Here are the five keyboards of St Eustache played by Joseph Bonnet, Andre Marchal, André Fleury and Jean Guillou, when they arrived at my place. Their story is unusual: After being dismantled by Mr. Dunand, Organ builder who was in charge of the restoration of St Eustache, and after the bankruptcy of the latter, these keyboards were collected by an organ builder, to whom I bought them. And oh irony of history, the electrical equipment (classical contacts) of these keyboards were dismantled by Mr. Dunand, in order to make a new mechanical organ.

Given the exceptional state of conservation and quality of these keyboards, one really wonders why it was deemed necessary to replace them. Why, too, go get keyboards in England, (probably overpriced!) French factors are they not able to do the same? No big deal, it's the taxpayer who pays ...

But history has decided otherwise: Because I have them with a Hall effect control system, without physical contact, which I myself developed with a certain pleasure. These exceptional keyboards deserved an exceptional control system. This system can control up to 16 keyboards / pedalboards.

This system is connected directly to the PC that equips the organ, thanks to an electronic interface of my design.

I also designed and developed the control software with more than 100,000 lines of code. All the controls, keypads and 1596 direct acting electro-valves are controlled by this software.
It gives the touch unparalleled flexibility, reliability and comfort. And a very fast response. (less than 4mS). And configurable. Many other effects are possible with this type of keyboard control. See the page on the expressive sensitive command here.

It allows among other things to simulate a virtual keyboard: with the only computer keyboard that I carry in my organ, I have the ability to tune my instrument alone: I can thus operate or not the different games, with their harmonics, and play the notes of the virtual keyboard, by simple action of the up and down arrows.
In addition, by a new process that I developed recently, I was able to make any keyboard expressive, which all organists dream.

The other keyboards will then be equipped with my expressive system sensitive and envelope curve.

Some pictures of the keyboards with André Marchal (at the left) and avec Jean Guillou (at the right)
Detail of the C1 key from the 5th keyboard. This keyboard has been built by Herrburger Brooks, a UK Company, from Long Eaton, Nottingham, since 1953. This company is now re-named as Langer Ltd, by year 1999.
Left side of the key

The KIH32 Board, which can fit to any keyboards :

Other boards detailed