Hereford swell levels and registration

Hi,

Perhaps not purist. However, I have upped the swell levels a tad and played with registrations.

Solo FL 8 4, CA 8 coupled to choir
Choir Flutes 8 4 2, OD 8, MIX, Tr 8

Great Both Diapasons 8, Pr 4

Swell Oboe coupled trough to great with Unison off and 16ft on

Gives a very credible bicinium reg

Can remove oboe and couple choir to pedals and play on choir is good

Also choir is useful as a solo "cornet"

Endless possibilities if engage Gt trumpet and play duo on choir.

Amazed and happy

alan

Hello, Alan,

Thank you for the registrations--they look very interesting. I'll try them out as soon as possible. With the 67 stop version of the instrument I'm overwhelmed by the almost countless registration combination possibilities.

I've also upped the levels on the swell by about 4db, HP reeds a little less, possibly 3.2db, from memory.

I had a friend staying a couple of weeks ago who a) is an outstanding organist, b) is a very knowledgeable organ builder, c) had just been playing at Salisbury the day before.

He went through the voicing with me (and the tuning!) and I think the instrument is even better for it. As a result of the work he's done, I've stopped using OD1 on the great, as it has almost no harmonic development at all, and use OD2 (up about 0.5db), Principal 1 + Fifteenth (down about 0.3db) as the principal chorus on the great. It works very nicely. Because I'm limited on stop heads (and RAM), I can only have 1 Mixture too, so I've gone back to the original Willis tierce mixture rather than the bigger,1970s mixture.

I've also started playing around with temperament - in my normal services I don't have time to change to an appropriate Bach-y sample set, so I've been playing Bach and Buxtehude on Hereford with Young or Kirnbirger temperament loaded.

Interesting Adrian. Curious as to which temperament would best work with / for choir accompaniment? Likewise, congregational singing?

Rgds,
Ed

That's a tricky one to answer, except to say "it depends"!

A more just intonation will brighten up congregational singing with wider thirds and fifths than equal temperament, but of course it's compromised when you get beyond the boundaries of acceptability. With Valotti and its variants anything above 4 sharps or flats is going to sound fairly horrid. Hence we have equal temperament - a just about acceptable compromise! Fortunately most hymns I can think of are in straightforward keys, but I can think of one or two that put in a "squelch" or two, harmonically, and they will sound "interesting" - I'm thinking of Coe Fen, Love Unknown and Corvedale from the English/Anglican hymn repertoire.

(I may give the impression I know what I'm talking about with temperament - I really don't; only what I've experimented with and what I can understand from the various WIkipedia articles)