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Hi all! I am the owner of Hatter's Church Organs. We are a full-service organ company based out of St. Louis, MO in the US. Our company started as a service and installation company, serving as subcontractors to dealers of every main brand of digital instruments in the US and to many pipe organ companies as well. When major changes with one of our largest customers happened at both the national level and the local level, it was time for us to take our 18 years of experience and dedicate ourselves solely to working directly with our customers.
We are intimately familiar with the shortcomings of the other brands, having been factory trained by many of them. At the discretion of the salesperson, almost every digital organ we were hired to install since 2000 included the most basic audio system required to make all of the organ stops speak (such as a top-of-the-line 4 manual with only 2 speakers per division). This approach is little more than a glorified bookshelf stereo system in a home and in total opposition to designing a project around what is truly necessary to create an authentic pipe organ sound in a given space. Every professional sound engineer can highlight the "no-no's" of pushing too many sounds through too few speakers. You can't FOOL organists or the laws of physics.
A few years ago, we purchased our pipe organ competitors. To round out our business, we needed to offer high-quality digital organs as well. Viscount was unfamiliar to us at the time, but we had the opportunity as subcontractors to install our first Viscount, and the rest is history.
Before we know anything about Physis technology, we HEARD it and EXPERIENCED it. It was the absolute, most authentic pipe organ emulation we had ever heard. When we learned why Physis is light years ahead of sampling technology, it made even more sense why we heard what we heard.
It is a big risk on the part of any company to represent a brand, but all I can say is offering Viscount has been the most successful strategic move we have ever made in the history of our firm.
Having been dealers for a short amount of time, we have sold and installed 15 instruments and hundreds of the US bi-polar speakers. Each instrument has far exceeded our expectations but most importantly, our customer's expectations. This is not sales fluff, it's the truth.
What has impressed us the most, and it's the real acid test for a digital organ, it's its ability to seamlessly integrate the real wind-blown pipes in our pipe/digital combinations. The challenge in building a hybrid organ is to create a singular instrument.
Due to the lack of authenticity in the sound generation philosophy and audio system installation guidelines with other companies, the finished pipe/digital combination sounds like two different organs. As a matter of fact, this is the single reason critics do not advocate digital instruments. Not so with Viscount. Here is a perfect example of what goes into creating a successful hybrid: If you are combining a digital 8' Principal with a real 4' octave, 2' Super Octave, and Mixture, the fundamental tone of the Principal Chorus comes from a digital rank. It's treatment, therefore, is extremely critical. Other other companies may only have 4 options that are "frozen" into a sample. A sampled sound cannot be stretched far enough to match pipes. If you try, it will not even sound like a real pipe. This is the seriousness of limitations with samples.
Physis has well over 60 different options, just for the 8' Principal! Once the perfect stop is selected, is already very close to the proper sound to complete the chorus. From there, Physis allows the digital stop to be voiced to match the speech characteristics and the scaling of the real pipes. This is a pipe builders DREAM! If you can please pipe organ companies, it is safe to say the sound is more than worthy to support any type of Music Ministry.
All I can say is if you're skeptical, imagine putting your livelihood at risk to choose Viscount. For us, it has been better than we could have imagined. For you, you are getting the best technology in the world for your congregation. Your decision to choose Viscount will make you look like a hero!
Viscount has been a huge blessing to my company and a blessing to the territory in the US we serve.
Thank you Viscount!
The Officers and Technicians of Hatter's Church Organs