The organ went haywire during the 11:00 service this was the email from our organist."Some of you may be wondering what on earth happened to the organ during the 11:00 service yesterday. First of all, the organ did not "blow up." Yes, it sounded like an explosion, but it was not. What happened was that the computer system in the organ decided to play the en chamade trumpets all at once. Aren't you glad I don't do that?! It wouldn't have been quite so painful if the organ had decided to play flutes instead, but it decided to play the loudest stop on the organ all at once. So, it's like a giant cipher, even though I was not playing that stop at all yesterday. It's hard to believe, but the sounds we heard yesterday are all actual sounds from the organ pipes. It's as if I played the en chamade trumpets with my forearms up and down the keyboard. The sound ended abruptly because I turned off the organ as soon as I discovered that "General Cancel" would not fix the problem.
The organ was built by the Létourneau company, and the computer system, which runs the combination system and memory level system, was built by SSL, Solid State Logic. The problem is not mechanical or electrical (as a lightning strike might affect it) but a computer glitch. Our local organ technician disconnected the entire back organ this morning, so that the entire front organ is playable as usual (the pipes in the chancel make up 90% of the organ.) We have been in touch with both Letourneau and SSL, and SSL is sending us a whole new processor board, cards, and other things which I don't understand, for the back organ. Fortunately, these parts are still under warranty. We will send back to SSL the old parts and they will hopefully determine from that what went wrong."
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