Like architecture, statues, and paintings, organs are not strictly necessary for the celebration of Mass. Therefore, an organ represents an investment in illustrating the truth and beauty of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Beauty evangelizes—paintings, sculptures, architecture, organs, and choirs give a foretaste of heaven as they illustrate the realities of the Holy Mass in languages that transcend words, inviting us to holiness.

From Sacrosanctum Concillium from the Second Vatican Council:

120. In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church's ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man's mind to God and to higher things.

From sections 87 and 88 of  “Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship” from the USCCB:

"Among all other instruments which are suitable for divine worship, the organ is “accorded pride of place”  because of its capacity to sustain the singing of a large gathered assembly, due to both its size and its ability to give “resonance to the fullness of human sentiments, from joy to sadness, from praise to lamentation.”  Likewise, “the manifold possibilities of the organ in some way remind us of the immensity and the magnificence of God. In addition to its ability to lead and sustain congregational singing, the sound of the pipe organ is most suited for solo playing of sacred music in the Liturgy at appropriate moments."

The St. Pius X organ was designed and built in alignment with the Catholic Church’s twofold vision for the purpose of an organ: to beautify the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in its role to accompany of the singing of the Mass as well as in its role as a solo liturgical instrument.

The instrument is a virtual pipe organ, meaning that is uses software (Hauptwerk) running on a Windows PC to replicate the sounds of a real-life pipe organ, recorded pipe-for-pipe at higher-than CD quality. The console was built out of solid oak by the Magnus firm of Sulechów, Poland, to slightly modified BDO (Bund Deutscher Orgelbaumeister) standard measurements.

For the sample set (set of audio recordings from a particular organ), the design team selected Oscar Walcker’s Opus 1855, a German instrument built in 1916. The instrument is located today in the Martinikerk in Doesburg, Netherlands, and was recorded by Sonus Paradisi of Pecky, Czech Republic. The organ mostly falls in the German symphonic tradition of organ building, yet it also represents an early instrument of the organ reform movement, as it contains Mixtures patterned after the work of Silbermann, a baroque organ builder favored by Bach. With so many different colors of tone available, the organ accompanies the singing of the Mass beautifully. As a solo instrument, the organ beautifully  “remind[s] us of the immensity and the magnificence of God”, with incredible dynamic range and versatile chorus-building abilities.

The St. Pius X organ is the largest organ in the Diocese of Green Bay by number of stops (individual sound selections), at 75 stops across 4 manuals (keyboards) and pedal. It is also perhaps the most unique organ in our Diocese as well.

Unique features include a sequencer with a cue register distinct from the active register. This allows random access to 100 general presets within the sequencer available in a maximum of two button pushes, with 1000 general sequenced presets available on each memory level. The text on the stop controls is color-coded by tone family. Original to the Walcker organ is the inclusion of a feature called an “Automatic Piano Pedal” which allows four distinct pedal registrations to be set simultaneously, one corresponding to each manual. When the respective manual is touched, that pedal registration immediately becomes active.

For sound output, there are 16 logical channels over 32 speaker cabinets, arranged in pairs. Passive crossovers between each pair of cabinets allows each channel to have a full frequency range of sound. Each virtual pipe is routed to one speaker pair, routed cyclically within each of the two banks of speakers.  The main organ is routed to a the main bank of speakers hung on custom designed steelwork at the center of the rear of the church, while the Echo division (Man. IV) of the organ is routed to a bank of speakers directly behind the choir in the rear left of the church. This division has thus been voiced to serve as a choir accompaniment organ. All speakers are angled upwards to aid reverberation in the room.

The multiplicity of speakers exists not to make the organ louder, but rather so that the sound emanates from as many logically separate sound sources as possible, allowing the sound of the virtual pipes to mix naturally in the air as it does in a pipe organ.

We pray that this investment in beautifying the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will prove fruitful. The organ specification is below:

• (a) - acoustique, Contrabass + Quintbass.

• (b) - transmission from Man. I. Prinzipal 16'.

• (c) - transmission from Man. I. Jubalflöte 8'.

• (d) - transmission from Man. I. Mixtur.

• (e) - transmission from Man. II. Clairon harmonique 4'.

• (f) - transmission from Man. III. Lieblich Gedackt 16'.

• (g) - transmission from Man. IV. Quintatön 16'.

• (h) - transmission from Man. IV. Echo Bourdon 8'.

• (i) - transmission from Man. III. Konzertflöte 8'.

• (j) - transmission from Man. II. Cello 8'.

• (k) - transmission from Man. II. Basson 16’.