The pipe organ

Pipe organ

The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...

 is played from an area called the console, which holds the manuals, pedals, and stop controls. In electric-action organs, the console is often movable. This allows for greater flexibility in placement of the console for various activities. Some very large organs, such as the van den Heuvel

J. L. van den Heuvel Orgelbouw

J. L. van den Heuvel Orgelbouw is a firm of pipe organ builders, based in Dordrecht, Holland. The company specialises in the construction of instruments in the French Symphonic tradition.-History of the firm:...

 organ at the Church of St. Eustache

Église Saint-Eustache, Paris

L’église Saint-Eustache is a church in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, built between 1532 and 1632.Situated at the entrance to Paris’s ancient markets and the beginning of rue Montorgueil, the Église de Saint-Eustache is considered a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, have more than one console, enabling the organ to be played from several locations depending on the nature of the performance.

Controls at the console called stops

Organ stop

An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; some can be "on" , while others can be "off" .The term can also refer...

 select which ranks and pipes are used.