Apartment of

Jean Galard

D1 Jean Galard, titular organist of Beauvais Cathedral and Saint-Médard Church in Paris owns a special salon organ, made by Gonzalez in the second half of the 20th century. Gonzalez named this organ model "Unit Baby" because of the "Unit" system that manages the pipes. This was the system used for cinema organs, almost a century ago. Each pipe rests on the wind chest that supplies it with the wind independently. Indeed, under each pipe, there is a valve whose opening is controlled by an electromagnet. So it's all a question of electrical management: each key on the keyboard operates as many contacts as the keyboard contains stops ("needles" at the end of each key); then the electricity (30V DC) passes through a set of contacts corresponding to the selected stop ("jaw"). When you pull a stop, a larger electromagnet slightly moves the 61 needles of the jaw of this stop to make contact and the current then arrives under the desired pipe of the stop you have chosen, to operate its valve. There are a lot of electrical wires inside! The current models of the firm's successors no longer use these jaws, but diodes that play the same role. The two stops (bourdon 8' and prestant 4') were not called "stops" but "series". Both sets have the extra pipes to speak to the top of the keyboard (36 more pipes up to the last note of the 1', and 31 of the prestant until the last note of the 1 1/3). This organ has about the number of pipes of an instrument of three stops. Thanks to Jean Galard for this information. Vidéo

196x - Victor Gonzalez

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