Today I played the 86 rank, Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ at the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, built in 1969. This organ features Great, Positiv, Choir, Swell, Chancel, and Pedal divisions.
The pedal is phenomenal, with three 16' reeds, a real 10 2/3' Gross Quinte, two full length 32' stops (Bourden and Posaune), and much more!
The swell has great reeds: 16' Bombarde, 8' Hautbois, 8' Trompette, 4' Clarion, all fantastic, I wasn't particularly fond of the strings, or principals, I thought the principals were a bit thin, the strings had the kind of chiff you'd want in a principal, with the tremolo and sub couplers, and the 32's bourden, with boxes closed, they sounded quite nice though.
The chancel division serves it's purpose of backing hymns quite well.
The great division is quite nice, I would like to see more fullness in the Flue stops, the mixtures dominate too much in this organ. It is topped of with some great chamades, not the loudest chamades I've played, but they have a bright sound to them, and they are of sufficient volume to be hear over half of the organ, but can still be used in chorus, the chamades were at the perfect volume for an organ this size, and voiced wonderfully I thought!
The choir was alright, the cromorne was voiced in a strange neo-classic fashion, and was quite funny to hear with the tremolo!
The positiv division was nice, the ranket had sort of strange neo-classical voicing to it, like the cromorne, but it works great as a chorus reed.
Over all it was a good organ, and LOUD!
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