4 Signs Your Pipe Organ Needs to Be Tuned
Take Care of Your Vintage Pipe Organs With Viscount Organs
Pipe organs produce a magnificent sound that can instill great emotion. Just like any other instrument, the sound is dependent on being properly tuned. Did you know it can take 10 to 12 hours to properly tune an organ? Pipe organs are incredibly complex sound systems and present an additional challenge when it comes to tuning. Here are a few common signs that your pipe organ needs to be tuned.
Keys Do Not Rebound Properly
Any organ, especially vintage organs, could have key contact issues. When an organ key is played, it should connect with a wire that will relay the note through the pipe and various amp settings will allow the note to be heard in a specific tone. Dirty key contacts show up as crackling or whooshing noises when you press certain keys. Some keys may work only intermittently, some won’t work at all, or some will work only on certain settings. No matter the case, it’s essential that you consult a professional to examine the problem.
Major Chords Do Not Sound Harmonious
The last thing you want is for your pipe organ to be so out of tune that chords don’t sound harmonious. This is a telltale sign that your organ needs to be tuned. This tuning issue could be connected to each key’s individual tune setting or an issue somewhere else within the pipe flue. If an entire rank (group of pipes) is out of tune, major adjustments will need to be made by a sound or electrical engineer that knows how pipe organs work.
There Is a Dead Note
If you go to play a note and don’t hear any sound come from the pipes, you have a dead note issue. The source of this issue could be a sign that the magnets are corroded, causing the coils to burn out and cease to function, which leads to the armature valves (small round disks) that allow air in or out of a pouch may not sealing properly. It could also mean that you need updated console technology, which is a very common reason for pipe organ dead notes. Speak to one of our team members today to return beautiful music to your pipe organ.
Recent Environmental Changes
Pipe organs and church organs are very sensitive musical instruments, especially to temperature, because the expansion and contraction of pipes can lead to a disturbance in pitch. It’s recommended to have your pipe organ tuned after each season change to reduce these problems. If the main room or building with your organ has a problem with consistent temperature control, you may need to have your organ tuned more frequently.
When you need to bring power and a classical sound to your church and its services, there really is no substitute for a well-constructed pipe organ. Your parish will no doubt cherish the memories made during mass events through the music. Contact us today and let us work together in order to find an organ that satisfies your church’s need for beautiful and memorable music. We are the largest organ supplier in the world with years of experience under our belt and we want to make sure that you’re set up with the highest quality instrument.
The Unico series is a line of classic organs developed with Physis® physical modeling technology, entirely designed and patented by Viscount’s Italian research facilities. With this new approach, based on physical modeling of the pipe organ, you will enjoy the most faithful and malleable sound on the market today.
Thanks to accurate audio reproduction and powerful reverberation effects, Viscount has transferred the magnificence of a large pipe organ into the convenience of a compact instrument.
The Unico series has a rich library of customizable settings and parameters which allows you to select, assign and store hundreds of additional registers. Features are easy to access through a discrete backlit main control display.
The SONUS series is a line of classical organs developed with exclusive Physis® technology - designed and patented by Viscount’s laboratories. Based on modeling the physical phenomena involved in pipe organ sound generation, the sound generated is incredibly authentic.
On top of Physis® sound generation technology, we have designed a revolutionary new audio system called RAR (Real Audio Rendering). Thanks to RAR technology, you can totally manage the impression of three-dimensional space in which the instrument is placed – from the smallest room, all the way up to a large cathedral setting. The new Viscount RAR (Real Audio Rendering) technology represents a significant step forward in terms of definition, spatiality and body of the sound, which is the most authentic way yet to create that magical effect of the most important organ stop – ‘the ambience’. Sitting at the console of the new Viscount Sonus, you will experience the most realistic impression of the instrument and its setting available from any digital organ you may care to play.
The OUVERTURE is an organ with 3 keyboards, complete pedalboard and 55 registers - each of which can select hundreds of organ and orchestra voices. There is also an orchestra register for every section of the organ which can be selected from the numerous options available.
The organ comes with 8 organ styles (4 fixed and 4 programmable) that allow the organist to create and store an infinite number of combinations, either in the 128 internal memory locations or externally via USB memory. The parameter settings are easily accessible through the graphic display on the front panel. The “Tracker Action” style keyboard accurately detects touch by obtaining the speed of actuation of the keys, making it possible to feel a "Tracker Touch" effect, i.e .the correlation between the "touch" of the organist and the transient attack of each virtual pipe.
Developed with the award-winning and patented Physis® physical modeling technology, which reproduces the physical phenomena involved in the sound generation of the pipe organ, the Ouverture is capable of generating the highest-fidelity, most authentic church organ sound.
Chorum instruments faithfully reproduce the sounds of a pipe organ with proprietary ARTEM technology (Advanced Real TEchnology Music) designed by Viscount's Research and Development labs in Italy.
The richness and beauty of stops are enhanced by an accurate reverberation system, able to recreate a great variety of acoustic environments, from a small chapel to the largest cathedral.
Chorum organs are highly functional, yet simple to use; you can store a large selection of memories and recall your stop combinations.
Unico Collection
Our flagship Viscount organ line powered by our patented Physis® (Physical Modeling) Technology.
Chorum Collection
Our sampled-sound based Viscount organ that beats all others in price & value for the money.
