About us

The sound itself creates the music

Voicing is in the hands of our experienced specialist Reiner Janke. He has the only home page devoted to voicing: Orgel-info.de.

Voicing is the tonal shaping of the organ pipes. To do this, the mouth (or face) of the pipe is manipulated with special tools, in order to alter the tonal quality and volume of the pipe and to achieve a clear and full sound. On top of this, every stop, or set of pipes, must be evenly balanced in tonal character and volume, both within itself and in relation to other stops, before being finally tuned.

Rather than applying a 'once learnt and always practised' method, the voicing of an organ ensures, right from the start, from a consciously formed tonal conception. Depending on the desired results, various technical parameters of the organ pipes are considered and applied as necessary.

We use 45 differing timbre forming components on labial pipes. An outstanding feature of our instruments is the combination of warmth and softness, with clarity and colour. An great deal of working time is required to reach this aim. Reed pipes are also a speciality of ours. Their style is influenced by nearby Alsace and embody a pure and blendable tonal character which lends our organs strength and colour.
 

With reed pipes the scaling (dimensioning) is of much greater importance than with labial pipes. We use exclusively our own scales for the reeds, based on long years of experience and historic examples. The uniform produced sound from standard stops from reed suppliers is thus avoided. All the voicing work is done in our workshops.

Our co-operation on several organ research projects, together with dialogue with the scientists involved, continues to give us new stimulus for a better understanding of the way organ pipes work and new ideas for our practical work.

Organ research project

To get more out of less

With a relatively small number of stops, and by using the principle of interchange sliders, it is possible to create a complete organ containing all the important fundamental and accompanimental stops.

A specification with ample choice of fundamental 8', 4' and reed stops leans towards the transitional phase between Baroque and Romantic, allowing excellent realisation of both styles of music.

We recommend putting the whole manual (except the Principal 8') in a swell box to enable the volume to be varied or adjusted at all times. A sub-octave coupler can substantially increase the tonal impact of such an instrument. 

Wind supply

A good wind supply needs to be sufficiently large but still react gently. As a result, many organs built over the last couple of decades on historical models were provided with large external wedge or double-rise bellows. These bellows generally have enough volume and the required softness, but usually there is also a shaking and trembling in the wind. In addition to this there are other disadvantages, such as their high space requirement and the short life span of the leather.

These bellows generally do have enough volume and the required softness, but usually there is also a shaking and trembling in the wind. In addition to this there are other disadvantages, such as their high space requirement, and the short life span of the leather.

Over the last few years, these disadvantages have led us to the development of a regulated wind system containing four single valves, rhomboid springs underneath the windchest bellows in addition to small shock absorbers, one of which is a "Helmholtz" resonator. Using this construction we have achieved a stable and soft wind supply. At the same time we have eliminated the aforementioned disadvantages. The tremulants receive special attention and a special construction and have the soft yet intensive characteristics of a mild tremulant.