Jim Reid wrote:Oh my, in my opinion, it would NOT be a good idea to get your church into such a near "state of the art" building project for a new organ! UNLESS, you have some very capable computer savy members as well as those who might enjoy assembling the "furniture" required to house the electronics--midi keyboards, the needed computer and the interconnect between the computer and the new, now non-existent organ console.
Thank you for this consoling, down to earth advice. However, I myself am well suited to the problems at hand and I would like nothing better at this moment than a chance to really get my hands dirty in a project like this, a project which would have as its goal not just a good organ, but a cheap organ which can be made reliable through its componentry and overall design. I want to produce a quality instrument, an instrument that is both suited to the space (which is more like a living-room than a stereotypical church – ah, the sweet joy of having a nave, if only we could afford one...) and which can someday become more than it is, something closer to the original, a platform upon which, over time, an instrument can be built, revised, and honed. I know I am not alone in thinking this.
Just as the computer I use now functions better than it did one year ago when I bought it, as upgrades to the system software and other program packages have made it a better system, I firmly believe this can be made into a good philosophy for an instrument such as an organ, an instrument which has throughout its history been a complex feet of manufacture, improved upon by many artists and engineers.
I still want to see a whole get-up of Hauptwerk running somewhere in my area. I'm nearly tempted to go out and make a simple model from junk I can pick up around my town. But I made an oath years ago never to build a solution from a Windows machine again, and I would much rather find someone willing to show off their own instrument. So if you're out there, I'm still listening.