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The Role of the Church Organist

The following are my personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Classic Organ Works. Actually, if you asked Henry about it, he probably never gave it much thought, he sells the control systems, who plays the organ and how doesn't really matter. From a business perspective I would agree with that. You want a pipe organ? OK. From a personal perspective, as somebody who has grown up in a Christian church and spent some time looking at worship and it's roll within the church, I have a few other things to say.

Internet Access for Maestro

The Maestro system will occasionally require internet access, for example, when we need to do updates to the system. Updates happen during installation, I think in all my years working for Classic I may have had only 5 jobs that didn't require some change during installation. Unfortunately getting internet access in some churches, either wifi or Ethernet cable isn't always easy. Tony in his brilliance has found a solution for you. We can use a Raspberry Pi-3 and your smart phone.

 

Packing Circuit Board for Return

No matter how good a product is, or how carefully you treat it, sometimes something happens and hardware will need to be returned to us for repair, or for credit. Maybe there was a lighting strike, or somebody dropped a tool, or a chip failed after 10 hours of use, or, or, or. It happens, and it a part of doing business which needs to be addressed.  

D005, Our Lady Immaculate, Guelph Ontario

In the summer of 2014 we provided a Legacy Control System to Joel VanderZee for Basilica Our Lady Immaculate in Guelph Ontario. Joel chose to use grey boxes in the console and chamber. Click below to watch a very nice video about the restoration which he posted on YouTube.

AIO 2017, Fort Collins, CO

Yes, it has been a while since I posted anything, and this is a little late. Life happens. The American Institute of Organbuilders annual convention for 2017 was held at the Hilton, in Fort Collins Colorado from October 1-4. It was a lightly attended even, which we were expecting given the location; conventions on the east coast are always better attended. 

 

 

Theatre Organs at Classic

The primary installations of Classic control systems has always been church pipe organs, but we have done a few theatre organs over the years, in fact the first couple organs Henry worked on were theatre organs.

Organworks at RCCO Montreal 2017

MIDIWorks (the Virtual Pipe Organ branch of Organworks) attended the RCCO in Montreal last week. We were able to get our own room to ourselves, so we put up an 8:1 speaker system and allowed organists to try out our VPO powered by Hauptwerk.

When Improvements in Technology Don't Help

Unfortunately, the Pipe Driver Board (PDB-5A) which we have used successfully for over 20 years has become obsolete. Or rather, the driver chips on the board are obsolete; expensive and very difficult to obtain. Each chip is now $20, this will make service and repair of these older boards more difficult and expensive, you may find under certain conditions, it will make more sense to replace the PDB-5A with the new PDB-7.

 

Introduction to "Internet of Things -IoT"

Imagine an average day, you head out to pick up a few groceries, walking because you are trying to increase your physical activity. Your AppleWatch (or other device) counts your steps, uploads the information to your health tracker app, and it allots you extra calories for the day. To pay for the milk and bread you tap on a few icons on your mobile device and the money gets transferred to the store, 

 

 

Temperature Sensor Board Stability and Fix

A few weeks ago one our builders commented to us that the Temperature Sensor Board (TSB) installed in a recently built organ, was not stable in the first 10 minutes of power turn on. Apparently, in the first 10 minutes if use, the data value the TSB was outputting was rising about 10 points. This meant that it took 10 minutes before the electronic voices would be in tune with the pipes.

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