Cantor Digital Church Organ Technology

CANTOR TECHNOLOGY

With the development and production of the CANTOR organ, we chose to follow the same traditions as the best pipe organ builders. 

With these traditions, we build our CANTOR organs to order. Any environment, from church to living room, demands a specific sound and therefore a specific custom instrument. Differences in organ literature, personal taste, acoustic specifications of the room, application of the organ, style and architectural proportions - all determine the final sound, size and disposition of the instrument. 

Cantor uses software and computer hardware to accurately produce the pipe speech in real time, not as a recorded sample.  This system is far superior and offers more flexibility than organs using less advanced sampling technology.

Cantor specializes in building organs of quality, both tonally and visually.  Cantor offers its organs in specific tonal concepts for each organ.  Specifications are available for a wide spectrum of historical organ building.  Stop lists reflect specific tonal concepts in organ building such as Baroque, French Romantic,  or other traditions.   Our goal is to build organs that fulfill these concepts.

Totally independent voicing:  Each stop can be voiced, note for note, through its entire compass.  The hallmark of any pipe organ is its tonal success in the room.  Similarly, Cantor organs are built one at a time and completely voiced in the shop, and then tonally finished at the final installation.  But that is only part of the equation.  As with pipe organs, harpsichords, violins or any other musical instrument which is hand made, the ear and tonal expectations, or concept of the builder, will render different results for each instrument.  Thus, it is reasonable to say that the human part of the equation affects the quality of sound as much as the physical properties of the instrument.

Pipe organs are wind instruments.  They breathe by means of bellows.  The air pressure is regulated in the bellows by some force applying pressure on the bellows.  The bellows are expanded with air, much like taking a deep breath. When the keys are depressed, air leaves the bellows and goes to the pipe.  Without going into the details of pipe chest design,  on certain organs you can actually hear the organ breathe as the wind fluctuates.   As the organ is played, the wind in the bellows may vary slightly, depending on the demands of the organ.  This is called Winding.  The Cantor organ offers many levels of winding, depending on the demands placed on the instrument to give the player a very realistic sense of the music.  

DIGITAL CANTOR REVERBERATION

One of inspirations of both listening to and playing a magnificent pipe organ in a spectacular worship space or concert hall is the impact room acoustics have on the final sound of the organ.  Cantor has also developed a digital reverberation system that creates a realistic acoustic environment.  This is probably the single biggest advantage that a Cantor digital organ has when compared to a pipe organ.  A pipe organ's success or failure as a rewarding and enjoyable instrument is often determined by the acoustical properties of its environment.  For many churches and for almost all home studios, proper acoustics are non-existent.

Cantor utilizes the latest in digital reverb technology, specifically designed for this application.  The end result is the achievement of a sound in the room that is both natural and believable. Rooms with less than adequate natural acoustics will realize dramatic results.  This system can also obtain the same natural acoustic reverberation properties found in larger worship spaces and cathedrals by modifying the specific characteristics between the relationship in decay of high and low frequencies.

Our organs offer complete control over many aspects of delay properties with varying delay times and frequency responses to accurately replicate various room characteristics.  The amount of reverb for each specific reverb program is completely adjustable from 0 to 100%.