As for the lower tones, there is no competitor of the thirty-two-foot pipes, which go two octaves below the violoncello's low C.Between the _pianissimo_ which almost reaches the limit where sound ceases and silence begins, down to a range of formidable and terrifying power, every degree of intensity can be obtained from this magical instrument.

The variety of its timbre is broad.

There are flute stops of various kinds; tonal stops that approximate the timbre of stringed instruments; stops for effecting changes in which each note, formed from several pipes, bring out simultaneously its fundamental and harmonic sounds; stops which serve to imitate the instruments of the orchestra, such as the trumpet, the clarinet, and the cremona (an obsolete instrument with a timbre peculiar to itself) and the bassoon.

There are celestial voices of several kinds, produced by combinations of two simultaneous stops which are not tuned in perfect unison.

Then we have the famous _Vox Humana_, a favorite with the public, which is alluring even though it is tremulous and nasal, and we have the innumerable combinations of all these different stops, with the gradations that may be obtained through indefinite commingling of the tones of this marvellous palette.
Add to all this the continual breathing of the monster's lungs which gives the sounds an incomparable and inimitable steadiness.