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So you want to learn more

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engrssc

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So you want to learn more

PostSat Oct 08, 2016 9:58 am

about real pipe organs. How they are built, voiced, maintained. Gives a real appreciation for real pipes and esp what Hauptwerk is based upon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3UwmjY253E

Rgds,
Ed
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engrssc

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSat Oct 08, 2016 1:25 pm

and more to learn about. Esp nice to hear the various stops (voices) and how they relate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gU990_cWI8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJgqqCGk7Yk

Rgds,
Ed
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arwenhur

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSun Oct 09, 2016 5:43 am

Thank you for posting these links, most interesting!
Arwen
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csw900

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSun Oct 09, 2016 5:51 am

Very interesting, especially the first "Tour of Organ Builder's Premises".

I wonder how many organists know that the volume of the notes is supposed to increase
as the pitch of the notes increases. That was new to me.

Can anybody tell me by how much the volume is supposed to increase per octave.

csw900
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kkiiwwii

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSun Oct 09, 2016 6:29 am

Another good one demonstrating the many stops of St Paul's Organ, London
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1MMmdjH_XI&t=918s
Charles
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csw900

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSun Oct 09, 2016 10:04 am

I have just had a quick look at the volumes of the keys on HW St Annes Organ
(Great 8 foot) and they are all over the place. Different volumes for adjacent keys and
just the opposite general effect to the ideal advocated in the film above -- volume
decreases as pitch rises.

Any comments?

csw900
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IainStinson

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSun Oct 09, 2016 11:38 am

In pipe organs the scaling of the pipework chosen by the designer of the instrument plays a significant part in determining the volume of flue stops and the scaling across a stop determines the volume of successive notes in the rank (By scaling I mean the diameter of the pipes.) Some builders chose to half the diameter the pipe every 16-18 notes others whilst others chose a more aggressive approach, halving diameter of the pipe every octave. The difference in scaling is one of the reasons that baroque organs (and instruments built in that style) differ in sound from romantic instruments. In the UK instruments built in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods favoured narrow scales in the treble and this in part is why they sound less bright than earlier English organs. Volume is also determined by the wind pressure used to make the pipes sound, and this to is a key element in the design of the instrument.

The voicer's job is to bring the stops to speech and to regulate the speech throughout the rank - they can make some differences to the pipe volume but the scaling of the pipework is often a more significant. Clearly in most buildings where the voicer listens to the pipes will influence the regulation they carryout. (I can think of a number of instruments where some of the ranks have notes which standout if you listen to the organ in particular positions but which sound fine in other positions.) In the video from Kings Andrew Scott is listening from the chapel floor whilst another builder is carrying out the adjustments he requests in the organ case.

For a HW sample, the sample set producer tries to ensure that the stop sounds evenly across the rank and no note stands out and that the relation of notes across the rank is the same as the original instrument. They also try to make the relative volume between stops match the original organ.

For the user (particularly if listening through speakers rather than headphones) some further adjustments may be needed to the volume of pipes to accommodate the acoustics of the room in which the sample set is being played.

Both the sample set producer and the user need to take care to retain the properties of the original pipework from the pipe organ from which the sample set was created unless they deliberately want to create something which is different ((For example by aggressively reducing the level of the trebles of a baroque sample set or indeed boosting the trebles in a late Victorian or Edwardian sample set).

I tend to make rather few adjustments to HW sample sets as I want the sound to be as close as possible to the original pipe organ. Others may have a different approach. With good sample sets (in which I include the St Anne organ provided with HW 4) I find that not that much adjustment is needed and only a little within rank "room correction".

Iain
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OrganoPleno

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSun Oct 09, 2016 12:24 pm

csw900 wrote:I wonder how many organists know that the volume of the notes is supposed to increase
as the pitch of the notes increases. That was new to me.


It varies from instrument to instrument, from builder to builder. And the whole idea just arose in the Romantic Era, and has no application to earlier instruments.

Found online at DobsonOrgan.com:
"Most organs from the Classical period have a fairly flat regulation profile. That is, the strength from bass to treble is relatively even within a given stop; further, pipes of a given pitch are the same strength from stop to stop (middle C of 8' and low C of 2', for example). This is especially true for principal pipes. Reed pipes are the exception to this rule: generally, the basses are much stronger than the trebles.

"In the Romantic era, builders went to great lengths to strengthen the treble of both flues and reeds. This treble ascendancy is a characteristic feature and necessary to properly interpret the melodic nature of the literature from the period. St. Paul’s flutes, especially the three harmonic ones, have obvious treble ascendancy, while the principals and strings have a more moderate increase."

But then, what would I know?
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ChangedForever

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSun Oct 09, 2016 1:55 pm

Thanks Ed!! Very interesting!!

Have a nice weekend all,
Mark
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John_Abson

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostSun Oct 09, 2016 2:08 pm

In the case of extension organs (e.g. theatre organs), increasing the volume of a stop towards the treble can have undesirable effects on the 4' derivations; particularly noticeable in the case of string and flute ranks. I always treat such 'definitive statements' with caution.
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mkc1

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostMon Oct 10, 2016 10:41 am

One reads about the "Silbermann Dip" -- Gottfried Silbermann's principals often had a reduction in volume in the middle range of the keyboard.

http://www.colinpykett.org.uk/silfluewk.htm#ResultsPrins

These variations in volume are one reason why organs sound so different from each other and why certain music works better on certain organs than others. When playing Baroque music on a Romantic organ, the inner parts can often get rather lost because of the treble ascendency and also because the principals tend to have more acoustic energy concentrated in the lower part of the spectrum.
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engrssc

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostMon Oct 10, 2016 11:13 am

These above and some other reasons of personal taste point to the advantage(s) we have using Hauptwerk Advanced Edition's voicing features. Image making such "preferential" changes with real pipes depending on which type of music we want to play at any given time? And in addition there are 4 separate configurations available.

Makin organ provides for 3 separate stop(s) characteristic(s) on their Westmorland Village model instrument - English, French and Baroque.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWC7Mmz3F7Q

I point this out as a comparison only.

Rgds,
Ed
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monorganist

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostMon Oct 10, 2016 3:20 pm

I enjoyed this Thiemo Janssen's demostration of the wonderful Schnitger organ of the Ludgerikirche, Norden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5B4OuwzbFc
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csw900

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostFri Oct 14, 2016 2:17 am

Thanks to all who responded to my query about volume increasing as pitch increased.
The general opinion appears to be that it should not -- except possibly for brand new
organs.

Fortunately the human ear is very poor at distinguishing differences in volume, even
quite large changes are not noticed. When there are a multiple notes all playing at the
same time differences in volume between individual notes are not noticed -- they just
contribute to the character of the sound.

I have noticed previously that people who make sound fonts (sample sets) do not bother
too much about keeping each note at the same volume they are more interested in
just recording whatever sound the organ produces. It would be possible to equalise
the volumes of individual samples later but most do not seem to bother.

csw900
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mdyde

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Re: So you want to learn more

PostFri Oct 14, 2016 4:06 am

Hello csw900,

csw900 wrote:people who make sound fonts (sample sets)


Just to clarify, Hauptwerk's sample sets definitely aren't SoundFonts (which is a basic sampler technology used in Creative sound cards) -- they're designed specifically for modelling pipe organs very realistically.

csw900 wrote:I have noticed previously that people who make sound fonts (sample sets) do not bother
too much about keeping each note at the same volume they are more interested in
just recording whatever sound the organ produces. It would be possible to equalise
the volumes of individual samples later but most do not seem to bother.


At least for 'wet' sample sets (those that include the acoustic of the original building), and in the majority of cases, it isn't that sample set producers don't bother; the aim of most Hauptwerk sample set producers is to preserve and reproduce the sound of a specific real organ as closely as possible to how it would be heard within its real acoustic environment from a particular point within that real building, including the variations in amplitude, frequency content, and delays/phases that the room imparts to the individual pipes due to their slight differences in spatial position within that room, and relative to the listener/microphones. Those slight differences are hugely important to perceived clarity and realism.

(Of course on a real organ there may be the occasional pipes whose speeches are simply defective, and in need of maintenance/voicing, which sample set producers would usually skip and recreate digitally from neighbours.)
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.

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