josq wrote:csw900 wrote:Your argument about noise from the organ being cumulative when more than one note is pressed is true but not relevant because the true organ notes emitted by the pipes is increased in the same ratio. (Thus the signal to noise ratio remains constant).
I respectfully disagree. On a real pipe organ there is no constant signal to noise ratio. Tracker and wind noise might be very audible when using soft registrations. If signal to noise ratio were constant, imagine hearing hammers and storms when playing full organ...
Exactly. Again, every sample set producer uses some form of noise reduction to remove, as much as possible, all noise sources within and outside of the organ, including wind noise, HVAC (heating and cooling) noise, tracker noise, etc. It is impossible to fully avoid these kinds of noises with microphone placement alone and still get all of the desired recording positions. The trick is to remove as much of the noise as possible without affecting the sound of the pipe(s) being sampled. This is where sophisticated software tools come into use.
As for the type of reverb used, that depends entirely upon the sort of playback system for which the set is designed. In this case, the set designer clearly wanted to give user control over the amount of reverb heard, which makes perfect sense in the applications for which this set will be used. The users of this set would not be interested in having to "adjust" the amount of reverb by truncating the release tails. And even using a slider to adjust the mixture of near and far mic locations would not be the typical modus operandi for this type of playback system.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a professionally-produced video of this caliber showing exactly how a high-quality Hauptwerk set is produced? Absent that (and I won't be holding my breath), this video is the closest I've ever seen to detailing the major steps involved in producing an organ sample set. I, for one, will thoroughly appreciate it for what it is and not spend time criticizing it (and the set itself) for what it is not.