European organ question

[artkt]

In a number of videos on YouTube, I have seen on electric action consoles, a switch or knob located above each stop control. Generally on German and Dutch instruments. What do these do? They seem independent of the actual combination action. Not being familiar with organs across the Atlantic, I'm sure someone here can enlighten me.

[spartanorganist]

I think that you might mean the "free combination" system that German and Dutch builders used for a while. There is an extra row of smaller stop controls over each stop knob or tab... sometimes several rows. Pistons, buttons under the manuals, allow the organist to switch between the regular stop controls and the row(s) of smaller controls. This way, 2 or more registrations can be set before playing, and changed quickly. In this system, the regular stop controls don't move when a piston is pushed. The mechanism was simpler than capture combination actions, popular in US and UK, that have a mechanical or electronic memory for each piston. Before widely available computer-type memory, the electro-mechanical or electro-pneumatic memory for capture action could be very intricate and very large... sometimes a large capture action machine was located in a remote room, since the action was too large to fit inside the console.

There is a name in German for this system... sorry that my German is rusty...

Darrell

[artkt]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks. I saw the combination pistons and these other controls, and was not sure how they related. To make things even more confusing, in one video concert, the organ had a moving stop combination in addition to the extra row(s) of stop controls. My guess is that particular instrument had been upgraded, and the old controls left in the console so to not leave holes there.

[andijah]

https://organforum.com/forums/forum/...uropean-organs

Here's a recent discussion with several examples and various explanations.

[artkt]

I guess it pays to use the search function... Odd that Google didn't pick up that thread.

Thanks folks.