All designs have
been carried out in-house by two engineers who formed the company. Both are
electronics graduates and have spent many years working with leading edge
technology in software, electronics and organ businesses.
Phoenix technology
has the edge over the competition, thanks to the design process which started
with a clean sheet of paper and without the hindrances of existing production
schedules or compatibility issues. At Phoenix we have been able to work very
closely with the designers of our sound generation chip to ensure that the
technology we use is the most up to date in the world.
Our circuit boards
and sub-assemblies are manufactured in the UK using the latest techniques with
accredited quality assurance and testing at all stages of production. This
offers the end user a product which is inherently reliable, and will continue
to give sterling service for many years to come.
As technology allows
us to simulate the sound of the original pipe more accurately than ever before,
the tonal gap between pipe organs and their electronic counterparts is
narrowing all the time. It is now at the stage that the difference is so small
that the rate of improvement is slowing down accordingly. Thus today's organ
will go out of date less quickly than an organ of the 1980s and early 1990s.
One of the most
important features in any organ is its response to key presses. The Phoenix
Organ utilises a scaleable multiple processor architecture for its main control
system. For example, each keyboard is scanned by an individual micro-processor
and key presses and releases are passed to the main organ control processor
(the organs brain). This main control processor in turn
controls the operation of the sound generation pre-processors, so controlling
the sound of the instrument. Similar processors handle input from stops and
pistons. More control processors are provided in larger instruments to ensure
that the response to all events is always consistent and prompt.
In addition to
complete organs, we also offer a rebuilding service for instruments built by
other manufacturers that have become unreliable or simply outdated. Many older
electronic organs still have fine consoles, but without the benefit of the
latest technology, sound dated. The addition of a new sound generation system
will bring these instruments right up to date for a fraction of the cost of a
new organ. There is a strong parallel to the pipe organ industry here, where
there are many more contracts to rebuild existing instruments than there are to
build brand new instruments. A rebuild is universally accepted as a convenient
way forward in the Pipe Organ world, so why should it be any different in the
electronic world?