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Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

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Eric Sagmuller

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostWed Mar 09, 2016 12:21 pm

I've been thinking too of building my own speakers to gain a number of channels inexpensively. But I'm not convinced it will give me the clarity and aliveness of the air mixed pipe sound.

Eric
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TheOrganDoc

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostWed Mar 09, 2016 3:02 pm

I for one have been a bit dismayed with my separately sampled Celeste's
as I hear them in the close quarters of our living room . :?

I have tuned, and listened to beautiful Pipe Organ Celeste's, but every time I try them on my HW organ
I hear the Celested ranks as being out of tune with the rest of the organ.

This could be due to OrganTuners Ear, as they truly are a bit out of tune !

I will soon attempt to revoice them to be quieter,
and a bit closer in tune with the in tune ranks,
in order to correct this problem.

My Celeste ranks, and also my Vox ranks play through 8 separate speaker channel's, + 1 big Sub !

I truly enjoy the purring sound of good Celeste's, and also of good Voxes ! :D

RSVP, Mel
Mel..............TheOrganDoc...............
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Eric Sagmuller

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostWed Mar 09, 2016 3:30 pm

How many channels do you have Mel? Are they stereo pairs?
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Romanos

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostThu Mar 10, 2016 9:56 am

So it looks like M&O mercifully redid their website (likely due to the expected increase in traffic following last night's debut at the Kravis center.) There is an interesting page called "proof of concept". You all should take a look:
http://www.marshallandogletree.com/#!proof-of-concept/c214t

It's very interesting. They recorded an entire organ and then set up speakers and a second console at the opposite end of the same church and played them against each other. I have to admit that while you can hear what I would term 'subtle' differences (especially to untrained ears), M&O have undoubtedly proven (in my book) that they certainly do know a thing or two. I would surmise from this experiment that they are a cut above the larger manufacturers. It's plainly evident to me that they did a fantastic job recreating the instrument. The reproduction is a bit brighter and a touch thinner, but I don't think a 'layman' would really tell the difference.
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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostThu Mar 10, 2016 12:16 pm

I've enjoyed this thread!

Near the area where I live, I have played a small 3 manual M&O 32-stop instrument ($300k) and a couple of Walker Technical installations: a 3 manual ~60 stop instrument ($110k) and a big 5 manual ~125 stop job ($250k). All of these installations were completed around 2010. I thought all were nice, and would rate the Walker sound as every bit as good as the M&O. The M&O installation required several computers which run constantly (even when the console is off), and the organist told me he occasionally needed to reboot them. I came away with the impression that the M&O is vastly overpriced, especially when you consider the expected lifetime of an electronic instrument, and requires more babying than a typical electronic instrument.

I love my Hauptwerk installation for home use. However, as others have pointed out, it is a platform for building a VPO, and must be supplemented with a bunch of hardware to create an organ. It's not hard for a person of average technical capabilities to do this for a home installation using headphones or a few speakers, but the picture is entirely different when it comes to an install for a church. A church that wants a quality installation that can compete with a Walker or an M&O is going to be spending a fair amount of money hiring someone who knows what he's doing and who is going to be able to support the installation during its lifetime. I don't think the various vendors creating Hauptwerk-based installations have been able to get their brands established to a level that would be able to compete with Walker and M&O, even if the Hauptwerk technology itself is capable of competing (and I think that it is).

Another consideration: while Walker and M&O both have large libraries of high-quality dry samples from which to create organ specs, I am not aware of any similar library for Hauptwerk. There are of course a variety of sample sets available for Hauptwerk, but the quality is highly variable, and tends to favor the European organ schools. For US churches that would perhaps prefer Aeolian-Skinner, the options are limited.

Edit: The only technical aspect Hauptwerk that seems to come up short in comparison to M&O and Walker, from my perspective, involves the way it handles tremulant. I find the modeled tremulants very unconvincing. The sampled tremulants sound good individually, but I think there are issues when combining stops using sampled tremulants.

Stephen
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josq

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostThu Mar 10, 2016 2:02 pm

I'm surprised that these kinds of digital organ go at a price up to 10k/stop. You certainly can buy very decent pipe organs for that price.
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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostThu Mar 10, 2016 2:12 pm

Seems there are a few companies that market Hauptwerk based organs for institutional use.
For example, http://www.martindigitalorgans.com/sells a variety of models and configurations.
What do Forum readers think of these organs? Any experience with them yet? Do they start quickly? Are they stable? How do they sound compared to M&O? How does the cost compare?
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engrssc

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostFri Mar 11, 2016 2:30 pm

As far as M&O, the M&O website did not offer any audio demos, too bad! I was aware of their work for the Trinity Church in NYC, but could find nothing directly regarding technical information on their instruments. They make fancy consoles, and talk about French polish, etc but nothing much is said about their technology or if they have any patents. They paid Carpenter to play their latest opus, but remember Rodgers also got Virgil Fox on board and Hector Olivera, too, had been a Rodgers guy. Diane Bish is currently on Allen’s team. It seems if you pay a celebrity enough they will endorse your product.

I just cannot understand why anyone would go with a very costly digital instrument, ($10K per stop I've heard) money not being an object, when the real thing is available and can be repaired long into the future. It makes some sense for limited budgets, home use, smaller perhaps medium sized churches to go with an electronic, but it should be noted that they will become obsolete in future years. I was in Europe and actually played organs that were in existence at JS Bach’s time. Sure they had to be maintained and repaired but if it were an electronic, it is doubtful if repair parts would be available several centuries later. Note too, that orchestral instruments have never been replicated (completely) by a digital imitation, even though technically it should be possible to do so. And, yes, I am familiar with and own some synthesizer orchestral programs, even those used for movie and commercial background music. As with digital organs, many are good, but they don't do the same (for me) as the real thing. Again, MHO. We've been to concerts at the Sanfilippo Residence and heard the real 8,000 pipe Wurlitzer up close and personal. Even the upright piano on the 4th level is real. The experience totally blows you away, 'nuff said.

Rgds,
Ed
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dhm

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostFri Mar 11, 2016 4:00 pm

seh52 wrote:Seems there are a few companies that market Hauptwerk based organs for institutional use.
For example, http://www.martindigitalorgans.com/sells a variety of models and configurations.

There is also Magnus Organs in Poland.
User-friendly Hauptwerk consoles for church use, with an ON button and an OFF button.
They just switched to using SSDs instead of HDDs, and DDR4 RAM.
Organ playable in about 13 seconds. Is that fast enough?

[Declaring an interest: I'm a Magnus agent.]
Douglas Henn-Macrae
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http://www.midi-organs.eu
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engrssc

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostFri Mar 11, 2016 4:33 pm

dhm wrote:They just switched to using SSDs instead of HDDs, and DDR4 RAM.
Organ playable in about 13 seconds. Is that fast enough?


Tell us more, 13 seconds? :o :shock:

Rgds,
Ed
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dhm

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostFri Mar 11, 2016 5:14 pm

I only just heard about this latest development a couple of days ago.
Haven't seen it in action yet.
Douglas Henn-Macrae
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engrssc

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostFri Mar 11, 2016 6:00 pm

What's that saying about seeing and believing? If anyone can do that, s/b possible for everyone, yes? :wink:
Putting the computer to sleep, etc isn't new.

Seems like this whole topic has gathered some interest. 8)

Rgds,
Ed
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dhm

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostFri Mar 11, 2016 6:15 pm

My comment about Magnus doesn't involve putting the PC to sleep.
That is starting from cold every time.
Douglas Henn-Macrae
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engrssc

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostFri Mar 11, 2016 6:30 pm

dhm wrote:My comment about Magnus doesn't involve putting the PC to sleep.
That is starting from cold every time.


Excellent. This is getting good.

Rgds,
Ed
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Eric Sagmuller

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Re: Marshall & Ogletree vs Hauptwerk

PostFri Mar 11, 2016 7:05 pm

How much RAM loaded in memory in that time frame? If for church use as stated I would expect fairly dry samples.

Eric
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