The Anneessens Organ in the St. Eligiuskerk (church) in Westouter is a beautiful and valuable instrument, which has been kept in a very good condition.
This is partly down to the excellent care it has received from organ builder Paul Andriessen from Menen. However, there appeared to be a problem where the organ’s power was concerned and they had to deal with a limited disposition.
The organ has 10 stops and was completely built into the tower, which meant there wasn’t enough sound emitting into the church. There also wasn’t enough space to include extra pipe organ stops on the small rood loft.
Pastor Kenny Brack, also a very creditable organist himself, asked us whether it would be possible to expand the organ with digital stops. The organ was completely revived last May and 18 digital stops were added to the organ.
It goes without saying that a great deal of attention was devoted to the choice of digital stops and the intonation, ensuring the digital stops perfectly suited the organ’s original stops.
The entire system was developed and built in such a way that only minimal and reversible changes were made to the pipe organ.
Johannus Orgelbouw’s Monarke sampling technology was applied and resulted in the digital stops boasting the same, phenomenal vivacity as the real organ pipes.
An 8.1 high power and ultimately modern 9 channel amplifier system looks after the optimal sound emission and distribution. All this makes it virtually impossible to distinguish between the digital and the ‘real’stops, even for the specialists.