Clarification of the term "Sampled".

His audio examples under signal mixing are an eye opener though, as to how much multi channel speaker systems can help. This is probably the most drastic example however. I've heard of others stating how much better it sounds to keep two alike sounds in separate speakers, such as a celeste.

Hello Eric,

These things have been discussed at great length before (e.g. http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6498&p=45555 ), but for listening on headphones, or in a dry listening room from a single point in the room, with a good single pair of close nearfield monitors, and with a wet sample set made with the microphones kept in a constant position and not mixed together, what you will hear through the headphones/monitors will effectively be identical acoustically to what you would hear if you were listening to the real organ from the same position that the microphones had been placed. Dr. Pykett's article is relevant really for dry samples (as all digital organs have used so far, or for any other samples where the microphone positions were moved for different pipes, or the microphones' outputs mixed together, or for listening environments that aren't fully dry). The results from mixing pipes from different speakers 'in air' will certainly be different (because of the acoustics of the listening room), but not necessarily more realistic (depending on the recording method and listening environment).

Thanks for the info Martin. I vaguely remember this discussion a number of years back. Apparently my ears are just hyper sensitive, as I don't see many others bringing it up. Over all I do really appreciate HW and the work you and Brett do.

Eric

Apparently my ears are just hyper sensitive ...

That is probably the main reason why I do not usually enter into discussions on audio matters. Some people have absolute pitch and notice if the pitch is not A440. Some people spot beating thirds but I am oblivious. Some people love headphones but others, like me, feel quite disoriented with a sound stage that moves with ones head. I expect to pick up phase differences as my head moves. Some people like to hear the sound at the console, others appreciate more of an "audience style" sound, some like a wall of sound. The list goes on.

I have settled on the: "If it sounds good to you, then it is good" approach and I tend to stay away from articles that try to convince me that what works for them is what I should like. </rant>

Regards,

Sadly, one of the best ways to hear beating thirds is to develop a hearing loss primarily in one ear. I know I've mentioned this before, but I knew a piano tuner who found she could hear beats better for tuning by wearing her husbands hearing aid. This is so easy to test by switching a stereo feed to mono that I was surprised I'd never noticed this phenomena. The other thing that piano tuners will do is move their heads slightly to find a spot where beats are louder for a particular pair of strings. Back when I did that I didn't think much about why I did it, though now I think it is obvious. Two ears can pick up different signal phases, some of which will make thirds sound particularly annoying. Stereo and multichannel sound maintains multiple phases in most cases and helps us to hear naturally as if we were hearing "in air".

Yeah beating thirds are one of my biggest hangups. I really hear them, and they come over to me as distortion due to the fast beating. Truth is I really hear this more with the virtual PO vs a recording. So I'm slowly working on getting more audio channels to try and have them coming out of separate speakers. Also I had real pipes playing for 10 years, including a mixture. I could hear some beating especially if the pipes were a bit out of tune, but it never was as noticeable or irritating as with the virtual PO.

One other problem I have with mixtures is that there always seems to be a few that are out of tune within the trio or what have you with that note. There is no way to fix it by tweaking the tuning. Sometimes I can find a compromise however to at least slow it down.

Eric