Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:14 pm
Dear Marc, thank you for bringing my attention to this.
My intention was quite simple: the direct and diffuse front channels should be mixed into one audio output, both together. Then, with the direct/diffuse slider, you can move toward the organ (direct) or away from the organ (diffuse).
The intention was to make it possible to hear the organ from different spots in the church, because I know that some Hauptwerk users prefer diffuse sound with huge reverberation, while some other prefer more direct sound while pipes are speaking "to your face". So, I tried to serve both these approaches. First, I wanted to do two independent ODFs (as I did for the Menesterol sample set, for example), but then, I combined both.
To a big surprise of one of my collaborator (who is rather purist in audio setups), it proved working. The big challenge was the partial cancellation of some harmonics due to the phase differences. Indeed, it was a problem, but some tweaking made this problem minimal. I have also other possible explanation why the phase cancellation or a comb filtering or similar known issues when combining two audio streams is not a big problem here, but that is not important.
Obviously, if you or other user find another setup better suiting your wishes and needs, feel free to do whatever you want. Someone was describing a multichannel setup as in cinema here above. I do not think that is much useful in this case, although, if someone tried it and found pleasing, I have no objection to such a use.
What I find a little bit difficult is the direct organ sound. Several organists (top organists) told me an interesting observation: while the sound of individual stops is much "nicer" when heard in the direct way, the plenum is horrible when heard from the short distance (direct approach). It sounds even "unnatural" to them. Yes, for this reason they choose to "sacrifice" the direct sound on individual stops and they stay with the diffuse sound where the plenum sounds acceptable and "nice" to them. Yes, I know this problem for years, indeed, from the beginning of my organ recording adventure, but I confess that I have not found an optimal solution to this problem until now.
Yes, I know that some other very good sample set producers mix the near microphones with the diffuse microphones in a clever way, and I always admired this kind of approach, since it is proven to give very good results, but at the same time, it tends to create somewhat different instrument than what the real organ is. You visit the church, and you find that the organ sounds not as in the sample set. Well, why not, because the illusion created is spectacular. I am far from criticising this approach, it is indeed very good approach. But I was trying to find my own way. And especially, I always wanted to "walk" virtually through the church and move my ears. For some time, I believed in convolution and digitally added reverb to achieve this, but well, it is still a path which remains to be studied in greater depth in future. Certainly, the simple approach with only few IRs per channel does not give results convincing enough. It seems that a massive-number-of-IRs approach would give the result we want, but the technical means to achieve that are still rather limited.
Hence the Sonus Paradisi odyssey: we started to make sample sets from positions quite near to the instrument. Then, I found this approach not so good, and I started to look for a "sweet spot" farther from the organ. Probably the best example of this approach is the Utrecht sample set, which is almost extremely wet. Then, I found this approach not good enough, and I was again going more and more near to the organ. But, at the same time, I left the microphones also in the diffuse position. (Oh, well, this is still not the full story, because we sometimes record with 18 or even more microphones, but that is not important.) Now, I wish to see, how my users find this 6 channel approach. I hope that the freedom of virtual movement through the church can be positive for the Hauptwerk users. But I still wait for more feedback, when Brasov sample set reaches more Hauptwerk audience through weeks and months to come.
Would be interested to hear more, perhaps from one of the set producers if they care to give more detail.
