This is not for anything in particular, but i was just thinking about it (i played a small organ yesterday that had tabs for the stops, not drawstops, what are the advantages/disadvantages of having tabs on an organ instead of having drawstops?

By tabs, i mean


and Drawstops (incase im not using the right words)


Myself, i think tabs don't look as grand, drawstops i think make the organ that much more classier, but then again i have expensive taste

The difference ten years ago was about £1000 when we bought our parish two manual sampled electronic.
We couldn't justify spending that on drawstops.

I've played quite a few tab stop organs. They take quite abit of getting used to, particularly if you're wanting to add stops by hand. Very easy to accidentally put the wrong one on.

Incidentally, in electronic organs, the tabs are cheaper, but its not the tabs per se that are cheaper, its the mechanism for putting them up/down which is more costly than the motor that pushes the drawstop in or out.

Our church organ (the one I play not very well!) has tab stops. I've never played an organ with proper pull out stops, so can't comment on the difference.

The best feature if you're not very good is the presets - our regular organist has set them up so that at the touch of a button you get a nice soft sound, loud sound, etc. (You can put as many stops as you like on the preset, and one button will re-select them.) There are four presets each for the Great and Swell and two for the Choir. It was invaluable one day when I overreached myself and attempted to change from Swell/Great coupled to Swell alone using a foot button - hit the wrong button and turned off everything but the Pedal! Fortunately, a quick jab at the presets restored sound to the manuals and no-one noticed - it would have taken ages to set all the stops up again manually.

Do the pull-out type organs still have presets?

They have thumb pistons, which i think do the same thing as what you mean.

Do organs have electric bells then? Our tabs are about the height of a manual above the swell, so you wouldn't knock them by accident, though they are easy to flip on and off.

h_c, you're quite right that the proper name is thumb pistons - I'd forgotten. They're wonderful things whatever the name!

Sometimes; it depends on the 'action' of the organ.

AFAIK, tab stops are only used on pipe organs with electric (or electro pneumatic) action, or fully electronic organs. Draw stops can be found on all types of organ, including fully electronic.

Older, tracker action organs, with a direct coupling from the stop to the pipes can be very heavy to operate, and rarely have any kind of preset. (Occasionally a foot pedal can be used to draw a few stops selected by the builder).

I believe some pneumatic actions have presets as well, (mainly on bigger concert organs), but I don’t know much about these.

More modern, electric actions (since the 1960's) can have all manner of presets. The organ in our church (which was completely re-built in the 1970's) has a rather complicated looking switchboard behind the music desk, with four ranks of switches for each of the thirty-five stops, divided into the two manuals and pedalboard. This allows any of the relevant stops to be drawn or closed by pressing one of four thumb pistons beneath each manual, or on the pedalboard.

This is fairly archaic arrangement by modern standards, but it works well enough. Newer organs tend to have electronic memories, and up to eight presets, plus 'general' presets that we don't have. These are usually set by drawing the required stops, and then pressing a 'set' button. Many organs also have multiple memories to be used by several organists; or perhaps for different types of music.

I am told that the organ at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral has a swipe card system, that remembers the organists presets, (and probably prevents newcomers getting too carried away with the 64 foot stop).

The above is 'as far as I know'. I am no expert, and stand to be corrected.

SB

I suspect the reference was to electronic organs; some of which do tend to come with a few ghastly sound effects. (Why do these things always have the Tremulant set on by default?)

However, some pipe organs do have mechanical bells. I know of one Harrison pipe organ fitted with a 'Cymbelstern', which was given as a gift by the builder for some reason.

As it happens, the church involved is known to be quite 'low', and the Organist has often joked that if he were to ring the bells at a crucial point in the service half of the congregation would walk out.

SB

Most modern organ consoles do come with multiple memory levels. On the older ones, there is usually an UP and a DOWN button to allow the user to go from one memory level to another. It can be tedious, however, to move from level 1 to level 45 when there are, say, a total of 99 levels. It can be even more tedious if the user wants to copy the piston settings on level 1 to level 45.

On the newer consoles, the user can move between memory levels by turning a knob, so it is possible to go from level 1 to level 45 in about two seconds. It is also possible to copy piston settings from one level to another within several seconds by using the COPY function.

I think drawstops are much better. Tabs look like teeth that are waiting to devour the organist.

How many people play old organs where the combination pistons are actually useful?

ME! 6 combos, fabulous aid when no other assistances available.

Had to use a nasty electric thing for a while so that the proper beast could be given a thorough service. The NET was being loaned free of charge so it would have been churlish to criticise it but not many of the lighty - up tabs seemed to work, and the volume was either inaudible or too loud.

On the main instrument, now thankfully restored, I do use the combination stops; mostly to boost the sound for a last verse. Stop 2 seems to work on the rare occasion when a sung psalm is called for. Perhaps the combination stops have been superseded by the presets? I have no experience of these so am not sure how they work, or if they can be quickly adjusted.
I have observed from others that a degree of promiscuity with instruments is useful in judging the worth of all these gadgets - present me with a strange contraption however, and I am lost.

Agreed! There's something far more satisfying about pulling out a stop inscribed "Contra Bombarde 32" than flicking a switch, I've always felt....

In considering the way in which combination pedals used to be set up, we need to actually see them in the context of organ playing at the time these pedals were in fashion. A Victorian or an Edwardian organist had a desire for varying the tonal colours available to him as much as organists of today have (well, excluding the neo-classicalists... ) - if not more! Whereas we might have, say, six or eight adjustable pistons per manual (and multiple memory levels, generals, sequencers, etc), our predecessors would have though themselves pretty fortunate to have had 3 combination pedals for each of the two main manuals. These combination pedals weren't necessarily set up with stop combinations the organist would have used most frequently per se, but as a method for allowing the best flexibility with limited resources for stop changing other than by hand-registering alone. This method involved a technique of combining both the use of the combination pedals and the technique of hand registration at the same time.

This is best explained by an example. Imagine a fairly substantial Victorian Great organ. Such a division might typically have a diapason chorus at 16, 8, 8, 4, 2 2/3, 2 foot pitches, and a 3 rank mixture. In addition to this it will have flutes at 8' and 4' (probably Clarabella and Harmonic Flute), perhaps a Dulciana, and an 8' Trumpet. It has 3 combination pedals, most likely set as follows:-

1, Clarabella 8' + Dulciana 8'
2, Small Open Diapason 8', Clarabella 8', Principal 4', Harmonic Flute 4'
3, Double Diapason 16', Large Open Diapason 8', Small Open Diapason 8, Clarabella 8', Principal 4', Harmonic Flute 4', Twelfth, Fifteenth 2', Mixture III.

Number 1 will, on its own, be likely to produce a pleasant sound. However, immediately after depressing the pedal, the organist could push in one of those stops by hand, and produce a different tone. This would allow, say, the reduction from a diapason chorus down to either a Dulciana or to an 8' flute, or from flutes 8 and 4 to one of those single stops.

Number 2 allows for interesting possibilities when coming down from a fairly substantial selection of stops, or for coming up from quieter combinations or single stops. Pushing in 2 stops after pressing the combination pedal allows the organist to either use flutes 8 and 4, or a diapason chorus at 8' and 4', or a warm combination of the two 8' stops combined. Or a diapason at 8' and a flute at 4', or a flute at 8' and a diapason at 4'.... You get my drift! The stops set on number 2 might not be intended to be used as set very frequently, but as a flexible method for getting a selection of different sounds from just one combination pedal.

By making slight adjustments by hand to what is set on number 3, the organist could end up with Full Great (by adding the Trumpet), Great to Fifteenth (by pushing in the Mixture and, perhaps, the Double), or a different weight of diapason chorus (by pushing in the large open). The addition of the flutes is unlikely to make a significant difference in the tone of the full flue chorus, but will certainly help to obtain a smooth diminuendo when pushing in stops by hand which couldn't be achieved nearly so easily if only the diapasons were used.

It can be quite revealing to come across an organ which has the combination pedals still set up as its maker designed (nowadays less likely, alas) and to explore the possibilities. They are certainly more flexible than an organ which has had its combination pedals adapted to suit more modern tastes.

I'm used to having organs with thumb pistons, but I'm equally used to said thumb pistons not working, or at least half putting stops in or out and instead providing a nice bit of hiss, so I don't tend to bother with them.
Instead I tend to use the couples and altering my singing to change the mood of the music.

One of the most (in)famous examples of this is at the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow. After the restoration some years ago, it was decided that no other player aids (eg generals or channels of gen/div) would be added and that the original settings left by Lewis would remain. The result is as you describe, a wealth of adding more and more 8's before the upperwork finally appears. As the organ is in constant use (there is a recital there 361 days a year!), it either; makes you consider seriously your repertoire given limited practice time, or more importantly, makes you consider using repertoire for which the instrument was built, the more educationally enlightening option of the two.

The other oddity with this organ is that the thumb pistons are in a sort of lozenge shape, so they take more careful pushing, rather than the usual lunge into the unknown with the thumb.

When I last played this organ I seemed to remember them as like one of the sweets you get in the liqourice? allsorts!

Now...THAT'S a tab layout if ever there was one!!

Wow!!! If that's a pipe organ I dread to think of the weight of the pipes! How on earth would you remember which tab was which?

Diapason, i think this beats yours

now really why would the organist need a phone??..........................................^^

H_C: Your inbox is full!

BASICALLY - the white ones are Flues (Flutes, Tibias, Diapasons, Strings), the red ones are reeds and brass, the yellow ones are string celestes.

Not every tab has a rank of pipes to itself. The instrument is unified which is the reason for a proportion of the organ world to look down its nose at this type of theatre/cinema organ.

If you find a particular stop name, say 8' Tuba Horn on one manual, and you also find the same stop name allocated to another manual(s) as well, then it is the same rank of pipes which is accessible from each of those manual.........in a nutshell.

Also, this type of instrument is best used for popular entertainment music - WITH ALL THE TREMULANTS WOBBLING AWAY LIKE JELLIES.

Sorry, but I LOVE 'EM

I play classical organ as well to re-dress the balance.

Most of it will be on the "extension" system though, so not as many pipes as you might think. Still, the console looks great fun though, and I'm sure it would be great to play!

You're right H C - it does beat "mine" - it is the largest pipe organ in the world in Atlantic City Auditorium.
Built by midmer-Losh, it has NEVER all worked at once, an it is only in the last few years that a group of enthusiasts armed with a large sum of money from the city, set to and really got the thing back into working order.

It is something like 275 ranks of pipes and I think that's an under-estimation without looking it up.

The phone is to connect to the projection box or the directors office.

Many years ago one of the 64' bass pipes cyphered. There was panic in the streets as the vibrations built up. People thought it was an earthquake brewing!!

Bit bigger than ya home plug-in!!



H G - yes, great fun to play. Stockport Town Hall has one very similar......Wurlitzer.........with lots of previously mentioned "awful sound effects" - glockenpiels, xylophone, marimba, chimes, castanets, tambourines, sleigh bells.....etc., except they are not EFFECTS, they are the real instrument played from the manuals.

I play there from time to time.......paradise!!

Ah right. I dont really think it would be enjoyable to play that, as the brain power it must take to allocate a certain stop, remember what pistsons etc... not to mention have to play something on the bottom (bombard?) and top (echo?) manuals at the same time if ever a piece needed it.