The console is the ‘desk’ from which the organ is played.  It was given to us by St George’s Anglican Parish in Whyke, Chichester when it had a completely new organ built in early 2014.  Roger Lanigan and Keith Ainsworth transported it to Coventry themselves.  It matches the woodwork of the organ case at All Souls, which is being refurbished, and is around 20 years old (almost brand new in organ terms!).  It is currently being remade and will have 3 keyboards (“manuals”), each of 61 notes, and a pedal keyboard of 32 notes.  There will be around 40 drawstops, 20 on each side of the manuals.  Most of these parts have been salvaged from St John’s Methodist Church, Bloxwich.

The main “action” of the organ will be electro-pneumatic.  Each key will make an electric circuit when pressed and the modern software will enable the signals from the console to to transferred via a co-axial cable to the software in the organ case itself.  This will then enable wind to flow into the relevant pipe(s).  There will be 33 “stops” – (different sounds) to be controlled from the console.

The organ is unique in the world of music because it gives the player the ability to blend lots of different sounds by combining different combinations of stops, rather like an artist mixing paints into unique colours. The console will have a new software system for the organist to pre-programme these combinations to a number of small buttons (called “pistons”) located just below the keyboards.  Each section of the organ will have 6 pistons, and there will also be 8 general pistons which can be programmed for stop combinations to operate on the whole organ, not just a single section.  So a total of 32 combinations can be set, and each can be set with 3 combinations.  There will also be memory cards, so that regular players can have their own selections which can be loaded when the card is inserted.

Although the old organ had pre-set combinations, they could only be varied by being completely rewired, but the system had long since ceased to work properly – and a number of pistons were actually missing!  The new software will provide a system which will last for decades and be capable of being easily and inexpensively repaired/upgraded.