Rodgers Allegiant 657, Owner'S Manual

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String stops do exactly what you would imagine—they imitate the sound of orchestral strings.
These ranks are smaller in scale than most other ranks and usually have a lot of upper harmonics
and a “clean” or “silvery” timbre. This characteristic makes them well suited to accompaniment
and softer ensembles. String stops include the
Viole Celeste II .
Members of the Reed family are also very diverse and are used for everything from solo colors
to the fiery crown in a full organ registration. These stops also are often imitative of orchestral
reeds and brass instruments. Examples of reed stops are the
Trumpet, Hautbois and Clarion.
Other Families
In addition to the four families of stops listed above, your 657/677 also has a few other stop
families that can be used.
The Percussion family contains voices such as the Piano and Timpani . These stops have a
percussive attack and gradually grow softer as you hold the note. Rodgers’ advanced
TrueChimes™ system insures that all aspects of the digital chimes voice are exceptionally
realistic. Unlike many other systems, the decay of notes played on the Chimes isn’t affected by
changes in the registration.
Also present in the 657/677 specification are voices in the Orchestral and Choral families.
Found as Voice Palette selections, these timbres allow a myriad of opportunities for musical
performance. Examples of Orchestral colors include the
Strings and Slow Strings ; Choral
voices are represented by Rich Choir and Boychoir Ah textures.
Pitch Designations
Each of the stops and couplers on your Rodgers 657/677 has a pitch designation, listed in “feet,”
(8’, 4’, 16’, etc.).
8’ refers to concert pitch ; the pitch of a note played on an 8’ stop will be
identical to the pitch of the same note played on a piano. 16’ represents an octave below concert
pitch; a note played on a 16’ stop will sound an octave below an 8’ stop.
This system of designating pitches represents the approximate length of open organ pipes; the
largest pipe in an 8’ rank is approximately eight feet long; the largest pipe in a 16’ rank is about
sixteen feet long. Other footages and their relationship to concert pitch are listed in the table
below:
Pitch Relationship to concert pitch
32’ two octaves below
16’ one octave below
8’ equal to concert pitch (also known as ‘Unison’)
4’ one octave above
2’ two octaves above
1’ three octaves above
When whole numbers are used (as shown in the table above), it implies that the pitch of the stop
is a certain number of octaves above or below the 8’ pitch.
Mutation stops, on the other hand,
have fractions in their pitch designations, meaning that their pitch falls somewhere other than on
the octave.