Pipe Organ listening exercise [Archive]

pantonality

09-12-2001, 05:06 PM

OK, I\'ll bite.

#1.This could be real, nice celeste and nice ambience.
#2. I hope this isn\'t the real one, no ambience (I mean really dry) and the notes have a poor attack. You like Widor don\'t you?
#3. Nice theater organ, very authentic sounding, complete with percussion, and what a tremulant! Nice ambience as well, just a touch of reverb.
#4. There were slight intonation issues, either the instrument is highly unified or it\'s not quite in tune, or it uses Kirnberger or some non ET temperament.
#5. More Widor, played waaaay toooo fast. Was this recorded mono? It sounds like an early 50s recording. Of course using mono samples and mono reverb would give the same effect.

My guess (and that\'s all it is) is #5 because it sounds so mono. The only one I\'m pretty sure isn\'t real is #2. Then again I listened on $40 computer speakers so it\'s not super hi-fi.

Steve

nicholash

09-12-2001, 05:56 PM

Hi Steve,

Many thanks for having a go. I\'ll wait for a few more responses before revealing the answers, but I will say that all the instruments are very expensive!

I hope the quality of the 128 kbps mp3s has not blurred the attacks/transients too drastically. I\'m not sure how good (or bad) $40 computer speakers are these days, but it\'s a good excuse anyway. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif I find, these days, I have to do most of my listening with headphones so as not to disturb the other people in the house.

On the Widor (excerpt number 5), I think the organist was just trying to show off a bit! He did play it a bit fast though!

The recordings were collected over quite a few years, and I\'m afraid are mostly second or third generation cassettes. As always, none of the excerpts I use for the listening exercises come from commercially available recordings. I still don\'t really like the word \"exercise\" to describe these listening thingies, because they are meant to be more fun and interesting than some sort of \'test\'. They are also meant to be somewhat interactive and full of surprises. By the way, I think that I myself would have got most of the answers wrong if I hadn\'t known the real ones.

Thanks again
Nicholas

Doug Marshall

09-12-2001, 10:56 PM

Nicholas, These are very difficult examples and you didn\'t make it any easier by slicing off the endings!! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

1. This is a very peculiar sound! It bears marks of an early digital organ (\"upsampled\" trebles) but seems too responsive in the lower registers to be one of those. I’ll say it’s real although, at least in the recording, it’s not a well-balanced instrument. I don’t know WHAT that right hand stuff is at the beginning! Doesn’t sound like any organ I’ve ever heard! Dethier might or might not have been pleased with the liberties at the end.

2. I hope this is not pipes. Attack is spongy and uniformly so. Who played all this stuff? Is that you, Nicholas? Quite the fleet fingers/feet! Vierne would have been pleased. Or angry, don’t know which! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

3. Nice sounding theater organ. I’ll say it’s not real though. The lone Pedal note near the end lacked the \"blat\" I’d expect from the Pedal reed of a pipe instrument and the voicing overall is more uniform than I would expect.

4. I’ll say this one is real. Very close on the microphones. Either your mics are peaky or this organ has an annoying peak of its own in the high frequencies, at least close up.

5. I’ll go with non-pipe on this one. If I’m right, I’d say the bass gives it away first followed by the \"perfect\" response in the fast repeated notes. I can’t imagine notes firing that fast on anything but an electronic organ. I could be wrong. I often am!

Doug

nicholash

09-12-2001, 11:08 PM

Hi,

For those interested in organs that use pipes, I have a new listening exercise that may be interesting to try.

In this case, I have five mp3 excerpts of organs that may use real pipes or are completely sampled.

At least one (if not more) of the organs featured in following excerpts uses real pipes.
http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org1.mp3 (\"http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org1.mp3\") http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org2.mp3 (\"http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org2.mp3\") http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org3.mp3 (\"http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org3.mp3\") http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org4.mp3 (\"http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org4.mp3\") http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org5.mp3 (\"http://www.btinternet.com/~veridical.sounds/org5.mp3\")

The idea of this exercise is to identify which excerpt(s) features an organ that employs real pipes, and to give reasons for your choice(s).

Because some the excerpts are over a minute long, I have encoded the mp3s at 128 kbps to reduce download times.

Although the excerpts include some virtuoso performances, none of the performances are sequenced.

Nicholas
p.s. It would be nice to get some responses soon, since I need to reclaim the web space containing the mp3s for other things.

Michiel Post

09-13-2001, 04:18 AM

Fun listening! Good idea Nicolas...

1 I believe it\'s a real organ, and certainly a real recording of an organ. I hear pipes, yes.
2 I don\'t hear pipes, I don\'t hear the stop sounds of a pipe when the air no longer feeds the tone. I hear no \'space\' no room. Could be my own samples from the Post Organ Toolkit. They are without any reverb, that is.
3 I hear a nice tone from time to time, but the vibrato isn\'t real. The reverb isn\'t real also. I hear spring reverb. Right? The low note at the end gives away a certain electronic nature. I guess a combination of real pipes and electronics.
4 Nice space, nice organ. I hear natural sounding overtones on each individual note. Real!
5. Very electronic. No pipes.
Michiel Post

nicholash

09-13-2001, 05:03 AM

Hi Doug and Michiel,

Thank you both very much for your detailed responses.

Michiel, at last someone has said that it is \"Fun Listening!\". That\'s what it should be (i.e. both fun and interesting, especially if there are a few surprises when the real answers are revealed): Thanks very much for that comment.

What disappointed me with some of those recordings is that the \'live\' sound seemed to go at least down a futher octave or two! One could actually more \'feel\' than \'hear\' the low notes. This was not captured on any of those recordings http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/frown.gif , which I found disappointing, especially since the really low notes are a special part of the organ \'experience\'.

I would like to get a couple more response attempts (if possible) before revealing the answers.

Best regards
Nicholas
p.s. I get a fairly strong impression that Steve, Doug and Michiel know quite a bit about pipe organs!
p.p.s. Are there any other developers of sampled pipe organ CD-ROMs willing to respond? (Franz perhaps?)

ryounger

09-13-2001, 03:22 PM

Thanks for the exercise Nicholas!

I\'ll give it a shot, but I know that I\'m probably waaaaay off here. By the way, the playing is just simply awesome!

1. The tone of the organ is great, I wish that I had this at home. The only thing that gives it away to me is the lack of a room. It is very clean, maybe too so.

2. I think that the attacks are just not right on this organ, and I can\'t figure out why. The way that this is played is sure convincing though.

3. A great sounding organ, I think that it sounds very real, just in the way that the percussion sounds.

4. This is real. I can hear noises inside the hall that it was recorded in, plus sounds that the movements that the organist is making while he/she is playing.

5. I must say that I think that this is a real organ. The sounds are not distinct enough to be a sample.

Please understand that I am not an organist, and I have very little experience in this instrument, although I am a fan.

Thanks again for the exercise.

Russ

09-13-2001, 03:42 PM

Well, here\'s the complete dumbo\'s opinion:

1. Real strange

2. Real dry

3. Real cheesy

4. Real majestic

5. Real fast

If you hadn\'t told me that there were samples in there I wouldn\'t have guessed.

The fourth one sounded totally real to me, but the coughs and noises added to that feel (if this is sampled, someone went to a whole lot of trouble).

If you put a gun to my head I would say that number 2 was \'fake\' (and I\'d probably get shot).

Interesting choice of instrument - the first attempt to build a synth, now we\'re sampling it.

And some of those players had ants in their pants (great playing though).

nicholash

09-13-2001, 04:55 PM

Hi Russ and Z6,

Thanks very much for having a go.

I agree that the playing is awesome, and way beyond what I will ever achieve on the keyboards. I think I\'ll stick to composing music instead!

From my last message on this thread I should be revealing the answers now. However, I hope you don\'t mind too much if I just wait a little longer before revealing them: I was hoping Franz would have the time to respond since he developed the VRsound \"3D Pipes\" sample CD-ROM.

By the way, Michiel Post has developed at least three organ sample CD-ROMs: \"Post Organ Tookit\", \"Post Positif Organ\" and \"Post Theatre Organ vol 1\".

Has anyone here had practical experience with the VRsound and/or Post Audio Media organ CD-ROMs?

Best regards
Nicholas

Haydn

09-13-2001, 10:40 PM

1. Sounds real - not a very reverberant room. Reminds me of a church I played at in Wyandotte, MI.

2. Doesn\'t quite sound real and quite dry. I\'ve played some organs that were electronic that sounded like this. Although I\'ve played some electronic organs that pretty much sounded real in a reverberant church but they just don\'t have the same lowend as the real deal.

3. Sounds like a theatre organ but may be one of the newer electronic ones as it\'s quite in tune.

4. This one sounds real. It sounds a little out of tune like the real thing. I don\'t think I\'ve ever played a pipe organ that was totally in tune.

5. This one doesn\'t sound quite right.

I was hoping for more registration changes so I could hear the noises that most pipe organs make which always gives them away.

Sam

09-14-2001, 12:51 AM

1 real. I wish I had a digital reverb that could do that. A fine organ in a fine space.

2 From a real organ. Could be a good sample but sounds more like a close recording. I bet the bass is supposed to thunder on this one but its mostly lost.

3 Real. Sounds just like the Wurlitzer a couple blocks from my house.

4 Another fine real organ. Actually the sound of the space is not pronounced here, if you were really sneaky it could be from a sample of a fine organ and you could add the tape and audience noise, but I don\'t think so...

5 Real again, but IMO this is a poor old recording that doesn\'t well capture any space. You could fake a murky space like this with a digital reverb, but I think an old recording is to blame.

Hope I win a prize this time, last time I accused your section of sounding too much like samples...

Great music here, I enjoyed this collection.

nicholash

09-14-2001, 04:44 AM

Hi Haydn and Sam,

Thanks very much for your detailed responses.

Sam, you said: \"if you were really sneaky it could be from a sample of a fine organ and you could add the tape and audience noise, but I don\'t think so...\". In this particular instance, I didn\'t mix in a pre-recorded \'atmosphere\'. However, it\'s a good trick for making things seem more \'real\'. I have quite a few recordings of \'atmospheres\' in churches and halls, including some with the odd cough or two !. Maybe sample CD developers should consider including a few similar things on some of their CD-ROMs. I know that there are \'dance\' music sample CDs that include samples of vinyl crackles, so why not \'atmospheres\' for \'orchestral\' sample CDs? It also reminds me of an interesting point that Bruce Richardson made in the \"Orchestral Sampling Manifesto by Maarten, Thomas and Marc\" thread: \"Like it or not, even the quietest halls in the world have air you can very much \'hear.\'\".

Haydn, you said: \"It sounds a little out of tune like the real thing. I don\'t think I\'ve ever played a pipe organ that was totally in tune.\". This is a good point. Also, for other instruments such as strings, brass and woodwind the \'real thing\' in practice often does not strictly use equal temprament scaling. Equal temprament scaling is a compromise we usually have when dealing with sampled instruments played via a midi keyboard. For example, a real string ensemble can play \'in tune\' with itself, but be seemingly \'out of tune\' when combined with instruments using equal temprament scaling. Denny Jaeger realised this and provided various \'scalings\' for his sampled violin library.

Sam, you said: \"Great music here, I enjoyed this collection.\". I\'m really glad you enjoyed listening to these excerpts. Thanks.

Best regards
Nicholas
p.s. I\'m going to provide the answers later today, and remove the mp3s from my web site very shortly afterwards.

Sam

09-14-2001, 12:02 PM

> why not \'atmospheres\' for \'orchestral\' sample CDs?

I was thinking the same thing when I heard the coughs. Maybe include a sample of a baby fidgeting, then crying, then getting hauled out? 8^)

A friend came over and recorded a little baroque piece on a bass flute a while ago. The piece wasn\'t really worth keeping, but before discarding I chopped it up and salvaged it as best I could into a sample set. It actually came out pretty well and is very convincing on the right pieces. I included all kinds of noises like inhalations, so you can build very \'human\' performances. In fact I think this instrument was enhanced by the fact that it wasn\'t built from a sampling session (wish I had done that too, but I think that night was more about drinking/talking than working... 8^)

nicholash

09-14-2001, 01:22 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Sam:
> why not \'atmospheres\' for \'orchestral\' sample CDs?

I was thinking the same thing when I heard the coughs. Maybe include a sample of a baby fidgeting, then crying, then getting hauled out? 8^)

A friend came over and recorded a little baroque piece on a bass flute a while ago. The piece wasn\'t really worth keeping, but before discarding I chopped it up and salvaged it as best I could into a sample set. It actually came out pretty well and is very convincing on the right pieces. I included all kinds of noises like inhalations, so you can build very \'human\' performances. In fact I think this instrument was enhanced by the fact that it wasn\'t built from a sampling session (wish I had done that too, but I think that night was more about drinking/talking than working... 8^)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Sam,

I\'ve got the samples of the baby fidgeting and then crying. Have you got the one of the baby getting hauled out? Maybe we could swap samples? http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

You said: \"I included all kinds of noises like inhalations, so you can build very \'human\' performances.\" I think this can help a lot when trying to achieve a sense of \'realism\'. Franz\'s new sample sets include lots of these kind of noises, which really does help.

Best regards
Nicholas
p.s. I\'m going to reveal the answers a little later today, so please can I have a few more responses from others very soon.

Rudi

09-14-2001, 01:46 PM

Good fun trying to guess! Here are my guesses (and guesses is what they are).

I think there is one or possibly two \"real\" organs - however I think the other ones are good samples of pipe organs.

1) Real organ - \'cos it sounds like it\'s played in a real space and the bass has that lovely stone church tone - deep, almost subsonic.

2) Samples - the sound is very dry, even and the attack sounds too even.

3) Mmm, this could be a real theatre organ, it sounds very close-miked so it\'s hard to tell. The pipe sound is very realistic, very different from church organs.

4) Sampled - once again, dry, almost sterile and very even.

5) Sampled - it sounds like a real organ, well voiced, the bass has a good attack but like the one before seems too perfect. Good playiing though, certainly miles better than mine...

So there you have it - it\'ll be fun to find out how wrong I was.

Thanks for an entertaining test,

Cheers,

Rudi

nicholash

09-14-2001, 02:12 PM

Hi Rudi,

Many thanks for having a go, and I\'m glad you enjoyed this exercise.

Including the enormous arrays of loudspeakers used, some of the sampled organs seemed to take almost as much room as the equivalent real ones!

I\'ll try to post the answers within an hour, so it gives anyone else a quick chance to download the mp3s before I delete them to make room for the next listening exercise (which should also be fun and possibly quite surprising).

Thanks again
Nicholas

nicholash

09-14-2001, 03:27 PM

Hi,

Here are the answers:

Organ excerpt 1:
No pipes at all. Very expensive (circa late 1980\'s) Allen digital organ used via huge array of loudspeakers. I added artificial reverb to this recording to make it sound like it was in a church, when in fact it was in a fairly dry hall. The recording was made with the mics roughly 25 feet away from the speaker array.

Organ excerpt 2:
Combination of real pipes plus sampled. Rodgers organ circa 1989 used, recorded in a fairly small dry sounding room. The mics were roughly 10 to 15 feet away from the pipes.

Organ excerpt 3:
No pipes at all. Very expensive (circa late 1980\'s) Allen digital theatre organ (Wurlitzer samples) used via huge array of loudspeakers. Same recording venue and miking distance as for excerpt 1. I didn\'t add any artificial reverb this time, but the sound through the loudspeakers included some artificial reverb.

Organ excerpt 4:
Real pipes only. Organ actually recorded in a church with mics roughly 15 to 20 feet away from the pipes.

Organ excerpt 5:
Combination of real pipes plus sampled. Same organ, venue and miking as for excerpt 2, except this time I added artificial reverb to give the impression that the organ was being played in a church.

I hope you found this exercise fun and interesting. If you are very surprised by any of the answers, please reply with some feedback.

Thanks
Nicholas

Sam

09-14-2001, 05:22 PM

I\'m not too surprised you can fool us with organ samples, if the samples are good enough. I hadn\'t heard of Allen before. (I just looked them up on the web). Pretty cool, although a bit depressing since good digital systems like this have to spell hard times for pipe manufacturers (assuming they haven\'t fallen on hard times already, I admit to not knowing that market). It would be cool to know more about the technology behind these organs, ie what went into their sampling, and is that console the mother of all midi controllers? Also curious about the speaker arrays (and amps), I suspect it takes a heck of a system to move air like pipes do.

When I was a kid I would sneak into the organ towers of my church and lay on the floor - I felt like I knew God in there, and he probably rearranged my guts and brains a bit too.

Good reverb on the first one too, I\'m surprised since you must have the same taste in reverb tuning as me, real mellow in the high reflections, clear on the bottom, amazingly real space. Which one is it, and what did you do to it?

nicholash

09-14-2001, 06:10 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Sam:
I\'m not too surprised you can fool us with organ samples, if the samples are good enough. I hadn\'t heard of Allen before. (I just looked them up on the web). Pretty cool, although a bit depressing since good digital systems like this have to spell hard times for pipe manufacturers (assuming they haven\'t fallen on hard times already, I admit to not knowing that market). It would be cool to know more about the technology behind these organs, ie what went into their sampling, and is that console the mother of all midi controllers? Also curious about the speaker arrays (and amps), I suspect it takes a heck of a system to move air like pipes do.

When I was a kid I would sneak into the organ towers of my church and lay on the floor - I felt like I knew God in there, and he probably rearranged my guts and brains a bit too.

Good reverb on the first one too, I\'m surprised since you must have the same taste in reverb tuning as me, real mellow in the high reflections, clear on the bottom, amazingly real space. Which one is it, and what did you do to it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Sam,

I was surprised to read that in 1971 the Allen Organ Company introduced the world\'s first digital musical instrument, the DIGITAL COMPUTER ORGAN, 15 years ahead of the nearest competitor.

Although the top-of-the-range Allen digital organs would probably be considered very expensive to most of us, I understand that real pipe organs can be incredibly expensive.

As I understand it, these days churches often request organs with 50 or 60 ranks, a rank being a set of pipes that corresponds to each key on the keyboard. This often implies a price of $500,000 or more. Also, a good pipe organ is often built so the sound will fit the room it is played in.

I can\'t remember how many speaker cabinets were used with the Allen organs featured in those excerpts but, at a very rough guess, maybe 40 or so. I think they were all full range speakers rather than the usual separate bass, mid and high frequency cabinets. Unfortunately, those mp3s don\'t even begin to give an idea of the low end that was experienced live.

I didn\'t save (and can\'t remember) the exact mixture between direct sound, early reflections and reverb used for excerpt 1. However, it was the church preset setting in Cool Edit Pro that was used. The same preset was also used for excerpt 5, but with a different mixture of dry, early reflections and wet sound. All but excerpt 4 were binaural recordings. Excerpts 1 and 3 were recorded from the same position in the same venue. Similarly, excerpts 2 and 5 were recorded in the same position in the same venue. It\'s amazing what the addition of a little artificial reverb can do!

Best regards
Nicholas

Sam

09-14-2001, 08:06 PM

Thanks for the info! I didn\'t know CE had reverb like that, it is worth investigating, you used it well.

Half a mil for an organ, huh? That seems surprisingly reasonable if you get 50 ranks, but I bet maintenance kills you, I\'ve snooped around my local Wurli and you\'ve never seen so many switches, wires, relays etc etc. not to mention the tuning. It\'s a pain enough to keep my analogs fully operational.

I had a line here on a proper pipe organ a while ago, it was I think about 40 ranks and very cheap, said to be mostly working. I was very tempted but decided the wife would kill me, and I didn\'t have a good place to put it. 8^) Similar problem to the owner I think, which is why it was cheap, kinda broke my heart tho.

best regards, -s

nicholash

09-14-2001, 08:22 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Sam:
Thanks for the info! I didn\'t know CE had reverb like that, it is worth investigating, you used it well.

Half a mil for an organ, huh? That seems surprisingly reasonable if you get 50 ranks, but I bet maintenance kills you, I\'ve snooped around my local Wurli and you\'ve never seen so many switches, wires, relays etc etc. not to mention the tuning. It\'s a pain enough to keep my analogs fully operational.

I had a line here on a proper pipe organ a while ago, it was I think about 40 ranks and very cheap, said to be mostly working. I was very tempted but decided the wife would kill me, and I didn\'t have a good place to put it. 8^) Similar problem to the owner I think, which is why it was cheap, kinda broke my heart tho.

best regards, -s<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Sam,

The sacrifices one has to make for the wife, eh! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/rolleyes.gif

My mum\'s brother used to play the piano to concert pianist standard before he was married. Having got married, he found out that his wife disliked the piano because it reminded her of horrible piano lessons when she was a kid. She persuaded him to give it up! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/frown.gif Just as well he had another vocation!

Best regards
Nicholas
p.s. I\'m planning to post a little listening exercise which has an electronic organ in it. Maybe you could help me get the ball rolling by posting an early response to it?

Haydn

09-14-2001, 10:45 PM

I believe a rank is a bank of pipes for each stop - a stop being maybe a Trumpet 8\' or Flute 4\'. Each rank would have a pipe for each key on one of the keyboard manuals.

The organ I played for years had about 35 ranks. It was a 3 manual keyboard (Swell, Great, Choir). The organ would cost around $400,000 to build today. The organ was built in 1921.

It cost about $2,000 a year for basic upkeep and tuning. They need to be tuned a couple times a year as the weather changes. This was in a church in Wyandotte, Michigan which was just south of Detroit. There was no air conditioning in the summer. The temps would reach 100 degrees in the afternoons especially for summer weddings. The organ would have a tendency to sound like a calliope when the temps would hit the 90\'s and the humidity level was high. Problem is that the pipes using reeds stay in tune but other types of pipes change with the temp - thus the calliope sound.

About 4 years ago the roof was being replaced and we had a major leak in the pipe chamber during a major thunderstorm. It cost $35,000 to repair the organ. The pipes for the swell manual were totally wiped out. Other pipes in certain ranks would stop playing or worse - stick open causing the dreaded stuck note! No panic button on an organ like on most sequencers. This was definitely an experience I won\'t forget especially when playing in front of hundreds of people.

Had a neighbor that had one of the early Allen digital organs in her living room. She had a speaker system that would have put many PA systems to shame!

Doug Marshall

09-14-2001, 11:59 PM

Hi, Nicholas. This is very interesting. Thanks for putting us to the test!

Just FYI, the Rodgers pipe augmented organ recordings you included, if the organ is circa 1989, it would not be a sampled instrument - it is an analog oscillator organ. Rodgers introduced their digital organs in November, 1990 and it was first quarter of 1991 before they really began to ship. - Doug

nicholash

09-15-2001, 06:23 AM

Hi Haydn and Doug,

Thanks for your very interesting comments.

Haydn, you said: \"They need to be tuned a couple times a year as the weather changes.\" That might explain the tuning irregularities in excerpt 4! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

How did you cope with the stuck note?

Doug, you said: \"if the organ is circa 1989, it would not be a sampled instrument - it is an analog oscillator organ.\" You may well be right; thanks very much for correcting me. The main two things I remember when those recordings were made is seeing the pipes of the Rodgers organ and being somewhat dissappointed that the recordings failed to capture the amazing low end that I \'heard\' (or rather felt) live. The recordings really seem to completely lose an entire octave or so!

Best regards
Nicholas

Doug Marshall

09-15-2001, 09:13 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by nicholash:
Hi Haydn and Doug,

The main two things I remember when those recordings were made is seeing the pipes of the Rodgers organ and being somewhat dissappointed that the recordings failed to capture the amazing low end that I \'heard\' (or rather felt) live. The recordings really seem to completely lose an entire octave or so!
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Nicholas, You\'re absolutely right about the bass in those Rodgers instruments. It could be phenomenal.

Out of curiosity, would you be at liberty to share the performer names? There really was some outstanding playing in your examples and it would be interesting to know who the perpetrators are!

Regards,
Doug

nicholash

09-15-2001, 01:25 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Doug Marshall:
Hi Nicholas, You\'re absolutely right about the bass in those Rodgers instruments. It could be phenomenal.

Out of curiosity, would you be at liberty to share the performer names? There really was some outstanding playing in your examples and it would be interesting to know who the perpetrators are!

Regards,
Doug<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Doug,

The bass from the Rodgers classical organ was indeed phenomenal, even in the relatively small room it was being played in. The bass of the Allen organ \'experience\', even through that huge array of speakers, wasn\'t quite as extended.

I would like to give you the performers names but, like you may be thinking, I\'m not sure that I\'m at liberty to do so unfortunately. However, for the Allen and Rodgers organ performances, both performers are top-class players that are world renowned for their organ playing (one being American and the other British I believe). I wonder if you may be a relative of one of them (hint, hint!).

Best regards
Nicholas

Haydn

09-15-2001, 03:03 PM

To fix the stuck notes I would push in the stop for the offending rank. The big problem was getting the right rank! I couldn\'t use any presets once this happened and had to remember which ranks were working properly.

nicholash

09-15-2001, 03:15 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Haydn:
To fix the stuck notes I would push in the stop for the offending rank. The big problem was getting the right rank! I couldn\'t use any presets once this happened and had to remember which ranks were working properly.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wow! ... and to think a lot of us whinge about midi systems. We have it comparatively easy with our current day midi keyboards! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

Nicholas

Doug Marshall

09-15-2001, 08:34 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by nicholash:
I would like to give you the performers names but, like you may be thinking, I\'m not sure that I\'m at liberty to do so unfortunately. However, for the Allen and Rodgers organ performances, both performers are top-class players that are world renowned for their organ playing (one being American and the other British I believe). I wonder if you may be a relative of one of them (hint, hint!).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for the hint, Nicholas, I believe I know who they both are. With the American I share a common teacher and the other a common name. Both fine players indeed! - Doug

nicholash

09-15-2001, 08:53 PM

Excellent, Doug. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/cool.gif

Take care
Nicholas
p.s. Might you have a go at my latest two \'listening exercises\' please? I\'m trying to get more responses to them. (The electronic organ exercise is actually more to do with brass instruments, BTW).

nicholash

09-15-2001, 09:00 PM

Hi again Doug,

I\'ve just remembered that the Allen theatre organ excerpt was actually performed by yet another excellent player (but his name escapes me at the moment).

Nicholas

Rudi

09-16-2001, 08:24 AM

Nicholas,

Thanks again for a very interesting exercise. It had me completely fooled (not a difficult to do by some accounts). What really fooled me was the space around each example... i.e space = real, close - false.

I must say example one still sounds ultra-realistic even now when I know the answer. That bass sounds just like the real thing.

Next time I\'ll know better and just invert my answers to get the right results...eh, eh,

Cheers,

Rudi

nicholash

09-16-2001, 08:42 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Rudi:
Nicholas,

Thanks again for a very interesting exercise. It had me completely fooled (not a difficult to do by some accounts). What really fooled me was the space around each example... i.e space = real, close - false.

I must say example one still sounds ultra-realistic even now when I know the answer. That bass sounds just like the real thing.

Next time I\'ll know better and just invert my answers to get the right results...eh, eh,

Cheers,

Rudi<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks, Rudi.

Had I not known the real answers beforehand, I\'m sure I would have got some of the answers wrong as well. It doesn\'t really matter whether we get some answers wrong, but it is interesting to analyse why though. Carefully adding some artificial reverb seemed to make quite a difference, since most of us are more used to hearing pipe organs in a large reverberant space.

Did you listen to the recordings over loudspeakers or headphones? (I wonder if the binaural miking technique used on most of those recordings helped give a good sense of \'space\' and hence \'realism\'?).

Best regards
Nicholas
p.s. Care to try my latest \'listening exercises\'? Please don\'t invert your answers if you do though http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif