Heyliger organ

[Johnallen]

Do anyone perhaps know about Heyliger organ? I know its a Dutch organ. I saw photos but could not find any recordings!

[mrdc2000]

Not 100% positive but I think they were bought out in the late 60's or early 70's by another Dutch organ manufacturer.
No recordings exist to the best of my knowledge but someone may know ...............

[hybridlover]

They were analog technology, though with numerous speakers and channels. Generally well built, console wise. A gentleman in the US imported them and sold them under the name of ICMI-Heyligers. Would love to find one, myself. Neat concept and very decent sound for analog.

[samzer]

Here's a link to their web site. Many photos of organs and components. Very interesting.

http://heyligers-orgels.nl/#a1

[Guest]

The church for which I work is wanting to sell an ICMI-Heyligers organ. It was built in Amelia, Ohio in 1989. It's called an "Opus 115". Anyone interested or know what it would be worth?

[arie v]

Hi,

It is hard to know what something like this is worth without having say a picture of it, stop list, speaker complement etc, and also the location of the instrument and the condition of it.

Generally, the market value is going to be low, simply because it is over 25 yesrs old, it is analog, and won't have any kind of MIDI.

My guess is if it is in good condition, it may fetch $2K - $3K ON A GOOD DAY. To that must be added moving costs, refurbishing cost, installation cost etc.

On a bad day, you won't even be able to give it away. Market is very slow for used church/classical organs.

BTW, the Heyligers organ was considered a superior instrument, especially if it was a custom job. Tonally they were in the main neo-baroque.

In Holland, they were placed in quite a few churches, and many of those are still in use, even though the newest one would be at least 25 years old.

AV

[Seattle Organ Man]

ICMI Heyligers Recordings

Not 100% positive but I think they were bought out in the late 60's or early 70's by another Dutch organ manufacturer. No recordings exist to the best of my knowledge but someone may know ...............

When the company was extant they had quite a few cassette recordings available. I heard a recording of one, and was always taken with their appearance and sound. I wish they were still around.

[arie v]

Hi,

Try this link,

www.heyligers-orgels.nl

There was an LP out of the organ you can see on the home page, with Willem Hendrik Zwart. It was recorded sitting on the factory floor. A very reasonable sound for the early 80s. Heyligers made quite a few standard model organs, typically with 11 to 20 stops. They also built custom organs with elaborate speaker systems, and these were sold to churches. I think in total Heyligers made about 2,000 units. Most of the time they had no pistons, and generally fewer stops than their competition. They were sold on the basis of better build quality and their somewhat neo-baroque sound quality. The tone generation utilized multiple divider systems, which kind of gave the sound it's clarinetty flavour and it's ensemble.

There was another company called ISA, in Holland, that built higher end organs. Some of these organs were called Monarke. The company folded and the principals of the company joined (or was it re-joined) the Johannus firm.

Perhaps the best effort in bulding an analog organ that mimiced a pipe organ was from a fellow named Griffioen. They were prohibitively expensive, and he built only a few of them. Here is a link to a recording,

https://www.muziekweb.nl/Link/CLX163...kerk-te-Zwolle

For an analog organ it sounds really good.

AV

[mrdc2000]

Arie is not kidding, it does sound very good, the ensemble sounds are better than some of the new digitals today, that is, the ones with too few channels.

[Horseshoe_or]

Arie is not kidding, it does sound very good, the ensemble sounds are better than some of the new digitals today, that is, the ones with too few channels.

AOB organs were based on multiple sound sources and lots of amps to deliver the sound to the room. They had a far better ensemble than any of their competitors. Some current day digital builders have finally figured out that channeling everything through 4 or 8 channels isn't sufficient.

[IHMHauptwerk]

Agreed on the ensemble. The only issue seemed to be the principal/diapason sounds didn't always sound that realistic. That said, the chorus from those organs really was moving.

[Leisesturm]

Arie is not kidding, it does sound very good, the ensemble sounds are better than some of the new digitals today, that is, the ones with too few channels.

I've got to ask... how would you know? I mean, unless I way miss my guess, you auditioned that instrument using a) stereo headphones, or b) stereo speakers. Stereo in this case implying two channels. I'm not picking on you, I am just pointing out the irony of the constantly repeated criticism of organs with fewer than 96 channels, by people who have never heard them except through a two channel stereo system. I don't doubt that the older system sounds very good. What I doubt is that it is because it utilizes more channels in its audio system.

[Admin]

I've got to ask... how would you know? I mean, unless I way miss my guess, you auditioned that instrument using a) stereo headphones, or b) stereo speakers. Stereo in this case implying two channels. I'm not picking on you, I am just pointing out the irony of the constantly repeated criticism of organs with fewer than 96 channels, by people who have never heard them except through a two channel stereo system. I don't doubt that the older system sounds very good. What I doubt is that it is because it utilizes more channels in its audio system.

Listening to a stereo recording of an organ is not the same as reproducing that organ through two speakers. The difference is that in the former the disparate tone sources are mixed in air, while in the latter case they are mixed electrically.

In the case of sample sets recorded in the reverberant sound field, two channel reproduction may be perfectly acceptable. The incoherence of the reverberant sound field ameliorates the artifacts of electrical mixing, especially in the case of long samples. The more reverberant the source, the better. But if you're starting with dry samples, the electrical mixing of samples is not so friendly to the ear with just two channels.

In fact, since the earliest days of electronic organs, all builders have realized that the more channels used for reproduction, the better the ensemble, the better the realism.

[michaelhoddy]

I don't doubt that the older system sounds very good. What I doubt is that it is because it utilizes more channels in its audio system.

It is absolutely for the fact that it uses more audio channels. Having spent years playing an AOB (the closest comparison to the ICMI) with 43 audio channels, it's really what makes the effect work well. The quality of the individual voices isn't any better than competing instruments with similar types of technology, such as the later analog Rodgers. And on an individual basis, there are other technologies, such as many much newer sample-based organs, where the individual stops are actually far superior but the chorus is inferior.

I also played a few Classic Organs custom instruments from the 1990's, which is an extension of the familiar Galanti/Viscount M-114 first-generation sample technology into a custom format with many more discrete audio channels. Having spent lots of time with Galantis with the same basic technology but much less audio, I can say that the additional channels and routing make a night and day difference.

If the effect of this is noticeable in recordings of the organs, it's even more, not less noticeable live and in person.

[Johnallen]

Is there any recordings available?