Whooppeee… the Chiappa plays beautifully!

Whooppeee… the Chiappa plays beautifully!
With an event in sight it’s been a struggle to get the Chiappa outfit ready in time, but I got there in the end: The lorry passed the MOT with just a rear section of exhaust in need of replacement. Prior to this, the water pump was making some very funny noises as the bearings were shot at, so this needed renewing before it even went to the MOT station! A corroded screw underneath caused quite a headache, but some WD40 to the screw to remove it, and I replaced it with a A4 grade Stainless Steel bolt that should resist water corrosion, with a new spacer promptly turned up on my Drummond lathe for the job. Before all that, I had to get the lorry out my typically cluttered up yard, a slow and calculated exercise given the little room for error. This was actually very straightforward in the end, though after negotiating the squeeze I realised just how much a certain tree had grown over the year, so some last minute gardening was necessary!

Having completed the restoration of the remaining melody pipe ranks, the final job here was to stay them into position and then tune. Not wanting the compromise of an equal temperament, I tuned the organ using Wreckmeister III, (usable in all keys, but chosen so the most frequently used keys are closely in tune, and any accidental chords and unusual key changes sound colourful). This is the temperament I believe Waldkirch organ builders used a century ago, and the to which the glockenspiel bars are now also tuned.

Once the tuning was out the way (and I’m very grateful to all my neighbours for putting up with the noise!) I had the book shelves to install and make travelling covers for, along with a temporary key frame shelf. With time running out, I fitted the permanent front floods and rigged up some coloured lamps for the time being, though these will be greatly improved in the near future. Not having time for making the facade, I fitted some spare carvings that were lying around to improve the aesthetics for the time being, and the bandmistress too. On the day of the event I was up very very early and decided I just had time to rig up what must have been the quickest register box ever put together – just a single piano/forte system, but it did the job, and will naturally be replaced with a faster and more reliable multi-way changing system (more on ideas for this later).

I’ll find some more photos of the work in progress to post under this thread when I return home this weekend. For photos of the first weekend out with the organ, see my post in the 'Photo Gallery'.

(Depending on one's generation...) Sick! Rad, like totally! Awesome! Cool, dude! Far out! The cat's pajamas! You clearly have gotten a lot done in your "silent period". It looks great, I look forward to hearing it someday. Roger

Thanks Roger. I'm pleased to say that I had the full range of age groups intereted in the Chiappa at the Warwick weekend, and in fact probably more of the younger generation were facinated by the machine than the older folks. The audience was probably biased with this being a classical music concert rather than a rock band or something, but I'm pleased to say there was a large crowd around it every time. I seem to remember my "Carmen Medley" book (superbly arranged by Tom Meijer) held the biggest crowd. I'm glad I moved the key frame to the back of the case, as one can see it and the book music perfectly from either side door, where many people stood watching. Great too for the operator to tell when the music is running out. I've yet to fit any back panel covers, so it's damn loud in there - ear defenders will certainly be needed for long playing periods (amazingly none of the St. John Ambulance medical staff had any cotton wool for this purpose). People looking around inside didn't mind the volume of noise, and if anything were more impressed by the power of the sound from the back and being able to 'feel' each note. I'm so glad there's no midi / electronics in their too, as the fact the music is all mechancial was the main facination shown by the public, together with the history factor of the instrument. Cheers for now, Nick

Well Nick, it looks " Les -*test*-('")icles du chein" I hope you bringing it to Twinwoods in October. Well done, Bob

Looks great Nick - you worked really hard on this !! Look forward to hearing some sample MP3's - when you have the time of course !! Stephen.

Thanks folks, and yes Stephen I’ll get some sample MP3 files uploaded as soon as I get chance to do some recording. I can’t promise I can bring it to Twinwoods though Bob, we’ll have to see nearer the time. The problem is that being petrol the lorry eats fuel, so with tax and insurance as well it’s going to cost me heavily if I was to bring it to the rally. It’s different if I was local to the event and/or in full-time well-paid employment, but being a far away university student makes it much harder on the bank balance, especially as I’ll be starting my final university year in October so will be having large accommodation bills etc to lay out that month. Anyway, here are some more photos of work in progress…

Quick register box installation before leaving…

Nick You have done a fantastic job on the Organ it really looks great. I wish I had just a part of your knowledge about those types of organs. Where I am at here in the US there are very few organs to go see. I keep studying and building but so far I only have what I see on here and am able to find to read about to go on. It sure is hard to figure out how to tune an organ when I have only heard the ones that I have built. They sound good to me and everyone seems to like them BUT are they turned right. Beats me!!! I am going to start soon on the organ by Johan de Vries but still not sure how many keys to go with. Well that’s enough rambling. Just wanted to say GREAT JOB. :) :? 8) Jay

Just echoing what everyone else has already said, but nice work Nick, looking good. Nice bandmaster, too. Did it come with the organ?

Looks absolutely superb Nick. I actually like th elook of it in the van without a facade on & just the carvings. It shows off the pipes nicely. I'd be tempted to sort out your lighting around the opening & leave it as it is. As for the back, I found last weekend with the reed organ how many people want to look & see how things work & altho it is noisier, it does make it easier to show people if it's not all boxed in, so if u do encase it all, make at least one panel easily removeable. I look forward to hearing it next time I'm down, but well done on all your hard work, it's certainly paid off.

Many thanks for the such kind comments guys, they mean a lot to me. The proof of the pudding is in the eating though, so earlier today I managed to do some very quick recording to give you all an idea how it's presently sounding. Sorry about the wind noise, slow register box, loud bell and poor reproduction of the melody flutes and bass frequencies - I had no room to position mics at all, so just had to make so with my hand held mp3 recorder and basic mic on an upturned box in front of the lorry. Plenty more tweaks to the sound to be made too :D. Please go to www.fairgroundorgan.com/chiappa for the links to the three MP3 files I've uploaded (each just over 1Mb in size). Glad you like the facade as it is Gary. I haven't had time to live with it long enough to fully evalute the present 'mk1' facade yet, but do agree it does look acceptable for now, so we'll have to see. Some of that carved work belongs to an old Limonaire I have in pieces, so will be needed back one day! This bandmistress was bought from a vintage mechanical music auction: no carved work or figures of any description came with the Chiappa organ 'wreck' (just a case with some pipes in, a few boxes of music and other mechanical parts/pipes, and two old blowers).

Thanks for posting the MP3's - sounds cool !! Stephen.

No problem Stephen, glad you enjoyed them. Once I’ve completed the register box and extra percussion, then made the appropriate changes to the music library, it will be time for professional recording for CDs - so watch this space!

Hi Nick The Chiappa looks and sounds excellent. I have just heard the recordings and you start with an old favourite of mine, Wings over the Navy. This is a 1930's tune as you no doubt know, and I believe it was in honour of the Fleet Air Arm. From the recordings you seem to have hit the right 'fair organ' sound of the bigger instruments yet from a small/medium sized organ - how did you do that? I think Mr Hall's comment very relevant, as I too feel the front looks good even without the traditional facade by the pipes being fully on view. Have you any idea of what sort of facade the organ originally had by the way? Warmest wishes, Jim

Hi Nick, It looks good, I haven't listened to the sound files yet. How about when you do box in the case work at the back, you use perspex panels for places where there is action in evidence, so that interested Joe Public can still see the action without being completely deafened when looking in the back. It isn't strictly 'restoration' but if done properly (which no doubt you can do) should look professional and smart and not detract from its vintage. Best wishes Anna

Great idea Anna; I hadn't thought of that. I did think it would be a shame to cover up the internal mechanisms given that the folks at the Warwick weekend looking in the back of the lorry were so facinated by them. The primary and secondary chests already had perspex covers anyway so you can see the moving internal parts, so while I do have the original solid back covers for the casework, it would still be quite in keeping to use replacement perspex panels for this purpose (certainly needs something to quieten things for the operator!). Maybe just clear perspex on the top section for now, as whatever panels go there would be difficult to remove when the organ is playing due to the new position of music and key frame (hence the original upper cover won't fit anyway). I was going to mount the register box quite low down, but guess it would be nicer if I used the space at the top of the case for this above the primary - more accessible there anyway, plus certainly more viewable. The lower section contains the secondary action and all the bass pipes, so still interesting to see, but given the difficulty some people have with bending down, I might leave the original wooden cover in place here (needs alteration to accommoate the new position of the blower tube). Glad you like the recordings Jim. I don't know that the Chiappa was ever fitted with a fixed front. There are staple holes around the front casework which suggest it might have had cloth in front of the pipes at some stage, and from earlier iMOD discussions it could well have had a facade which stood independently of the casework (there are no screw holes in the case to suggest it had ever had a facade fitted directly to it). As for the sound, this is where the qote key size of an organ can be quite misleading. A basic small 48 key fair organ might have 1 rank of bass flues, 1 rank accompaniment stopped flutes, and 2 ranks of violins on the melody with a glockenspiel on the forte register. That makes 64 pipes in total (8 + 12 + 2x22) which is quite small as organs go. Compare this to the Chiappa which now has 210 pipes (5 ranks in each section), so this why it sounds like a bigger instrument (granted it's technically a 49 kl now, and may become a 50 kl perhaps if I spilt the glockenspiel off onto its own register rather than being duplex with the other two registers). There are lots of organs out there which have a large number of pipes for their scale and those which have a large scale for their number of pipes. I wonder if anyone has ever put together a graph of key frame size against number of pipes to study the variations? The average trend should certainly not be a linear relationship, I'm guessing perhaps an exponential increase in the expected number of pipes as the scale size increases? Cheers for now, Nick

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