In the year 1894 John Turnell Austin, now of Hartford, Conn., took out a patent for an arrangement known as the "Universal air-chest." In this, the spring as opposed to the weight is adopted. The Universal air-chest forms a perfect solution of the problem of supplying prompt and steady wind-pressure, but as practically the same effect is obtained by the use of a little spring reservoir not one hundredth part of its size, it is questionable whether this Universal air-chest, carrying, as it does, certain disadvantages, will survive.
INDIVIDUAL PALLETS.
Fifty years ago the pallet and slider sound-board was well nigh universally used, but several of the builders in Germany, and Roosevelt in this country, strongly advocated, and introduced, chests having an independent valve, pallet or membrane, to control the admission of wind to each pipe in the organ.[1]
In almost all of these instances small round valves were used for this purpose.
A good pallet and slider chest is difficult to make, and those constructed by indifferent workmen out of indifferent lumber will cause trouble through "running"—that is, leakage of wind from one pipe to another. In poor chests of this description the slides are apt to stick when the atmosphere is excessively damp, and to become too loose on days when little or no humidity is present.
Individual pallet chests are cheaper to make and they have none of the defects named above. Most of these chests, however, are subject to troubles of their own, and not one of those in which round valves are employed permits the pipes to speak to advantage.
Willis, Hope-Jones, Carlton C. Michell and other artists, after lengthy tests, independently arrived at the conclusion that the best tonal results cannot by any possibility be obtained from these cheap forms of chest. Long pallets and a large and steady body of air below each pipe are deemed essential.[2]
HEAVY WIND PRESSURES.
As previously stated, the vast majority of organs built fifty years ago used no higher wind pressure than 3 inches. Hill, in 1833, placed a Tuba stop voiced on about 11 inches in an organ he built for Birmingham Town Hall (England), but the tone was so coarse and blatant that such stops were for years employed only in the case of very large buildings.[3] Cavaillé-Coll subsequently utilized slightly increased pressures for the trebles of his flue stops as well as for his larger reeds. As a pioneer he did excellent work in this direction.
To Willis, however, must be attributed greater advance in the utilization of heavy pressures for reed work. He was the first to recognize that the advantage of heavy wind pressure for the reeds lay not merely in the increase of power, but also in the improvement of the quality of tone. Willis founded a new school of reed voicing and exerted an influence that will never die.