Regal ca. 1575 possibly Georg Voll German The regal is a small pipe organ with a single rank of pipes. Inside each pipe is a thin brass tongue (or reed) that produced a loud, nasal sound when air is pushed through the pipe. Although the pipes function as resonators, because on a regal they are very short they do little to moderate the reeds' aggressive tone. Usually used as a continuo instrument, the regal's louder tone made it of use in larger groups of musicians than a more typical chamber organ. Composers occasionally specified it, as Monteverdid did in Orfeo, for his scenes of the underworld. This example follows an innovative design by the sixteenth-century Nuremberg instrument maker Georg Voll, with a keyboard that can be stored inside the bellows for easy transport. It requires two people to play, one person to play the keyboard and a second person to stand at the rear of the instrument and pump the two bellows that supply air to the pipes. Technical description: An oblong case