The Pedal Division
The restoration of the Pedal division began in the Spring of 2021, during the second year of the Covid restrictions. The church choir had been disbanded, so to speak, and everyone sat, “socially distanced”, in the body of the church. During the Phase One restoration the piano provided the music, and Trevor was able to make use of the choir stall space.
The old Choir Organ, which was situated behind the Swell box, had been removed; at that stage a two-manual organ was planned for.
The Swell box is in the middle of the top of the picture; the splayed levers connect the Swell drawstops to the Swell box. The top left of the picture is where the Choir organ was.
The Two Pedal Ranks
The original Pedal ranks were a 16′ Violone, a loud open wood stop, and a 16′ Bourdon, a softer, stopped wood stop.
The Violone was revoiced (and renamed Open Wood.) To increase the scale of the rank, for a more effective sound, all the pipes were moved up a semitone and retuned from their original pitches. All except the lowest pipe, the 16′ C, which has a gadget to allow it to sound at C or at C#.
The 16′ Violone rank did not provide pipes for 8′ and 4′ stops; two octaves pipes were added to extend the high end of the rank to complete the 8′ and 4′ pitches.
The Bourdon was completely replaced, as it had suffered from woodworm. The new pipes came from the stock of a closed Northern Ireland organ builder, and a new soundboard was made for some of them.
Coupling
The Pedal action is electrical; this makes it easy to provide more than one stop, normally at higher octaves, from a single rank of pipes, using an electronic device called a diode coupling board. There is a diode coupling board for each of our two pedal ranks.
The coupling board for what was the Violone provides these pedal stops:
Open Wood 16 (the basic pitch of the rank)
Octave 8 (an octave above)
Fifteenth 4 (two octaves above
The board for what was the Bourdon provides these stops:
Subbass 32 (an octave below the basic pitch of the rank)
Bourdon 16 (the basic pitch of the rank)
Flute 8 (an octave above)
Quint 5⅓ (an octave and a fifth above)
The Quint is an example of a mutation stop; its purpose is to be used together with the Bourdon 16′ to alter the tonal colour of the latter.
The bottom octave of the Subbass would be below the range of Bourdon rank; that octave is simulated (imperfectly) by the aural effect of sounding each note in the bottom octave of the Bourdon rank together with the note a fifth above.
The Harvest Festival on Sunday 10th October 2021 was the first service (since Covid) with organ and choir. Trevor Crowe himself played.
Holy Trinity Parish Killiney 