The Organ Workshop has been building & installing digital organs since its inception back in February 1992. The partnership is headed by Hugh Banton, whose life-long interest in music and electronics has led him along a career path which has included - at various times - TV engineer, professional organist & musician, recording engineer, electronics designer and organ voicer. Immediately prior to setting up The Organ Workshop Hugh was Technical Director and voicer at Makin Organs in Oldham, having originally joined the company back in 1977.
The Organ Workshop has, over the years, designed and built custom digital instruments of all sizes, and has in addition installed and voiced numerous factory produced instruments produced by European manufacturers such as Viscount, Gem and Ahlborn.
A recent speciality has been the creation of hybrid instruments, whereby traditional wind-blown organ pipes are supplemented by digitally-produced stops. Among our larger hybrid projects have been organs where we have provided new fully-fitted consoles, with digital stops enhancing the pipe organ in every division, in some cases more than doubling the size of an existing pipe instrument.
We produce a number of in-house electronic parts, including a range of MIDI encoders, decoders & processors and audio power amplifier modules, all of which have been regularly used in our organ installations. Some of our MIDI and electronic circuits are available for diy constructors who are pursuing, for example, Hauptwerk or jOrgan projects.
Most recently we have been devising a completely new digital organ system, HB3 - click on the tab above for more information.