Final Report Summary - TRUESOUND (A Challenge for Materials Science: Bringing True Baroque and Medieval Sound Back to Life in Historic and New Pipe Organs)
The final project deliverables include:
(a) identifying historically accurate alloy compositions;
(b) developing the processes necessary to reproduce historically accurate material properties;
(c) manufacturing tongues as replacement parts for historic reed pipes and as new reed pipe components with historic sound.
The objective of this project was to uniquely qualify European SME organ builders to restore historic pipe organs and build new ones with true Baroque sound. For the first time, historically accurate Cu-based alloys for reed pipe tongues were developed by a transnational research team and implemented by SME organ builders from five European countries. The knowledge of these alloys is a key competence for their successful competition on the world market.
Two novel prototype alloys (with and without lead) have been produced in the project. They have been tested by organ builders participating in the consortium. In order to get the possibility of an independent assessment of the pipe sound, a special software has been developed. This software enables one to digitise the spectrum of sound, particularly that of organ pipes, and to compare the spectra of various sounds. Special procedure and equipment for sound acquisition have been developed as well. First recordings of the sound of reed pipes with old tongues and with newly developed alloys have been performed together with a first sound evaluation with the aid of this software.