By Nelson Dodge

President, Church Keyboard Center

Los Angeles

When services resume in the reconstructed Sanctuary, parishioners will again hear the familiar and commanding sound of a large pipe organ but with an important difference: there won't actually be any pipes. The sounds filling the Sanctuary will be coming from speakers-73 in total-emulating the complex sound of organ pipes with all their sonic power and nuance, all created by a new Monarke "digital" organ custom built by Johannus Organs located in Ede, the Netherlands.

The digital organ achieves the sound of a pipe organ by using recordings of some of the world's most famous pipe organs. As keys and pedals are played by the organist, these recordings are "replayed" in real time and reproduced via the organ's sophisticated audio system. That's an over-simplification of the technology and process-there's a lot more going-but the final effect is virtually indistinguishable from an actual pipe organ.

In fact, the casual observer will notice nothing particularly different compared to the previous pipe organ, except that they might feel that it fills the Sanctuary in a more satisfying way. The pipes of the former organ were all hidden in chambers behind and beside the Chancel. The only visible part of the organ was the console sitting at the back corner of the Chancel.

Similarly, the only visible part of the new organ will be the console, located in the same spot on the Chancel. The sound will come from speakers located throughout the Sanctuary. The new console is being custom-built for All Saints, with beautiful traditional-styled cabinetry that complements the historic wooden arches and detailing throughout the nave. The new console features two-tone casework: mahogany stained oak exterior and natural oak interior. It is outfitted with top-grade German-built keyboards, with key surfaces of grenadilla wood (on the natural keys) and maple wood (on the sharp keys) resulting in a "reverse" color scheme from the typical white and black keys that contrasts with the light oak interior wood.

The organ cabinet style and stain color were chosen to fit into the wood tones found around the chancel. Note the two-tone casework and key surfaces.

Although the Monarke organ has more stops and digital ranks than the former pipe organ, this does not mean that it will be louder. Rather, the plethora of stops provides a great variety of tonal "color," enabling organists to play service music and organ repertoire with more variety and contrast of sounds. Besides being more interesting for the organist, it is ultimately more satisfying for listeners, whether in a church service or organ concert.

The 83 stops are organized into five "divisions" (Great, Swell, Choir, Solo/Antiphonal and Pedal) playable from three keyboards and the pedal board.

The Antiphonal division is a new feature-something that was not possible with the former pipe organ due to lack of space at the back of the nave for a pipe division. This is a group of 13 stops (voices) that can be heard from the back of nave. They can be played along with the main organ at the front, or separately in contrast creating a "call and response" effect.

The beautiful organ console was designed to mirror the interior of our Sanctuary. The latest digital technology is shown being installed at the factory located in The Netherlands.

The new Monarke organ will feature DS Core technology, a recent Johannus innovation that enables exceptionally large pipe samples. In the digital organ world, there has always been a practical limit on the size of the recorded sample. In the early years of digital organs that limit was imposed by the high cost of digital memory. Now, with the ability to store gigabytes of data inexpensively, the limiting factor is the time required to load data into active memory. Loading huge organ samples for a large organ would take many minutes-not an acceptable "boot up" time. A church organ needs to be up and running within a few seconds of being turned on.

The DS Core platform, which stands for "Direct Streaming," is a masterful technical accomplishment that enables the large sample data to "stream" directly from permanent memory as the organ is being played, eliminating the need to load any sample data at start up. DS Core is an exclusive Global Organ Group (corporate owner of Johannus) technology.

It's exciting to note that the new All Saints organ will be the largest Monarke organ on the West Coast, and the first one featuring the latest DS Core technology.

Once the organ is installed in the new Sanctuary, it will be "voiced," which is a very detailed adjusting of the volume and tonal character of every note of stop-all 5,200+--to achieve an optimal balance and blend as they are used in various combinations to create the great variety of "ensembles" that are possible with a large organ.

The new All Saints organ left The Netherlands after construction was completed in June and is now on its way to the U.S. We will keep everyone informed of its status as we learn more. 

The organ is being acquired from Church Keyboard Center in Los Angeles, the official representative of the Global Organ Group for Southern and Central California. Global Organ Group owns several digital organ brands, including Johannus/Monarke.