page_title: Pipe organ
section_title: Modern development
hierarchical_section_title: Pipe organ / History and development / Modern development
caption_attribution_description: English: The Pipe Organ in the Main Chapel of San Carlos Seminary.
context_page_description: The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have many ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops.
  A pipe organ has one or more keyboards played by the hands, and a pedalboard played by the feet; each keyboard controls its own division, or group of stops. The keyboard, pedalboard, and stops are housed in the organ's console. The organ's continuous supply of wind allows it to sustain notes for as long as the corresponding keys are pressed, unlike the piano and harpsichord whose sound begins to dissipate immediately after a key is depressed. The smallest portable pipe organs may have only one or two dozen pipes and one manual; the largest may have over 33,000 pipes and seven manuals. A list of some of the most notable and largest pipe organs in the world can be viewed at List of pipe organs.
context_section_description: The development of pneumatic and electro-pneumatic key actions in the late 19th century made it possible to locate the console independently of the pipes, greatly expanding the possibilities in organ design. Electric stop actions were also developed, which allowed sophisticated combination actions to be created.
  Beginning in the early 20th century in Germany and in the mid-20th century in the United States, organ builders began to build historically inspired instruments modeled on Baroque organs. They returned to building mechanical key actions, voicing with lower wind pressures and thinner pipe scales, and designing specifications with more mixture stops. This became known as the Organ reform movement.
  In the late 20th century, organ builders began to incorporate digital components into their key, stop, and combination actions. Besides making these mechanisms simpler and more reliable, this also makes it possible to record and play back an organist's performance using the MIDI protocol. In addition, some organ builders have incorporated digital (electronic) stops into their pipe organs.
  The electronic organ developed throughout the 20th century. Some pipe organs were replaced by digital organs because of their lower purchase price, smaller physical size, and minimal maintenance requirements. In the early 1970s, Rodgers Instruments pioneered the hybrid organ, an electronic instrument that incorporates real pipes; other builders such as Allen Organs and Johannus Orgelbouw have since built hybrid organs. Allen Organs first introduced the electronic organ in 1937 and in 1971 created the first digital organ using CMOS technology borrowed from NASA which created the digital pipe organ using sound recorded from actual speaking pipes and incorporating the sounds electronically within the memory of the digital organ thus having real pipe organ sound without the actual organ pipes.
caption: The pipe organ in the chapel of San Carlos Seminary, Makati City, Philippines exhibits a modern façade.
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