Prague baroque organ (wet version) No blower noise

[Fazioli]

Hi everybody

I bought the wet version of the Prague Baroque sample-set by Sonus Paradisi, it's of a very high quality for sure and I like it very much but there is one thing I can't hear at all. The blower noise seems to be inactive but I can't do anything to let it work. not in the output menu, not in the voicing menu. Anyone with the same problem? What can I do?

All the best,

Roland

[Jan Škvařil]

Roland, the blower noise is really hard to activate on Prague baroque model, because it is not audible even in original. The blower is new and stands with ventilator in separate room. And the windsystem is perfectly restored. There is no wind leak etc. So sitting by original console, when you put the switch on, you really cannot recognize the instrument is "under wind" already. :) Jan

[Fazioli]

Thanks!

[zurek]

Indeed, as Jan pointed out, the featured Prague instrument is splendidly restored and it has no blower noise at all. Therefore, there is no point in spoiling the purity with some additional noise.
Anyway, I think that any blower noise in historical organs prior to about 1900 is inapropriate. Consider, that there were no blowers when the organs were built since there was, of course, no electricity in the churches. Moreover, many bellows systems were set apart in proprietary chambers and so, one could not hear either the deep breath of calcants in the church. It is shame of modern organbuilders and those who restore old organs, that they leave noisy blowers around! I know perfectly restored historical instruments where all all the present-day knowledge about antient pipe scales, voicing, windtrunk and windchest buildings, all the sophisticated nuances of the historical approach were solved, but there is absolutely non-historical, non-artistic, and simply silly loud blower left...
This cannot be said loud enough: good organ is an organ without any blower noise.

[telemanr]

Amen Jiri.

[SMann]

For a sample set creator I would imagine that a low level of blower noise present in raw samples would make them easier to edit and also that the final product would be of (at least somewhat) higher quality because less digital filtering would have to be applied to remove blower rumble.

Also, I understand that perhaps not a few Hauptwerk users wish to experience playing historic instruments as they sounded before the advent of electric blowers. Of course congregants in times long past might have been startled by an occasional yelp of pain as an overenthusiastic calcant pulled a muscle, his cry being audible even though he had been acoustically isolated within a "proprietary chamber!"

Personally however, I find that some level of blower noise greatly adds to the sense of realism and I miss it very much when it is not present. Some time back I was looking over my collection of Hauptwerk v1 sample sets trying to decide which of them I wished to import into HW3. I found the lack of blower noise absolutely jarring! The only way I would use them now would be to create CODM versions so that this effect could be added. I do realize of course that this is totally a matter of personal perference.

To all Americans at home and abroad I wish you a very happy 4th of July! I don't know for certain, but there may be some Brits out there still holding a bit of a grudge. After all, we did deprive you of a rather large chunk of real estate, didn't we? I should be careful what I say here however.... I might find that when I launch Hauptwerk after Martin updates my license dongle the next time nothing happens except the appearance of a Union Jack screen saver and the St. Anne's playing an endless loop of "God Save the Queen!"

Best Regards,
Steve Mann

[Jim Reid]

Steve,

You do realize that it was not until the end and settlement of things
AFTER the Spanish/American war ended in 1848 that the US became
a "continental" nation, one spanning "sea to shining sea".

All the UK lost at the end of the Revolution were the 13 colonies,
a relatively small bit of land compared to the continent spanning
nation the US now is. The French sold Thomas Jefferson more than
the UK lost; and, of course, the Mexican folks lost nearly as
much when the "West was won".

[B. Milan]

It's not just the blower noise that adds realism, even for organs with no to minimal blower noise, there should still be a room noise ambience. Otherwise with nothing you are essentially playing in a vacuum. Enter any church/cathedral and I assure you that you will not be in dead silence!

Some prefer to disable the blower/room noise from loading in Hauptwerk, however I feel that potentially makes the sound more artificial and a dead give away that it is not a real organ recording since as above, there will always be some form of ambient noise.

[SMann]

Thanks, Jim

I should think though that perhaps if it hadn't been for the events set in motion on July 4, 1776 it might now be THEIR continental nation spanning from sea to shining sea. Nevertheless I must confess history was never my strong suit and I of course yield to those better versed in it than I.

At least I get the day off today and am spending it playing wonderful organs from all over the world using a quite marvelous piece of software engineering developed by a certain brilliant British chap with whom we are all familiar!

Best regards,
Steve

[Morse]

Obviously there are strong differences of opinion on the realism of blower noise. But surely ambient noise is a fact of life for any organist. Our Moller has the blower quite remote and it is inaudible. However there is certainly background ambient noise. If you want to add it to your sample sets, I could record some of it. The rude people talking during the Prelude, the sound of babies squawking during the Offertory, and of course the ever popular sound of the exit stampede during the Postlude.

[zurek]

I understand that the preferences of people are differing very much. But there is no art in adding noise where there is no noise originally. The church ambience is sufficiently present in the samples themselves, no need to add it artificially to other parts of Hauptwerk model. In fact, the sound engineer and a real musician is trying very hard whole his life to get rid of noise. Some are more, some less good in this. Sonus Paradisi is excellent in the denoising techniques, while retaining the most of the original ambience and sound/noise content of the speaking pipes.
While the noise samples may be quite popular amongst the sample set producers because they can hide most of the imperfections of their samples into the background noise (the background noise easily masks the impurities in samples - especially that present in the release tails), Sonus Paradisi does not need to use this trick.

Still, if someone needs the noise, there is a file representing blower noise in the Prague Baroque sample set. The relative path to this file is:
000371\blower\noise\mech_48.wav (relative to the installation packages path of your Hauptwerk installation). If you are experienced enough, you can edit the file - always remember that Sonus Paradisi sample sets are NOT protected against the editing by users - fill it with any noiseprint you like, re-save and reload the organ bypassing the sample cache. DO NOT DO THIS if you are not experienced enough, you can easily ruin your Hauptwerk installation by non-expert manipulating the installation files!!!!! I do not recommend editing the installation files, only real blower-noise-addicts should attempt to do that.

If you are not experienced enough to edit the noise file and still you want to have a blower noise, I think a perfect simulation of this can be achieved by addition of noisy fans to your PC, by use of very old amplifier, hissy and the cheapest speakers, or simply by turning your home vacuum cleaner on while performing music with Hauptwerk :)

[gingercat]

Don't forget that unless you are wearing headphones (even then) you will have your own ambient noise, so adding additional ambient noise could become somewhat excessive!

[HMaier]

While the noise samples may be quite popular amongst the sample set producers because they can hide most of the imperfections of their samples into the background noise (the background noise easily masks the impurities in samples - especially that present in the release tails), Sonus Paradisi does not need to use this trick.

Any questions left?

[Fazioli]

ok. Did I ask something stupid? I indeed like some noise especially when using a headphone. I worked for Van Vulpen a dutch organ builder and of all the instruments and churches I heard I can't remember a single organ or church that has no ambiance noise, there is always a noise. When I installed the Prague Barock wet sample-set I saw in the organ voicing screen (the one installed with the organ, so not the Hauptwerk one) a slider named "blower noise" witch is mostly used to ad more or less blower noise or in some cases ambiance noises. This slider makes no sense if there is no blower or ambiance noise installed with the organ.

[Jan Škvařil]

I think several things are mixed here together. Sample is sample and noise is noise. The room ambience of any church is one thing and additional souds another. Perfectly recorded and processed samples contain (if they are wet) not only the sound but also the room ambience, reverbs etc etc. But they should not contain noise. Ore, more precisely, continuous signal noise. Tracker noise, irregularities in pipe sound..this all belongs to perfect live sample, this makes it vivid, but loud blower noise...I think it is rather deficiency of original organ or its contemporary status, and a great advantage of HW3 that such disturbing noise can be eliminated. I can imagine there could be mandatory trigger in "hyperrealistic" sample set, enabling additional sounds ( walking people, clocks, birds, cars and trams outside church...as we know it from reality and even from CD recordings ). So organist could simulate for example concert atmosphere with church full of people. Personally I do not need such extras, but I can imagine it. In any case, it should not be integral part of samples. Samples containing plenty of different noises or audible continuous signal noise are simply bad, not realistic. Or, at least, more than organ sound they document how many people walk around the church and how noisy the blower engine is. :)