What are those buttons?

[Admin]

I'm going to guess the 18 Special Couplers listed in the specification document:

I considered that, and it makes sense except I'm counting 17 buttons.

What is strange to me is that the 'mini stops' seem to be grouped 4-3-5-4-1 (from left to right) but nothing on the specification jumps out as corresponding to that pattern.

If they are the special the couplers logical groupings might be

Pedal Tutti to Swell	Pedal Tutti to Choir	Great Tutti to Solo
Pedal Divide 12/13	Pedal Divide 17/18	Pedal Divide 20/21
Swell to Great Sforzando	Solo to Great Sforzando
Grand Solo off	Solo Grand Solo on Great	Grand Solo on Swell	Grand Solo on Choir
MIDI to Great	MIDI to Swell	MIDI to Choir	MIDI to Solo	MIDI to Orchestral	MIDI to Pedal

which gives us groups of 3-3-2-4-6. But the specs say that that Sforzando couplers are toe studs, so that leaves 16 buttons, with one unaccounted for, and the groupings don't seem to match. Perhaps the specs don't reflect that actual console implementation.

[samibe]

I think the six midi couplers are on the right stop jam (left bottom cluster). Above those are the 16 8 4 couplers.

I think the Tutti couplers are on the left stop jam (right bottom corner) with the Grand Solo couplers below and the tutti couplers at the very bottom (even though it's too blurry in the picture to tell for sure).

All of the percussions and effects for each division are on the jams with their divisions. Which doesn't leave much left. The spec says there are four selectable crescendo sequences. Maybe one of the groups of four handles that.

[Stravinsky416]

I think the six midi couplers are on the right stop jam (left bottom cluster). Above those are the 16 8 4 couplers.

I think the Tutti couplers are on the left stop jam (right bottom corner) with the Grand Solo couplers below and the tutti couplers at the very bottom (even though it's too blurry in the picture to tell for sure).

All of the percussions and effects for each division are on the jams with their divisions. Which doesn't leave much left. The spec says there are four selectable crescendo sequences. Maybe one of the groups of four handles that.

samibe is right as far as the coupler locations, and the crescendo sequences is a good guess, but still doesn't account for all of them.

[samibe]

Maybe that one on the far right (all by itself) is the 'console fan on/off'.

[AllenAnalog]

A YT video linked on another thread gives some good shots of the console: https://www.organforum.com/forums/sh...as-organ-music

[Leisesturm]

Somebody give Mr. Alex F. Schreiner a call:)...

Not sure who Mr. Schreiner is (the LDS Conference organist?) and how responsive he might be to cold calls about the instrument, but I have corresponded with Mr. Jack Bethards, President of Schoeinstein and Sons, in the past and have always found him very responsive to speculative questions about their instruments from people in no position to ever actually commission one. He even facilitated my access to their big one at St. Paul's K St. (Washington, D.C.) many years ago. Man, what I could do on that beast (well, not a beast exactly, but hardly 'small') now. That said, my guess is that they are indications for the status of couplers located elsewhere, in the jambs probably. Since most organists would be expecting the main inter-manual coupers there, but for the distance, maybe they just serve as a visual indication of what is active? They may not correspond precisely to the actual coupler count for one reason or another i.e. MIDI couplers may be omitted?

I haven't seen the Touring Organ console close up but I do know that several stops in each division can be assigned alternate voices, like the Allen Genysis system on steroids. The knobs may facilitate the menu selection. As to no one actually seeing these controls in use ... the organ may just be the instrument built with the most unused feature set of any instrument in the world. I've rarely ever used console pistons when toe stud duplicates exist. The digital I am playing has literally dozens of alternate voices for most stops and hundreds more if I call on the expansion module that is always online and accessible through the MIDI A&B channels in all four divisions. I've used only two or three of those voices: Pedal Timpani, Orchestral Strings (Swell) and Shakuhachi Flute (Choir). That is so far, I expect I'll use more of them as time goes on, but not many more, maybe not even a few more.

[samibe]

From the video that Larry referenced, I got this screenshot.

It's a bit out of focus but it almost looks like each of the knobs has a two letter division indicator CH (for Choir), GT (Great), SW, (Swell), etc. Leisestrum might be on the right track with his idea of them being coupler status indicators.

From a different video I got this view of some of them (along with a GoPro mounted under the music desk).

They definitely look like miniature drawknobs.

[Admin]

Not sure who Mr. Schreiner is (the LDS Conference organist?) and how responsive he might be to cold calls about the instrument

Dr. Schreiner was one of my first organist heroes and I still play pieces from his collection Twenty-Five Pieces for Small Organ that were assigned to me as beginning organ student. He recorded for Columbia with his best known album titled, The Great Organ at the Mormon Tabernacle, which I still have in my vinyl collection.

He won't be responding to any cold calls, however, as he's been dead for over 30 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Schreiner

[voet]

Yesterday I looked at the series of videos that Cameron Carpenter did about Marshall & Ogletree Opus 4 in Middle Collegiate Church in NYC. I believe there are 5 videos that demonstrate the stops from each division of the organ. There are a number of unique controls that he explains that do things like access the additional stops that do not have drawknobs. There is also a neat button that will silence the celeste sounding stops. As he explains, this allows access to a string without it's corresponding celeste.

I cannot say with certainty that this is what the buttons are that the OP asked about, but I thought it might be a possibility. Here is the link to the first video in the series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_27WoAcqe8

[myorgan]

He won't be responding to any cold calls, however, as he's been dead for over 30 years.

Those would be cold calls! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.:devil:

I looked at the photos, and as already stated, the photos are a bit too dark and blurry to read. So, we wait for more information.

Michael

[samibe]

I contacted Schoenstein and asked about the mini stops. The mini stops are expression selectors. They are grouped by expression shoe. So the swell shades for each division can be controlled by any expression shoe.

[AllenAnalog]

That type of system is found on the Atlantic City and Wanamaker consoles. Jack Bethards, the owner of Schoenstein, is quite familiar with the Atlantic City organs since he helped with an evaluation of them many years ago.

Here's a photo I took of one the banks of expression selectors on the Atlantic City Midmer-Losh console. The Reverse" tabs allow you to set up a pan, with one group of shades opening while another group closes as you press down on that expression pedal. The three tabs visible on the right side of the photo are part of the next group of selectors for swell pedal #6.

[Stravinsky416]

I have just been reading the book Magnum Opus: The Building of the Schoenstein Organ at the Conference Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Salt Lake City by John Longhurst. In it he describes the process of designing the system that controls which devisions that are controlled by each shoe and gives a diagram of the console controls. Each grouping represents a shoe. The last shoe is by default a crescendo pedal, but it can be overridden by the Grand Solo, and both can be overridden by the Variable Tremulants. There is a piston for the standard expression layout and six pistons labeled A-F for presets of just this system. Key: OR=Orchestral GS=Grand Solo SO=Solo MI=MIDI CH=Choir SW=Swell.

[Stravinsky416]

Photo will be added as soon as I can make it work

[AllenAnalog]

Both the Wanamaker and Atlantic City organs have variable speed tremulants. Curator Curt Mangel devised a system to put the speed control on a swell shoe for the Wanamaker organ when they upgraded it from the original mechanical system. I suspect that's where Jack got the idea for the Conference Center organ.

[Stravinsky416]

Promised photo of diagram

[myorgan]

Excellent information to have, Stravinsky416! It's interesting to see how controls vary from instrument to instrument, as well as innovative controls created to allow specific control options on larger instruments. Thanks for sharing.

Michael

[Stravinsky416]

Having played this organ on Tuesday, I would just like to add that these mini drawknobs are the cutest things ever in person. They are so tiny!