Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:45 pm
Hi,
Things to consider:
If you're just doing Baroque, 49 might be O.K., but even Bach has a few instances of needing the high d, 52 notes. English Baroque, early classical organs had gone to e, 54 notes. Franck has a couple of instances of high a, 58 notes. Many organists survive on 56 notes, to high g. The big advantage of 61 is being able to use a 16 register played up an octave to make it an 8'.
You can weigh this against what you are most likely to be playing and decide for yourself, but if possible and not too much more expensive, I'd go with 61.
I had encouraged Daryl at MidiWorks to take a single Fatar Keyboards, put key cheeks, a board across the top and back of the keys and a simple music rack and sell single Fatar keyboards (with or without pistons) for use as portable, continuo, studio, etc,vkeyboard, so we could have the nice touch of the Fatars, which many of the commercial keyboards are lacking. But I don't think it happened.
John