speakers and amps for large church?

Hi all:)
I'm having some problems with amplification and speakers. I have various organs installed on my computer and they work absolutely great! ! But they all sound a lot better when I bring the computer home and hook it up in my music room than they do in the large church room.

Even if I only use organs that are completely "dry"(no reverb ) it is impossible to play more than 2 notes at a time. Chords will create a muddy and very unpleasant sound ( not at low volumes and not at home but in the church at high volumes it becomes a real problem )

I have read here in the forum that hauptwerk is often used with hifi equipment. So therefore I am using both hifi and PA equipment.

If anyone can help I am using two active PA monitors (yamaha dxr15) , a harman kardon hifi amplifier, two dali speakers (120 watts) and two bose speakers (80 watts)

The computer is a hp pavilion with 8gb ram. The sound card is an audio box vsl44

Any help is most appreciated
Best regards
Lars

From your description I understand that the sound is fine at the church so long as the volume is low. In that case it would be helpful to know where you increase the volume. If you are increasing the gain within Hauptwerk then it is possible that you are overdriving some amp or speaker or that the audio is clipping, going into the red, within Hauptwerk.

Assuming that the HW audio indicator stays in the green zone it would then be helpful to try disabling one set of speakers at a time to see if the problem is in just one pair of audio outputs. It is likely that the dais (?) or Bose speakers aren't up to the task.

From the description it doesn't sound like the problem is related to the church acoustics though that was my first thought. Do the speakers sound good if they are closer to the organ? Again, I don't think this is the issue and suspect too large an audio signal out of HW or issues with the amp or one set of speakers.

Church acoustics can be tricky even with some built-in gotchas. It's a big deal to use the proper speakers and equally where you place them. A home environment is much more forgiving (to use a religious phrase.

In many big rooms, it's amazing how much power can be consumed and yet, with the same setup in a home, totally overwhelming.

I tend to use larger (power handling capacity) speaker systems that are well matched to the amps driving them. Many disappointing results can happen when you think small in a big room. A favorite power amp that does an exceptional job is the Crown Audio CT 8150 8-Channel Rack Mount Power Amplifier, which has 8 channels, 150 (very clean) watts of power - each channel.

Running power amps at or near their capacity is not good either. You want everything to operate at their most linear portion of their operating curve. Likewise you really to study the characteristics of the room to get the best results. Many big room having standing waves that can create very muddy sounds. All this assuming that the audio driving the power amps is clean and not over driven anywhere alone the signal path leading up to the amps as had been said above.

Rgds,
Ed

Peter Murre from custom made organs in the Netherlands uses omnidirectional speakers in church installations with good result because they are very forgiving regarding difficult acoustics.
http://www.custommadeorgan.com/index.html
This might be a solution.
Another solution might be Dirac room correction software.
See this topic from Don Vlasny
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=13968

Regards Jan

After making sure the sound is clean, point speakers away from the audience, that is pointing them to disperse the sound , toward a wall, ceiling, alcove or such. Multiple speakers in the same location work better (more realistic sound) when they blend aurally "in the air". Some may disagree, but I've found many times that subs work well when placed down low (on the floor) in a corner..

It seems architects who design esp large churches think in terms of acoustics for good music or for having good spoken word, rarely for both in the same space. As a result, I know of no way to accomplish both (and sometimes either) economically. My mentor who was a sound genius often said something to the effect that "Good, high quality oats costs money, after going thru the horse, a bit cheaper". No offense meant.

Rgds,
Ed

My suggestion would be to simplify the situation as much as possible and then move towards complex speaker combinations to see where the problem lies. For now it probably doesn't matter which way the speaker is pointed or whether it is omnidirectional or not. Try the large Yamaha speakers first as they are the ones designed for a large space. Play them softly near the console. Sound good? Then turn them up at the speaker, not in HW, and progressively play them louder and farther away. I can't imagine something sounding terribly muddled unless there is bad wiring or the HW levels are set too high.

If this sounds ok then add the other speakers a set at a time. This approach WILL turn up the location of the problem. After that's resolved it may make sense to try any number of speakers, more speakers, or point them at the ceiling or back wall and see what you think. It's essential to isolate the cause of the muddy, unpleasant sound before moving on to other considerations. Certainly a subwoofer is called for eventually.

What really helped in my setup in a larger room was cutting back the reverb of the sampleset to one second in hauptwerk.
I had the same muddiness and that fixed it for me.
The room i am using has to much reverb on its own so any reverb coming from the sampleset was causing it to sound muddy.
Also cutting back the reverb in Hauptwerk, cuts your ram consumption in your computer in half,which is kind of nice.
Pete