A new organ console

Saint Philip’s pipe organ will soon have a new console installed with computer-based technology. The console, built by the Quimby Organ Company of Warrensburg, Missouri, allows for an incredible degree of flexibility in the range of sounds possible on the organ, and will enhance our worship and song when we gather together again for worship.

Our organ contains some 2,400 pipes, the largest being 16 feet in length (the lowest C note on the pedalboard), and the smallest pipe less than an inch (playing the highest C on the manuals (another organ-specific term for the keyboards). In between are all shapes and sizes of pipes, made of wood and metal.

The three basic families of organ tone—flute, reed and principal—are all represented on all the divisions of our instrument with three manual divisions (Great, Swell and Positive) and Pedal (played by the feet). Our organ, built by the Holtkamp Organ Co. of Cleveland, Ohio in 1986, contains 48 stops (basically sets of pipes, each controlled by a tablet , like an on-off switch) and several of these stops contain multiple sets of pipes, known as mixtures. These high-pitched sets of pipes give brightness to the sound of the organ.

These sets of pipes, are all controlled from the organ console, played by the hands and feet. In addition to selecting individual stops by hand, the solid-state stop action allows the organist to select groups of stops that can be set on pistons (thumb or toe studs) that can be pressed during a piece of music, rapidly bringing on that combination of sounds.

Dr Jeffrey Campbell, Associate Director of Music