I've been following Mattias' work for a while now. It's impressive the amount of really big projects he has finished over the years. His YouTube channel has all sorts of interesting projects on it.<p>If you're into homemade instruments and the process behind making them, bellowphone is fun one to check out. He goes into detail about his builds and also has performances of himself playing his wacky creations.
Donald E. Knuth approves. <a href="https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html" rel="nofollow">https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html</a><p>I too approve, but I'm sickly envying a pedal keyboard to exercise. I have no place in my home really, I know I could just buy a Studiologic pedalboard with 17 keys, along with SL X SE, but it's quite expensive and space consuming...
When I first saw the headline, I imagined a big huge organ with 100 keys and pedals, lots of stops, and huge pipes. I was <i>very</i> pleasantly surprised to see something small, with maybe 48 keys, and a handful of creatively-placed pipes!<p>Sometimes when we imagine a project, we think about how big it is, and get discouraged -- but this is a good reminder that some of the best projects are small, and thus, are less daunting and more easily tackled!
Strongly encourage people to hear a big pipe organ at least once, like the Wanamaker in Philadelphia. Church ones are usually great because of the acoustics. It is a visceral pleasure like no other. No matter how good your home sound system is, it won’t compare to the chest-rattling and wholly immersive in-person experience.
I love DIY music of any kind. Weird Javascript synths, PVC pipe flutes, badly tuned wooden vibraphones on the playgrounds, tissue box and rubber band guitars - give me all of it. Every time someone builds something to make a sound they're doing art, expressing one of the things I love most about humans - that we like to make interesting noises. (and ugly ones too!)<p>The _physicality_ of music is maybe the closest thing I can think of to real actual magic. We build these devices to modulate the pressure of air in specific ways so that we can transmit sound. Us humans have got built in hardware that is capable of incredibly fine control of air pressure and hardware for decoding those pressure waves into language - and even sometimes to bypass the language decoding and hit us directly in our emotions.<p>Take some time to really think about how sound works and how we're able to produce and receive it. It sounds like something out of a fantasy novel!
Mattias is a wizard of woodworking. His other site has numerous amazing projects: <a href="https://woodgears.ca/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://woodgears.ca/index.html</a> (like a 26" bandsaw: <a href="https://woodgears.ca/big_bandsaw/26in.html" rel="nofollow">https://woodgears.ca/big_bandsaw/26in.html</a> and pantorouter: <a href="https://woodgears.ca/pantorouter/xl.html" rel="nofollow">https://woodgears.ca/pantorouter/xl.html</a>)
There’s a fascinating series of YouTube videos of someone buying and refurbishing a church organ
<a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLluPQLh1xzlI7EMB5qIxDd_1OLE-Z_kyC" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLluPQLh1xzlI7EMB5qIxDd_1O...</a>
I stumbled across this page myself recently whilst wondering what was possible DIY.<p>Also the Baumorgel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weAV0i8fGFE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weAV0i8fGFE</a><p>Question for anyone knowledgeable. I had an idea to take a large block of wood and a router to cut a number of channels. Then put plywood on the top to make a rank of pipes. The lip and throat could be also done with a router.<p>I imagine the physics of each pipe would work fine monophonically. I think it would work polyphonically but I wonder if there would be interference?<p>How much does the resonance of the individual pipe contribute to timbre?
<a href="https://orgelkidsusa.org/commission_a_kit/" rel="nofollow">https://orgelkidsusa.org/commission_a_kit/</a> I don't know if they're still up and making them but orgelkids used to sell an assemble yourself kit.
Does/did Donald Knuth not have a pipe organ in his home?<p><a href="https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html" rel="nofollow">https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/organ.html</a>
This brings back memories, found this site 20 years ago when I dreamed of building a pipe organ. My dreams were more ambitious and I used to spend a good number of hours scouring ebay for used pipes and researching and dreaming, got myself a copy of The Art of Organ Building and drew lots of plans. Eventually I realized the sort of organ I would need to be happy was beyond my means and ambitions but it was a fun dream.<p>The organ which inspired my dreams:
<a href="https://jehanalain.ch/orgue/" rel="nofollow">https://jehanalain.ch/orgue/</a><p>Edit: The Alain Organ, not the Tagliavini, did not check the link closely enough and missed it covered two organs.
Openpipes.org is where I would send everyone first. Make a console to play with computer sounds. If you really like it buy a large house with a room for an organ but computers sound amazing with good speakers and are a lot cheaper.
What a beautiful instrument! When I saw the title I assumed this would be another instrument cobbled together from various decommissioned instruments. This is a much more interesting project!
We had a small 6-rank organ in our shop for a while. A Holtkamp orignally in a funeral home, and then modified for a residence before we picked it up. But it became a nuisance to maintain, keep in tune, and play.<p>I went to a Hauptwerk digital DIY one and it really is better for small and residential use. For one thing, you can have the volume at safe levels!
NPR had a story about a NEW pipe organ album:<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5232116/james-mcvinnie-pipe-organ-review" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5232116/james-mcvinnie-...</a><p>I enjoy modular synths and always felt they were essentially pipe organs - with some zzt zzt.