MusicSphere Begins Acoustic Measurement with First Organ Recordings in Ilmenau

Following the technical visits to organ-building workshops in Germany and Belgium earlier this year, the MusicSphere consortium has now started the next phase of its work: the first acoustic measurement campaign on historic organs.

At the beginning of March 2026, researchers conducted detailed measurements on the Walcker organ in St. Jacob’s Church in Ilmenau, Germany, marking an important step toward the creation of high-precision digital twins of historic musical instruments.

The recordings were carried out by project partners Technische Universität Ilmenau and the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT, who specialise in digital audio technologies and acoustic analysis.

Researchers conducting on-site acoustic measurements to capture and analyse the sound behaviour of a historic pipe organ.

Acoustic measurement setup used to record spatial sound data inside a historic church environment.

High-precision recording equipment used for capturing acoustic data for digital modelling and analysis.

© TU Ilmenau / Barbara Aichroth; TU Ilmenau / Pavel Chatterjee

Historic pipe organs represent highly complex sound systems whose acoustic behaviour depends not only on the instrument itself but also on the architecture of the surrounding space. Capturing these characteristics requires combining advanced acoustic measurements, spatial analysis, and digital modelling techniques.

During the measurement campaign, the research team deployed more than twenty microphones and used an autonomous acoustic measurement robot to record both the sound of individual organ pipes and the acoustic response of the church interior. These recordings will later support the development of simulation models capable of reproducing the instrument’s sound within immersive digital environments.

The Ilmenau campaign also served as a test run for upcoming measurements on a historic organ in Belgium, where additional data will be collected to further develop the project’s digital modelling pipeline.

These activities also contribute to MusicSphere’s long-term goal of digitally reconstructing historic instruments such as the Hydraulis, the earliest known predecessor of the pipe organ. By combining acoustic measurements, 3D digitisation, and AI-based modelling, the project aims to recreate the sound and mechanical behaviour of instruments that are partially preserved or no longer playable.

The activities in Ilmenau were also integrated into a science camp organised at TU Ilmenau, where high-school students had the opportunity to observe the research process and gain first-hand insights into digital cultural heritage technologies.

Discover more technical details in the article published by Technische Universität Ilmenau: