An Invitation for Healthy Discussion

Hello All,

This might sound as though I am a glutton for punishment, but please hear me out.

Within a day of my posting a complete performance of Franck's Grande Piece Symphonique via the PAB library in the Contrebombarde Concert Hall, I received comments within 24 hours effectively stating how ugly the PAB sounded, and how my registrations did not pass muster. I am quick to appreciate the kindness the readers had about my organ playing, but that they commented on my registrations and resulting sound.

I completely agree with the vast majority of organ enthusiasts that Cavaille-Coll instruments are some of the finest instruments ever conceived in the history of organ building. At the same time, their sounds are soooo individualistic (majestic reeds and plenty of them, and sonorous foundations, mystical celestes, etc.) that organs of other countries of origin, such as German, English, American, Spanish, Italian cannot attempt to imitate the French organ sound.

Herein lies a conundrum: If an organist desires to play French music via Hauptwerk sample libraries, must he ONLY play it on French instruments? To me, the answer is "No", but one should strive to make the piece sound as musically valid as possible.

I have gone back and created another Contrebombarde performance, this time using excerpts of my original performance, followed by duplicate passages of Susan Landale's performance on the CC of St. Etienne at Caen. Here are the links to the original performance and the excerpt comparison.

http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/1262
http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/1284


Now, to the point of this audio comparison:
Despite comments to the contrary, I believe that some of you out there might agree that the CC passages of the Grande Piece might also sound ponderous (but not ugly) in comparison to my own performance.

Here is where I believe the differences might arise: The Caen has fewer number of stops than the PAB, but the CC's pipes are individually more powerful as a whole. Wherein I drew a number of stops for the opening passage, Ms. Landale's performance seemed to draw very few stops -- yet her sound was very full. The question is: did that make my performance sound "ugly"?

Since this is an open forum, I would like to open the debate for your personal opinions or comments. Surely, many of you will disagree with my position (and rightfully so), but there are hundreds of viewers to this Concert Hall. For the interest of healthy discussion -- without being crude, vulgar or generally out-of-hand -- I think this might be a great opportunity to express our feelings and experiences.

The floor open to you, ladies and gentlemen. I would love to hear from many of you who read the forum but who do not normally reply to it.

Cheers,

Joe

[B. Milan]

Hello Joe,

I've moved your post from General discussion to Performance practice since this deals with registrations etc.

Hi Joe,

For what it’s worth, here are my impressions of the comparison recordings you have provided between the PAB and the Cain CC organs. Let’s keep in mind that I have little experience with any real pipe organs, except through CD/phonograph recordings and Hauptwerk.

I would have to say that I vastly preferred the sound of the Cain CC in every case. The thing I now appreciate about the CC organs is that rank after rank can be added to the ensemble of sounds and they all add up to a wonderful smooth blend. No one rank in the Cain recordings stood out loudly above others in that Frank piece. But with the PAB, it seems more like being right in the midst of the pipes and individual ranks do stand out.

The sound I am used to with this piece is the rather old recording of Marcel Dupree playing the great St. Sulpice organ. I doubt that it gets any better than that! I used to listen to that again and again. . . about wore the record out (phonograph recording). The super build-up to that full organ sound still thrills the heck out of me. The only thing that can compete with that sound (IMHO) is the Bovenkerk YouTube recording of W. Magre playing the Zwart piece we have commented on here before.

So, what makes the difference? One great big difference (other than the smoothness mentioned above) is the reverb. The Cain cathedral organ is recorded live and all the pipe sounds are mixing and reverberating in the room. Probably the HW Cain wet organ recordings would sound more “real” since they would produce a sound almost the same as recording live in the actual cathedral. Taking a dry organ to start with and then adding reverb of some sort later has always seemed to me to be less real. When I hear the Cain CC version through headphones, I can almost feel that I am right there in the presence of that wonderful organ. Somehow, the PAB doesn’t give me the sensation of “being there” in a real room. The CC organ sounds magnificent, huge and somewhat distant. The PAB organ sounds grand all right, but more up-close and just loud.

I can’t speak to what the registrations should be or how the piece should be played. But, I have always felt that any classical organ music can be played and enjoyed on just about any organ, even TO’s. Registrations can vary all over the place and still provide a great sound. When I heard your original posting of this piece on Concert Hall a few days ago, I certainly enjoyed it. I did feel that the organ was not quite “real” sounding and that perhaps there were too many registration changes, but I do have my own opinions based on my past experiences---not any formal training, and, as I mentioned, I did enjoy the piece. (And, I do agree that your playing is right up there among the best.)

So, do continue posting your recordings. I have enjoyed all of them.

Leo Chris.

Ah, Dupre GPS, and St Sulpice! No one, including Marie Claire Alain (and I named my third daughter after her) ever played it better. Unbelievable crescendos, and the way some passages fade into some mysterious unknown distance. . .breathtaking.

But lets face it, and I'm surprised that no one comments on it, but it's not just Dupre, the organ, or the registration, it is the recording engineers and their mic placement that are responsible for that wonderful wash of sound. Comparing a HW sample to a recording made strictly for audio playback is a bit dicey at best. And comparing the PAB (which certainly appears to be quite an 'in your face' sample to begin with), to a recording with mics well into the nave is just asking for an unfair comparison. Your recording of the GPS on the PAB would sound vastly different if Dupre's engineers had been at the helm - and I venture to say that your registration would have sounded marvelous.

Until recently, organists have played what ever repertoire they could muster on the one (or two) instruments at hand, and if the organ itself had the sound quality and resources, the repertoire sounded great. Franck only on a CC. What crap! Play anything you like on anything you like, and the musical result will be determined by your musical sensitivity, and everything will be well.

G;Day

I think that the instrument has allot to do with the poor sound. All the pab organ mp3 samples do not impress me that much. The wet organ sample sets sound more natural in their own suroundings.
buy some memory and invest in a good wet set like the bovenkerk and you won't be disapionted!!!

I'm with GDay on this one.

About the recordings at St Sulpice, here's an interesting link:
http://www.stsulpice.com/Docs/disc.html

Jocelyn

Hi Jocelyn,

thanks for that very interesting article.

G'day

I'm sorry to say that the following is rather critical of the PAB. But it's my honest reaction to a single listening to parts of the two mp3s. I'm no audio engineer and no expert on organ sounds: so this is just the reaction of someone without any significant expertise - it's just how I reacted as I listened.

I haven't had the time to listen right the way through the two specimens - just the first three minutes of the PAB recording and a about 5-6 minutes into the comparison file. My initial reaction was a dislike of the PAB sound. In the latter file, I wasn't listening properly for the last couple of minutes, just hearing it in the background, during which, after a while, all I was properly aware of was the contrast between the overall sound of the PAB and the CC - at that stage, to me, the PAB was sounding quite a lot inferior to the CC

I think much of what I didn't like in the PAB's sound was due to the dry recording being coupled with artificial reverb that (to me) didn't succeed in making the organ sound like it was actually in a building that has that kind of reverb.

The pipes sound rather close up, and the width of the L-R spread of the pipes confirms an impression of nearness to the organ. The reverb doesn't "show through" very much while the organ is being played, though to the extent that I do hear it over the direct organ sound, I don't like it - it seems to superimpose some kind of an unpleasant and almost unrelated "sheen" over the rather dry-sounding pipes. Then, when the organ becomes silent, the reverb is long but somehow distant sounding, and (I feel) somehow doesn't seem to "belong" there: I don't find the reverb believable at all. In the brief silence (of the organ) at ~38 seconds, the reverb has a very unpleasant "ripple" (like someone saying wawawawa very fast) - I wonder whether that's in the original "wav" as well as the mp3? And in its brief silence at ~68 secs, I find the reverb has little credibility as a response to the organ by the building it's in.

The PAB's sound strikes me as rather harsh/strident - sometimes actually bordering on unpleasant to listen to.

And is it just me, or does the third melodic note - C# at 5 secs - feel out of tune with the preceding notes? Also, later, there are passages perhaps 15+ secs long where I felt I was hearing a lot of pipes out of tune (and I don't mean deliberate celeste-type sounds).

I liked the sound of the CC recording much more, though, actually I was disappointed that there wasn't more clarity - perhaps a quality limitation with the mp3(?) - I also felt that I was listening to the CC from a little too far away, though I suppose that feeling might have been brought on by the contrast with the very close-up sound of the PAB.

Hello Chorn,

I have kept quiet in this discussion, so as to allow others to voice their opinions without my intervention. With your comments about not liking the sound of the PAB, I must jump in and tell you what I have done to the modify the library's sound. Otherwise, you might criticize the library rather than criticize the actions by the performer.

You are quite correct that the tuning of some of the pipes has been modified ... by me. In the Pipe and Rank Voicing section, I deliberately tuned some ranks between +/- 2 cents as a personal choice. This was done without the sanction of the manufacturer. The problem does arise when the net difference between de-tuned ranks approaches a total of 4 cents. What detuning you heard was present in my recording, but was not present in the sample library's default settings.

One might logically ask, "Then, why did he de-tune the ranks?" I was attempting to make the sound of individual ranks "emerge" or stand out in the mix from ranks of similar size and type. It was not meant to be perceived; therefore, it was done to excess. My apologies to you.

Regarding panning, I did go in and hugely modified individual pipes' panning, sometimes bouncing a C fairly hard left and adjacent C# fairly hard right, in order to get a close up sound. I also turned up the brightness of many of the ranks such that you would hear the pressurized air escaping from the mouths of certain stops. This is the most likely reason some of you do not like the sound of the reverb attached to a close-up sound.

By all means, please continue posting your opinions and comments. In light of these comments, I shall take all of your suggestions in stride and do what I can to improve the sound in future performances. Thank you, and please carry on.

Cheers,

Joe