Description Of Stops - Allen Organ Company Protege C-19C User Manual

I. DESCRIPTION OF STOPS
PITCH FOOTAGE
The number appearing on each stop along with its name indicates the "pitch" or
"register" of the particular stop. It is characteristic of the organ that notes of different
pitches may be sounded from a single playing key. When this sound corresponds to the
actual pitch of the playing key, the note (or stop) is referred to as being of 8' pitch;
therefore, when an 8' stop is selected and middle C is depressed, the pitch heard will be
middle C. If it sounds an octave higher, it is called 4' or octave pitch. If it sounds two
octaves higher, it is called 2' pitch. Likewise, a 16' stop sounds an octave lower, and a
32' stop sounds two octaves lower.
Stops of 16', 8', 4', and 2'all have octave relationships, that is, these "even numbered"
stops all sound octaves of whatever key is depressed. Pitches other than octaves are also
used in organ playing. Their footage number always contains a fraction (i.e., 2 2/3, 1
3/5), and they are referred to as mutations. Because they introduce unusual pitch
relationships with respect to the fundamental tone, they are most effective when
combined with other stops, and are used either in solo passages or in small ensembles.
TONAL FAMILIES
Organ tones divide into two main categories: flues and reeds. In a pipe organ, flue pipes
are those in which the sound is set in motion by wind striking directly on the edge of the
mouth of the pipe. Flues include diapason tones, flute tones, and string tones.
Compound stops and hybrid stops are "variations" within these three families.
The term "imitative" means that the organ stop imitates the sound of the corresponding
orchestral instrument; for example, an imitative "Violin 8'" would be a stop voiced to
sound like an orchestral violin.
In reed pipes, a metal tongue vibrates against an opening in the side of a metal tube called
a shallot. The characteristic sounds of different reeds are produced through resonators of
different shapes.
Your Protégé Chamber Series™ Allen Theatre Organ provides authentic examples of
various types of voices as listed above. Some of these are protected by copyrights owned
by the Allen Organ Company. The voices stored in memory are covered by United States
copyright laws, pursuant to Title 17 of the United States Code, Section 101 et seq.
UNIFICATION
In theatre organs, and occasionally in classical organs, the system of "unification" was
used. This allowed the same "rank" of pipes to be used at multiple pitches and on several
manuals. Unification was the system theatre organs used to have large numbers of stops
on the console with relatively few ranks of pipes as compared to a classical organ. For
example, a Tibia Clausa rank may be drawn at 16', 8', 4', 2 2/3', 2', and 1 3/5' on a given
manual and then still have some or all of those pitches duplicated on other manuals. In
most classical organs, one rank would have one stop key on the console; however, in a
theatre organ one rank could have many stop keys controlling it. Allen Theatre Organs
are unified in the authentic theatre organ style.
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