|
Growing congregations are an excellent problem to
have. The pipe organ was, however, proving to be lacking when it
came to leading a full church of lusty singers. Pipe organ builder
Alan Shutt had a vision to add more stops to the organ but space
within the chamber was at a premium. Alan knew that by adding more
pipes it would make the organ almost impossible to maintain and
tune.
Whilst the organ had a good specification on the
manuals, including a new Great Trumpet, the pedal division was
lacking and the soft bourdon did not underpin the other choruses.
Alan started to research digital organs not with
the view of purchasing one, but to use the technology to add a pedal
division to the pipe organ. Without the pedal pipes, the organ could
be maintained with greater ease and there would be space to add more
manual pipework. Anthony
Bogdan Organs were contracted
to supply a digital pedal division comprising of:-
|
Pedal |
|
|
| Contra Bourdon |
|
32 |
| Open Wood |
|
16 |
| Bourdon |
|
16 |
| Bass Flute |
|
8 |
| Principal |
|
8 |
| Choral Bass |
|
4 |
| Trombone |
|
16 |
| |
|
|
|
Great |
|
|
| Mixture |
|
III |
To produce the Contra-Bourdon
32 an eight foot bass column is used with an eighteen inch driver.
This produces the column of air which has the starting and stopping
transients of the pipe. The eight foot stops and mixture are
produced through a speaker cabinet which contains crossover, eight
inch speaker, two horns and a tweeter. The speakers cabinets are driven by two one hundred watt
amplifiers. Once the system was on speech
the stops were voiced and regulated to the pipe organ and the
building. Altogether it was and excellent outcome and has
strengthened the music at Woolstanton. Members of the congregation
were amazed and really cannot identify which are the pipes and
which are digital stops. |
