PHOENIX ORGANS

Building organs brings together many different crafts. By far the largest proportion of work and indeed cost goes into the woodwork of the organ. If you stop and consider the console of any organ that you are familiar with, the over-riding material which is everywhere is wood. The console is a piece of furniture, as handsomely finished as anything which would grace your dining room and you sit on a solid wooden seat which must stand the rigours of organists - including the heavyweights - the keys sit on a table far thicker and more rigid than an average dining table, and this table supports anything up to 75% of the total weight of the console. Because of all these and many other factors, we have our consoles made to our own designs by a well established firm of organ builders. At first we looked at the possibility of manufacturing our own consoles, but we felt that certainly in the foreseeable future, the experience of a well established firm would work to everybody's mutual benefit.

So the design and quality of a Phoenix Organ's console reflects the experience and expertise of craftsmen who have spent many years in the trade.

Senior staff at Phoenix are electronics graduates and have considerable experience in designing and implementing electronic systems using leading edge electronic and software technologies.  They have many years experience of working with major electronic organ manufacturers.  We have worked very closely with the manufacturers of our sound generation processor (chip) to ensure that the technology we use is up-to-date and that we make optimum use of its capabilities.  We have used modern system development methodologies and tools in our design process.  The design of the Phoenix Organ System draws on on our considerable knowledge, experience and skills to produce the best electronic organ sound.

Our circuit boards and sub-systems are manufactured using modern techniques and with accredited quality assurance and testing at all stages of production. This allows us to offer the end-user a product which is inherently reliable, and which will continue to give sterling service for many years to come.

Electronic and computer-based technologies continue to make advances.  Today the Phoenix Organ System allows us to get much closer to the original pipe sound than other systems.  We believe that the differences in sound between a Phoenix Organ and a real pipe instrument are so small that there will be less tonal benefits from adopting future technologies than there has been in the past and so a Phoenix Organ will go out of date less quickly than other systems.

We have also developed pipe control hardware that integrates directly with our console control.  Over 16,000 pipes can be controlled in up to 16 separate locations.  A three wire high-speed serial data link connects the pipe chamber control system to the console.  We are therefore able to install our system as part of a hybrid pipe-digital instrument, either during the rebuilding of an existing pipe organ or when a new instrument is being constructed.

The Phoenix System will however continue to evolve and we shall offer our customers the opportunity to upgrade to newer generation systems in a cost effective manner.

© Phoenix Organs 2001-2005  Last updated 17th January 2005