St. Eucaire on an Allen MDS-35

I would like to experiment with multichannel audio through an Allen MDS-35 speaker system. Our MDS-35 has 4 speakers: 2 HC 15U's, and 2 HC 18's, grouped together in a single speaker stack. I have the St. Eucaire set from MDA and would appreciate some advice on how to do the routing.

Here is my initial attempt at an allocation:

• Channel 1: Gt. Bourdun 16, Flute Harmonique 8, Prestant 4; Sw. Plein Jeu III;
  Ped. Soubasse 16 (G.O.), Flute 8 (G.O.)
• Channel 2: Gt. Montre 8, Flute Douce 4, Doublette 2; Sw. Clairon 4
  Ped. Contrebasse 16, Violon 8 (G.O.)
• Channel 3: Sw. Cor de nuit 8, Viole de gambe 8, Flute Octav 4, Nasard 2 ⅔, Basson et Hautbois 8;
  Ped. Bombarde 16
• Channel 4: Gt. Salicional 8, Sw. Voix celeste 8, Basson 16, Trompette 8, Voix Humane 8, Flageolet 2,
  Gt. Bourdon 8 / Ped. Bourdon 8

I'm not sure which channels to route to the HC-15's, and which to the HC-18's.

I am really a novice at this... any feedback is appreciated!

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

In order to do things the way you outline above, from the rank table you'd also have to set everything up MONO, you'd also have to create 4 separate MONO audio groups in Hauptwerk for each of your 4 channels, an arrangement pretty much to me that would be a bit overly complicated for the instrument in question, and you may not like the results much either.

I have the St. Eucaire set, looking over the HC-15 and 18 speakers, and seeing you have a total of 4 channels to work with, if it were my options I'd probably be more inclined to do something like this:

Set up two separate stereo audio groups in Hauptwerk, one group for the 2- HC-15's (channels 1-2) and a second group for the 2- HC-18's (channels 3-4). Send both manuals (less any 16' stops) to the HC-15's channels 1-2, send the entire pedal division to the HC-18's channels 3-4, and also include any 16' on the manuals also to the HC-18's on channels 3-4.

Have the speakers (one HC-15 and one HC-18) stacked on top of each other on the left and right and get the stacks a good 6+ feet away from each other and see what you get, it should sound pretty good.

Have fun!

Marc

Marc,

Thanks much for your reply!

I appreciate the advice and the tip about routing the 16' stops to the HC-18s. That's helpful.

I understand that setting up the mono audio groups will be more complicated. My thinking was that I would get better sound if I have each speaker playing a smaller set of stops. Your way is much simpler, and I'll definitely give it a try.

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

Yeah, the St. Eucaire is not a large instrument, so I don't think distribution between speakers will be much of an issue, with a stereo set-up there will be some back and forth between the speakers as well anyways. With a minimal number of stops pulled you won't be asking much of the speakers and you'd probably end up with about the same amount of stops sounding from each speaker when using multiple stops with a MONO layout anyways. The stereo arrangement should also sound much better as well.

BTW: The St. Eucaire in stereo has some of the sweetest sounding strings I've heard, they're borderline addicting!

Let us know how it turns out.

Marc

I must respectfully disagree with Marc's advice. I see where he is coming from with the idea of sending all of the pedal stops and the lower manual voices to the HC-18's, but, if I understand correctly, the HC-18's are full range speakers, the only difference being that the woofers are larger.

I would suggest also sending some of the higher pitched stops, say all of the 4' stops, and possibly the one mixture, to the HC-18's, as these stops would use the midrange and tweeter speaker cones, thus not disturbing the woofers, which would handle the 16' voices. This would give a little more "spread" to the sound, and reduce intermodular distortion. Bear in mind that the St. Eucaire actually has only two Pedal 16' voices of its own; all other Pedal stops are unified from the Great.

I would also put the Voix Celeste through the HC-18's, as I don't care for the sound of a regular rank and its accompanying Celeste coming through the same speakers.

It is worth spending some time experimenting with this idea, and it will take some time, as the St. Eucaire takes a while to load.

Mike,

The idea of sending some of the higher pitched stops to the HC-18's makes sense to me. I'll try that.

Also, I am wondering about the whole issue of stereo, given my speaker setup, which is in a single stack (which I cannot reconfigure). What advantage would stereo have over mono in that kind of arrangement? I would think that spreading the stops around 4 mono channels would give better results than going through 2 stereo channels, but maybe I'm missing something.

I am waiting for some cables to arrive next week by mail... really looking forward to experimenting.

Stephen

Steve, the only way that you will know is by experimenting. I can see what you are saying about stereo versus mono, and would certainly give it a try.

What you might want to do is load the St. Eucaire twice, the second time in an alternate Hauptwerk configuration, using different audio setups for each. You can setup St. Eucaire to play as soon as you start either configuration, and try them back to back to see which one sounds the best with the available resources.

I remember that there was quite a discussion some time ago on the forum about not necessarily needing more than a basic stereo setup for organs with reverberation included in the samples, but I still don't go for that argument. I assume that you are setting this up in a church, and of course you would use the front samples, and not the more reverberant back ones, probably with the release tails cut off also.

Let us know how it works out.

I'm experimenting in a rehearsal room (unfortunately a dead acoustic). Thanks for the tips about loading in alternate Hauptwerk configurations to compare, and also for the reminder about the option of cutting the release tails.

I'll let you know how it goes.

One of the great things about Hauptwerk when it comes to the audio part is there's nothing set in stone and you are allowed the opportunity to experiment and was the next thing I was going to say, experiment. Looking over the two speakers in question, I guess the only difference I saw (from the less than desirable info I could find), was the only difference between the two being one has a 15" driver and the latter an 18" driver, maybe there's something else I missed? I still contend with a smallish instrument like the St. Eucaire if you set things up in stereo like I outline, regardless of which you send which ranks to, you're probably going to hear a minimal difference at best.

You could also experiment with simply splitting up the two manuals between both speaker sets, send the entire pedal to the 18's or you could even split things up there as well. There are numerous ways you could do things but I'd still start out with what I outlined above and see what you think, then you can always go from there.

Marc