday I can volunteer to save one of these amazing instruments. I would consider that an honor.
Thanks - this is far better than a TV show. I remember helping remove a dilapidated Moller organ from an old church in PA as a 10-year old boy. The only reed was an oboe, and there was a 16' bourdon. The biggest pipe was an 8' diapason. The Hammond that replaced it sounded harsh and unpleasant in comparison, but that was progress.
At the beginning you are listening to Daniel Roth, playing the Allegro Cantabile from the 5th Organ Symphony of Widor, performed at St. Sulpice in Paris.
HEY! HEY! Thank you, Sir. Love the music.
Thank you for sharing this. The craftsmanship and detail is amazing.
This was an Excellent Docu-video well done.
A historic and unaltered 1918 Hiners tracker organ was destroyed in Iowa about a year ago, the church had offered it for free to anyone who would remove it quickly before demolition and not one took them up on the offer, so they decided to sell it for scrap and it wound up in a Des moines IA architectural salvage place who per photos I saw recently- threw all the smaller metal pipes in baskets and have them for sale individually for about $5 each, the manuals for $350 and so on, sickening! The other photos of pipes they have for sale show they were obviously just bundled up and thrown in the back of their truck for every one of them is full of severe dents, bends and worse damage.
God bless these men for undertaking a really dirty job. If I had won the lottery, it would be great to fund organ salvage like this. What a nice building with great windows and nice woodwork and pews. Judging by the opening scene, I gather the neighborhood has changed. Too bad the Orthodox community couldn't reclaim the building. There's a synagogue in Philly which used to be a church. Nice building preserved
it was a baptist church
Wonderful service the Organ Clearing House provides in saving organs from waste and destruction formerly under the direction of the late Alan Kaufman and now for many years under John Bishop. Thank-you for a job well done!
Excellent video. These guys are pros, grubby pros, but pros. Glad they were able to save the organ. Getting it back together is going to be a lot of fun.
Amazing construction!
I'm glad you save the organ and pipes. What happened to the pews and the other beautiful wood accents throughout the church. It's very upsetting to see such a beautiful church ruined. Thank goodness that there are people like you that appreciate history and the value of fine craftsmanship.
NIce sound, wow, very poetic, wonderful...
The care and respect shown for this venerable instrument by the team dismantling it is a real joy to watch. Also for the knowledge of the traditional construction and techniques employed in the organ to still be available - all low-tech timber case work, tracker action and superstructure - is amazing. It seems such a pity this fine old building could not have been saved; but hopefully the organ could be restored and reinstalled in a new home somewhere?
I just happened across this and was very pleased to see that it was being rescued and, hopefully, will be restored and will find a new home. I was very privliged to recently have a tour and later, an open house at Fritts Organ Works, near Tacoma Washington. The are nearing the end of a 3 year project building a 5500 tracker pipe organ for Notre Dame University. It is truly a beautiful instrument. With some pipes playable, visitors at the open house were invited to give it a try. Vist their web page for a look at it.
Thanks be to God , the organ was able to be rescued. There are so many people that don't give a damn, don't say anything to anybody, and the organ falls to the wrecking ball with the rest of the structure.
The glass looks lovely as well. Hope they were able to salvage that as well.
Too bad that god dude didn't save the HOUSE with it, the one built for him...
@@SpitzPrincipal4 It's still considered a building
Has the organ been restored, installed somewhere else and in regular use?
Bravo John Bishop!
I agree, A church is a sacred place, you just can't replace the superb Craftsmanship of days gone by, what a travesty
Good to see this organ rescued from the demolition gang !
I know a guy who added Hauptwerk to his Rodgers 340, built a small room at the back of his garage and in it he installed 30 amplifiers going to 30 speakers. Then at the end of the room he put the shutters from a former pipe organ of his. Personally I like the 340 as it is, but Hauptwerk is very impressive.
I could have the grandest Wurlitzer pipe organ and I'd still want to play my Wurlitzer 4500 electronic theater organ too, the Wurlitzer pipe tone is there, but it's alive with electric!
Thanks!
The debate of analog versus digital has a new twist- analog electronic organs sound REAL in the sense that they generate wonderful tones by active analog electronic oscillators, yet digital sounds REAL in that the accuracy of the emulation of pipes is accurate. Analog electronic organs are just different, not artificial. They do meet all the basic requirements to be called organs, but they are so much more than that. I absolutely love the Conn Classic, listen to Paul Mickelson Conn...
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Alas! the organ I began my career with in 1949, a 3/26 mechanical action built in 1882 by an unknown Boston firm, was removed without such care. In fact it was torn apart with chain saws about a year after I left the church in 1954. How I would love to have seen it rescued!
very interesting project--good go
Fantastic video, looks like you were working down a coal mine! Can't wait to see it re assembled and played.
Beautiful organ
To me the "heart" of a pipe organ is the "compressor" pumping the "blood" that produces the sound. What isn't shown in most of these pipe organ m videos but is the really impressive "engineering" that makes or breaks the organ is the "compressor" or "blower" or the SEVERAL of them that some organs have and all the "plumping" that connect them to all the "pretty" parts of the instrument.
What you refer to is an issue for electronic organs, because they mix various tones together before they reach the speaker. This causes interaction which can cancel out part of the tone or cause distortion, and it’s one of the main reasons why even the best electronic organs sound electronic or somewhat artificial.
(continued...)
amazing :)
Even after 15 years the lot where the church stood at Lee Ave and Keap St Brooklyn, ny is still a bare piece of vacant land!
Action: a string from key tail down to a box on the floor,and a lead air tube back to the chests. Desk was built into the facade, and the display pipes were ornately painted. There were three rows of three stop knobs on each side, French style. The swell shutters were controlled by a knee-paddle, not an expression shoe. I recall 8', 4', & 2' diapasons in the great; 8, 4' flutes, oboe, salicional in the swell. I think there was a lot of borrowing and unit ranks. Donated by Andrew Carneige.
Nice Oboe and Flutes, but the microphone is a little close to 16 Principal/Wood. I love Widor on these types of organs as well as Aristide's...
It's a shame they had to tear the church down. It wasn't that old. But that's just like Birmingham, Alabama. If it's pretty, we must destroy it and spend a fortune installing an empty parking lot.
+Gordon Hearn California is just as bad. If it is old, beautiful and has a rich history, we must tear it down and replace it with a glass box or a parking lot. The people with no vision make all the decisions...
No offense, but that's the problem with America... anything has no time to become "ancient"... then millions of Americans comes in Europe to visit ancient stuff... wtf?
Cave Johnson well... I am italian. American people comes here and get crazy for a simple 500 years old house... when we actually have 2000 years old buildings everywhere, and no one cares about it here... Never... and I say NEVER we would destroy a 200 years old Church... or.. how should it become a 2000 years old one? :)
Gordon Hearn, my parents (barely) remember Birmingham's beautiful train station. Apparently, it was one of the most beautiful ones in the world. They were only kids, being driven between Beverly Hills and Palm Beach, but VIVIDLY remember that tower.
Gordon Hearn @
Doesn't this country value beauty and history anymore. How as a people are we to know where we have come from. We would never build anything so grand and complicated. What is to become of human when we never again look up form our computing devices. All of the young people of today know nothing of the past.
You got me right there, I know nothing of the past. What a shame :/
I hope that a few other elements of the old church were saved and then re-used such as the stained glass windows and the timber pews.
the organ has bravely been rescued. Is it being restored for future use? How's that going? I'd love to see that video, as well. Congratulations, and thank you so very much for this heroic work of passion and compassion to our art.
Who wants to demolishe such a beautful church?
+paranormaalutrecht No doubt some idiot developer who wanted to built yet another cardboard box-like box of condos, instead of choosing one of the multitude of already empty lots or abandoned tenements, they seem to gravitate towards buying historic and Victorian buildings to tear down to do it.
+paranormaalutrecht
The opening and closing scenes of this video ought to be some clue as to why this church became redundant...
If it wasn't for "idiot developers" you'd be living in a cave. If you were smart enough to move into one anyway.
uYou take out your trash when you're done with it, right? You've probably purchased lots of new things and then thrown them away when they were "trash", right? Presumably you flush your "feces" down a toilet or otherwise dispose of it and don't make it into shit sculptures or save it in a jar or something for later, right?
Wow you're being rather aggressive about not wanting to raise a beautiful old building. Grand Central Station was about to meet the same fate as these church as developers wanted the land. Do you take the same attitude about the great Cathedrals of Europe? They are past their usefulness but their value is in their beauty. I would say there is a great difference between your shit that you flush and a beautiful structure. Would you take a old painting and paint over it because it isn't modern. That is in essence what you are saying. If we followed your directive we would have no reason to go to Italy, or France or England cause you'd have torn down all that old shit that should have been torn own centuries ago.
Torn down , for a corner Walgreens..store I bet..sad..
There is a place for electronic organs, especially when money or space is tight. Electronic theater-style organs are probably easier to make sound realistic than electronic church-style organs, which are notoriously dificult to get right, especially the mixtures, due to the complex interactions among the high-frequency harmonics. Rogers even does combination organs with pipes for the most difficult sounds.
Has the organ been restored and installed elsewhere now? It needs serious rebuilding/restoration work done to it.
I had to stop watching this disgusting destruction of a wonderful house of worship. At least the organ was rescued. WTF is wrong with people these days?
+John Bozzola looks like it was surrounded ny a jewish neighborhood,no wonder.
Wow. Racist much?
Williamsburg is largely a Hasidic neighborhood.
So, play Hava nagila on the organ and call it good.
(...continued)
A pipe organ has a separate pipe for every tone, and all mixing is done acoustically, thus preventing this problem. To do the same with an electronic organ would require separate amplifiers and speakers for every note in every rank, which would probably make it cost more than a real pipe organ!
The longer the flue pipe (speaking length from the mouth to the top), the deeper the note. Other factors include the shape, whether it is stopped/capped at the top, fully open or partially open or having a harmonic bridge welded to the mouth and the diameter of the pipe.
With the Reed pipes, the length and the shape of the resonator, the thickness of the tongue and the speaking length of the tongue (controlled by the tuning wire) determines the pitch.
Many redundant churches in Britain & Australia are converted into posh houses, the structure looked solid, it would have been better than demolishing it.
Unfortunately, here in the USA, we tear down beautiful 'old' buildings and put up strip malls, parking lots, and beige boxes. A wise person once said, "Every place you're going is beginning to look like every place you've just been."
*Thanks for this inside look at dismantling a complete organ for shipment.* I presume the instrument has been overhauled and is now awaiting a new home (as of June 2016)?
it's still sitting in storage just as it has been the last 16 years, OCH doesn't automatically just rebuild organs to sell them, they are available "as is," "where-at," the cost to transport to a new home and rebuild is entirely up to the new owner.
Seen this video yrs ago..has this organ been restored ? And in a new home..it's a wonderful instrument..worth being restored
Is it re-assembled somewhere?
I want that organ and all of those pews.
Well it a sad thing, but will it ever be put back together in a space that wants it. I have a bad feeling it will set in a warehouse forgotten and never seen or heard again. Is that its fate?
Like so many other organs, especially these huge ones, they sit in storage waiting for a buyer who may never come. I believe the OCH still has this organ in storage, now 19 years later
That’s such a shame the the church was pulled down. At least they saved the organ
Is the Vierne excerpt from the actual Johnson organ?
What happened to this instrument - does anyone know?
A really interesting and heart warming video,
B
He mentions at 4:45 this pipe arrangement with the C & C# divisions. Is this the same thing as what is called isolated harmonics, or 'Isomonic' divisions. My Gulbransen Rialto organ has a C and a C# channel. It says in the Leslie speaker manual ( Leslie 102 and 103) that the reason for the isomonic system in this particular electronic organ is that they were trying to avoid the cancellation which occurs in the amps and speakers when the 4th & 5th intervals combine. I'm trying to understand pipes
C, D, E, F#, Ab and Bb
C#, Eb, F, G, A, B
Do all of the facade pipes play?
From what I can remember (that was almost 20-years ago), yes, all the facade pipes were real, speaking pipes.
Thank you for this great video - I am a Johnson fan! Most of our church's pipework is from the church's original Johnson Opus 345. But, unfortunately, the Johnson tracker mechanism was destroyed in 1931. (Now it's electro - pneumatic) An old photo of the Johnson can be seen photoshopped behind me in my profile photo.
What is the purpose of the reservoir weight on a chain seen at 4:18? I'm thinking it could be connected to a wind indicator or to some sort of tremulant or pitch changing device.
That looks like a regulator.
Im shure they built a parking lot there ..shameful..thank god the organ was saved..
Has the organ in the First Christ Scientist Church on the corner of 96th street and Central Park West in NYC been rescued? The church was built at great expense. A developer bought the building with the intent of turning it in to co-ops or condomeniums, but was thwarted by the community. It lies in a poor state today. The organ must have been quite an expense in that day for much was spent on the stained glass windows and wood work.
Are you referring to the Crenshaw Christian Center? I think this Church is still in operation.
@@denniswilliams3934 No, it is not being used. There was an attempt to turn it into a co-op, but it was blocked by a neighborhood action group. The exterior has landmark designation.
Perhaps it heresy to say, but considering the condition of the console. I am wondering if this organ should be brought back to life with a non-tracker design. Having to restore it as a tracker limits potential customers. Thoughts?
Tracker organs are very limited on where they can be relocated to, the chances of it going into another facility with the exact same space etc for the organ and console is slim to none, which means tracker runs etc would all have to be altered to accomodate, once it's altered that way it's no longer original anyway.
De trackering a tracker organ doesnt have to mean ditching the chests for Wicks style electric chests, the pulldowns to the pallets could be pulled down with electromagnets connected to the console electrically instead of mechanically, then the console can go pretty much anywhere and even be movable if needed, I dont see a problem with that.
@@SpitzPrincipal4 "look at all of the organs that were built in or before the time of J.S. Bach- all of them are tracker (entirely mechanical) and have withstood 250+ years..."
Yes but that's EUROPE, here in America we destroy anything older than 100 years because it's "outdated" that's why they dont have any 200 year old building in NY City despite the city having been chartered in 1620, one by one the "outdated" buildings were demolished until there were none left from the 1700s.
An article I have from the papers printed around 1860 that mentioned demolition of some historic 1700s buildings, oldest left in the city around Wall street to build a new building.
Look up the Clark mansion, it was a huge stone mansion in NY City that cost $7 million to build in 1902, it was demolished only 25 years later for an apartment building, the buyer of the property said he would have paid $100,000 more for the property if there wasn't a building on it, but he reduced his offer because of the mansion that "had" to be demolished. It had 121 rooms, 31 baths, 4 art galleries, a swimming pool and lots more. Clark bought a quarry, built a railroad to get the cut stone out for the mansion, he bought a bronze foundry employing 200 men to manufacture all the bronze fittings etc for the mansion, marble imported from Italy, oak from the Sherwood forest in England, and parts of a French Chateaux for furnishings. How much of the stuff wound up in the landfill along with the blocks of cut stone is anyones' guess, a lot of the bronze was probably scrapped.
"whereas with electric action and solid state combination actions with PC boards- 10-20 years down the road and at least one or several has to be replaced due to fault or component failure. "
Nobody needs PC boards, computers or 623 levels of memory, the tracker organ didnt have that crap, ALL that's needed is some very simple, very reliable mechanical relays and pulldown magnets, like the Peterson chest valves, there's nothing electronic to fail in them. Ive used 30 amp automotive headlight relays in my 1930 Moller organ for the last 22 years for the stop action, not one has failed in any way, they are under $8 each to replace if one does wear out or fail. Ive used Peterson chest valves for the same time, it's guts are nothing but a coil of wire. My console is all original function, no PC boards, midi, and it still runs on the original winding to it for the pneumatics.
@@HobbyOrganist You have a very strong argument however, when we begin to compare apples and oranges, we usually open up a "bowl of fruit". The bottom line is there are purists, and there are those who are pragmatic. (I saw a guy pay $3,800,000. for a 1965 mustang car, because it had all the original parts.) If that car's transmission had been converted to automatic, it would be worth ... who knows, certainly not $3.8M
I'm a non denominational organist, but I think it is NUTS!!! that anyone would destroy a church as beautiful as this! What was it 'city codes' or some rich idiot that wanted to build a KFC on that spot? Makes me ill...
So what is in it's place now? A Walgreens?
Why did they demolish the church?
was the glass and wood saved as well? what a historical waste if not.
noticing that the wood is covered with cloth so this leads me to believe the wood and glass were also saved...just a guess....the windows seem to be boarded up so hopefully the stained glass was removed....feeling why bother to add the wood if you are just tearing it down...one would only hope everything salvageable was saved
allen2905 They take everything pertinent to the organ. If the organ is purchased, it is cleaned, reassembled as it was and voiced/tuned.
hope someone else took the stained glass
+allen2905 No doubt the glass was ripped out for sale by some salvage place who would sell them individually for a lot of money, the woodwork was probably cut up into sections to sell the same way, I see plenty of bits and pieces on Ebay that obviously came from cut up gothic church railings, carved pews etc.
The trend was no, other than the stained glass and actual wood beams like floor joists than can be re-used as lumber, doors and furniture, most of the woodwork gets trashed in demolitions because it costs more time and money to carefully remove, and then what would someone DO with things like those massive roof trusses that were specifically cut and designed for this building?
A historic landmark 1840s church - St Brigid in NY City was almost demolished because of a crack in the rear wall the arch disease claimed was an extreme risk of collapse, they hired a demolition crew who came in and SMASHED all of the stained glass windows while people on the street were screaming at them to stop, a stained glass artist later said the windows would cost $100,000 each to replace the 11 windows.
They punched out a hole in that very "unstable" wall that had the "dangerous" crack in it so they could get a small bulldozer inside, they smashed all of the pews and pushed them out the hole where another bulldozer operator deliberately ran over them to destroy them while outraged people again were screaming to stop. After they gutted the interior some anon donor came forward and offered enough millions to save the building, it was restored but of course you cant restore- only replicate- crushed 1840s pews and destroyed stained glass windows, the arch disease tried to claim the windows were just "cheap painted glass" (the stained glass windows were NOT painted glass and were made in England and shipped to the US!)
I have several cast iron acanthus leaves from an 1859 Irish church (St Briget of Erin) Jefferson Ave at Carr St in St Louis that was demolished a few years ago, it was a gorgeous red brick and stone building with a tall spire, there was nothing wrong with the building, but the church school next door wanted to expand the school, so rather than building on one of the vacant lots across the street they decided to demolish the "outdated" church to do it, and because it cost money to maintain, so they destroy a 155 year old church because it's "old" and "outdated"
No, in the beginning, it did not play.
100 years of dust
Damn shame to tear down a historic church to build a Walmart.
Not at all. They arranged the pipes, as said, to give balance in both appearance and weight. The C side and the C# side would be because when you press, say, C on the keyboard, the valves to all pipes that speak a C open (though only those whose stops are drawn actually speak) so it's only natural to have them all in the same area. Has nothing at all to do with tone, and everything to do with making the mechanical arrangement easier.
C, D, E, F#, Ab and Bb
C#, Eb, F, G, A,B
I have a favor to ask. I have one scene in my feature screenplay where an organ tuner is working with his 15 yr old son who is an organist and he is helping his dad on the keys, while his dad is tuning the pipes. The father is yelling out to him commands of what to play. The son who is potentially schizophrenic, is actually hearing his dad yell at him in an abuse manor, like he did when the boy was younger. It's a story of an abusive father and son relationship, and theme's on forgiveness.
I don't understand the lingo you use to tune organs, nor can I read music to understand. I need someone to look at my script and see if they can interject or simply replace the lines of what a real organ tuner would actually say. It is a 3 page scene, if I remember correctly, and I would only need someone to scratch out the lines that I wrote, and write directly next to the old lines, if this makes sense ! Lol.
Hi Jeff. Sure, contact me via my business website The Producer's Loft Studio - San Francisco.
theproducersloft.com/
And this wasnʻt designated an historic landmark cuz a why?!?!
What happened to the organ since then? Has been reinstalled somewhere else?
litosvaca7 It's in storage about 45min from me. They want $55,000 for it. Excellent price IMO.
organclearinghouse.net/index.php?content=detail&instr_id=10
+litosvaca7 It's been sitting in storage for the last 15 years.
Ironically, I was on their page drooling just last night and saw it there, along with a beautiful Moller. If I only had the $ and space.... (Sigh)
:(
Yes but remember: it would need a full rebuild/restoration on top of that- at least 6 figures, and a space large enough for it.
They all looked like coal miners by the time they were done dismantling the instrument!
I understand i see a hammond. and a drum kit.. barbarians.
What a mice church..what the f...at least the organ was saved..why tear down the house of god? 💰? Im shure of that..the city didnt care..i bet..karma..will get who ever made that choice ..god will judge you..rember that.
I guess if God wanted it saved, he would have taken action to see that happen?
Imagine you can get the same (almost) sound from an electronic instrument weighing one-thousandth the amount of this organ.
+William Shepard Yes, a digital facsimile would weigh only a fraction of this grand work-of-art; but it would absolutely *not* have the unique one of a kind sound of *this* particular instrument. It would sound exactly like the 10,000 other facsimiles fresh off the assembly line. And in 25-years it would have already been tossed out along with old televisions, cars, computers and other appliances of its time.
Trust me, absolutely no one will pilgrimage hundreds of miles to hear and experience the digital facsimile in pereson. No one will consider it a 'work-of-art worth of preservation' and it will add absolutely no historical value to our culture as no will will consider its builders artists, craftsmen or visionaries.
+Vic Ferrer ...Yes...there is a big difference in sound when loudspeakers stir the air compared to vibrating columns of air in organ pipes.
The "almost" descriptor you used says everything, it's like buying a box full of "almost" gold coins cheap, no matter what, digital organs are only as good as the SPEAKERS and speakers are inherently poor to begin with.
Victorian Sculptures ...Digital organs, pianos and synthesizers still serve a very important role. They are portable packages that allow the working musician to carry a ton of sound from gig to gig as well as providing an affordable and practical means for those who just do it as a hobby.
But for the purist, there's nothing like the real thing.
Dallas Cheked
Were talking about CHURCHES, Universities etc with fixed permanent facilities here not travelling bands though.
Whatever became of this instrument?