This is the dream of any organist! Mr. Ian Craig, of Toronto, commissioned Phoenix Organs to build a four manual, 77 stop organ for his residence.
Mr. Craig spent many hours fact finding and visiting installations from all of the manufacturers and knew exactly what he was looking for. Primarily, his interest is in the Harrison and Harrison pipe organ sound, for which Phoenix Organs is well known, as well as Casavant Freres and Aeolian Skinner.
The stop jamb layout is in the Casavant style, as requested by Mr. Craig, with the Pedal Division in the right hand jamb and the Choir Division in the left. Mr. Craig worked together with Phoenix Tonal Director Donald Anderson on the final layout and spec of this dream organ.
The console is in dark oak with American dark walnut interior and Phoenix utilized mechanical drawknobs and Peterson Electro D-Style coupler tabs. The audio system includes a Lexicon reverb and delay system to electronically create a larger sound field. This was also done to match the reverberation found on many of the Hauptwerk sample sets. Phoenix pipe samples are all recorded up-close and in the chamber, while most of the Hauptwerk samples include the building acoustics and are usually wet. Speakers and their placement for all parts of the audio system were carefully chosen for the room.
The main feature, besides the Phoenix system, is the addition of Hauptwerk to the organ as a separate system. Both the Hauptwerk and Phoenix systems can be played separately, or together, for a huge and impressive sounding organ of over 120 stops. Any stop(s) from the Hauptwerk sample set can be played with the Phoenix samples, offering great variety to the organist.
Donald Anderson, of Phoenix Organs, bottom right, appears very pleased with this wonderful instrument. You can hear Don playing this instrument in all it's glory by clicking on the following:
| imperial march mp3 | |
| chanson de matin mp3 | |
| fairest lord jesus mp3 | |
| johnson trumpet tune mp3 |
