The Theatre Organ

As with the church organ the WERSI instrument provides the same two methods of tone generation to replicate the sounds of the theatre organ, namely Drawbars and Pipe Organ Samples. The flute like tones of the drawbar system are ideally suited to the synthesis of Flute and Tibia stops and combinations of just the octave drawbars work best for these. Brass and String stops can also be synthesised by adding the non-octave drawbars, but these are generally less realistic as they require the more complex harmonics of square waves. Any of the drawbar systems on the organ can be employed, OX7, OAS Drawbars or VST Plugins, either individually or in combination. The Vibrato controls should either be set to one of the ‘V’ (Vibrato) modes or switched off depending on whether a tremolo effect is required or not. The Leslie Speaker operating in Tremolo mode is also very effective in producing the classic theatre organ sound, and longer reverberation times in the dedicated Drawbar Reverberation Unit can provide a large theatre ambience.

The pipe organ samples are recordings taken from a variety of different theatre organs. A number of individual Flute, Tibia, Brass and String stops are provided for use either in solo work or for adding together in suitable combinations. Currently only a maximum of four sounds can be layered together on any keyboard of a WERSI instrument so a number of more complex combination samples are also provided to produce full organ registrations. As with the church organ, the optional Sound Factory package overcomes this layering restriction by enabling a greatly increased number of sounds to be added together, so many more stops can be combined. With the activation of an optional Theater Package the existing samples can be significantly augmented by a range of additional single and combination samples, again recorded from actual instruments, and so produce a very comprehensive theatre organ sound set. Either or both of these sets of samples can be used separately or together and can even be combined with any or all of the drawbar systems.

In the following piece by Pascual Marquina we hear both the OX7 Drawbar System and the Pipe Organ Samples combined together in four registrations that feature all of the flute, tibia, brass and string sounds of the organ in both tremolo and non-tremolo modes. We also add a drum rhythm from the accompaniment unit to emulate the percussion section found on many theatre organs and this is complemented by the use of a drum roll from a range of standard and specialised drum sets that can be placed on the keys of the lower keyboard. And in addition to the theatre organ sounds brace yourself for the odd Ole from an enthusiastic group of Spaniards, again courtesy of the instrument’s Special Effects Unit !

Spanish Gipsy Dance

WERSI ORGAN SHOWCASE

THE THEATRE ORGAN

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