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Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

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TomBentley

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Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostFri Mar 04, 2016 10:00 am

Having spent a number of days/hours trying to get a more even response especially from the Bourdon stop. I have tried many routing options including using the sub as a mixdown of all channels. The basic problem seems to be that either the stop is too strong for lighter registrations (the lush strings of the Skinner), yet when I ajust the voicing control to lower in particular the 1st octave low C to F to a more suitable volume, the deep deep tone still becomes overbearing and the pedal line when playing is just too strong. I don't know if this is "normal" or if I have adjusted sub to high. I use the sub to cross over around 60hz to two JBL tower speakers. The entire audio compliment is 6 Behringer 2031A's, a Velodyn 12" sub which crosses over at 60hz currently to two JBL towers. I am sure it is my lack of understanding "appropriate" adjustments is at the route of the problem but am hoping that someone might be able to point me at what would be a "normal" crossover point, or what they might have done in their audio setup that would smooth these pedals out. If I voice the ranks too low I then lose that "rolling" base when engaging the 32' Uter... which I enjoy so much. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Tom
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RichardW

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostFri Mar 04, 2016 11:27 am

I don't know if this is what you are experiencing but I can get the same effect from my setup. It affected every sample set.

When I first added my subwoofer (BK Electronics XXLS400), I turned it up to get a "good bass". However, more critical listening revealed a certain bass "bloom" that soon became annoying. I realised that my sub was set to have too much gain. When I reduced the level the bloom went away and the sound over the whole range was more homogeneous.

The effect could most easily be detected in the bottom octave of the keyboards.

I subsequently spent many days trying to get the gain and frequency cut-off settings set to my liking.
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mnailor

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostFri Mar 04, 2016 11:53 am

Same problem here. I have my sub on a mixdown, crossover around 80 Hz, and gain set to be comfortable for the baroque sets I play, which tend to have a moderate bass level. That is about 1/4 gain on my SVS sub.

The same gain happens to work okay for Caen, Metz big and little, St. Omer, Doesburg, and Rotterdam big.

For Skinner, Salisbury, and Hereford I had to "deboom" the pedal basses by adjusting the levels of the bottom octave or so of the heavy flue ranks by -3 to -9 db. Listening and tweaking takes a while, but it's easier than rebalancing the sub level for each sample set.

You do have to listen to long tones, because the bass notes vary in intensity while they are sustained. I have to listen to long notes with all the 16' flues together to hear the peaks and adjust levels to make the blended peaks comfortable.
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TomBentley

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostFri Mar 04, 2016 3:33 pm

Thanks so much to both of you! I was beginning to think perhaps I was just crazy and this is the way it should sound but have not been happy with it. I guess I'll get the screw driver out to hold the pedals down and run around the room adjusting the sub itself -- but you have given me a better sense that I am on the right path to resolve the issue. I enjoy the Skinner set immensely and have the manual stops in line and nice and smooth but the pedals have continued to be the challenge. Now that I know I'm not nuts I will continue working in the direction you have so kindly pointed me.

Tom
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1961TC4ME

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostFri Mar 04, 2016 3:36 pm

I too in the past have had this issue. Tom, you may be surprised to find your towers may be contributing to the problem more than your sub. I'd assume how you explain things that you're running a separate amp to the sub and from the sub to your towers? If so equipped, where do you have the bass on the amp set? It could simply be set too high. I'd also be more inclined to feed the towers directly off the amp first, then use a separate line-out (record out, etc.) from the amp to the sub, and not from the sub to the towers as you are doing it now. If you can, separate things one at a time, use the towers only with the sub off-line, you can then listen to the towers by themselves to see if the problem persists, if that isn't the issue then I'd be looking at a couple of different options. First, lower your cross-over on your sub down to like 40hz, you may also simply have your sub volume up a bit too much. Last resort if all else fails is to go one at a time voicing each offending note. Hold them down long enough to get them to fully speak as some times it takes a few for things to get going, and then lower the offending notes.

Marc
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engrssc

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostFri Mar 04, 2016 6:21 pm

One other consideration- where physically in the room are the speakers located, esp the sub? Every room has a resonant frequency (as well as harmonics of that basic frequency) and if this frequency or a harmonic of it is amplified by the (electronic) settings used, there is a considerable "blooming" effect. Low frequencies have this effect much more than the shorter wave length higher frequencies even tho generally low frequencies are considered to be "non directional". Suggest moving the speakers. You may find the best sound comes from locations that you may not want them to be placed. The word is compromise then.

Rgds,
Ed.
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NickNelson

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostSat Mar 05, 2016 4:37 am

engrssc wrote:Every room has a resonant frequency (as well as harmonics of that basic frequency) and if this frequency or a harmonic of it is amplified by the (electronic) settings used, there is a considerable "blooming" effect.


Actually, every room has multiple resonant frequencies (and their harmonics). This is what makes clear reproduction, particularly at lower frequencies, difficult in smaller rooms.

As Ed says, the zero-cost approach is to try moving the speakers and subs around to see what improvements can be achieved. Alternatively, but less conveniently, you could move your listening position (ie the console). A next step could be playing with the voicing of individual pipes. A more effective, and expensive, version of this would be to use one of the various room equalisation packages.

The real problem is that these approaches work, in so far as thay can, by compensating for the resonances rather than controlling them. Generally, the result will be some improvement at one particular listening position to the detriment of others.

A separate, though related, issue is that the room resonances will prolong these frequencies, and their harmonics, rather like a frequency specific reverberation. This 'smears' the sound resulting in a loss of clarity which can't be compensated for by changing position or equalisation.

In my view, a better approach is to try and suppress the resonances by damping them out as far as possible. This involves changing the acoustic structure of the room, and is not necessarily very expensive.

Typical strategies would include using acoustically absorbing material on the walls, 'bass traps', in particular the resonant type, and possibly even false walls to remove any parallel surfaces.

Nick
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TomBentley

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostSat Mar 05, 2016 6:09 am

Last evening did some further experimenting. It seems that lowering the sub gain has helped somewhat. Still had to use the voicing controls to lower Octave 1 C thru F. Octave 2 has always been pretty much spot on so it is apparently the very lowest frequencies giving me problems and in particular with the Bourdon stop. Oddly I have found that by actually increasing the audio output level (using Trim db) seems to add some additional clarity and then I back off the VERY excessive output to the speakers at the audio interface so as not to shatter the windows and loosen the drywall. I do note that upon receipt of the EM Skinner that sample set seems to be particularly quiet. It arrives at db trim set for -10db and at that is barely audible. I have been running trim db at 0 and yesterday pushed it way up just to see what happens. At db set for 0 my audio monitor bar doesn't move but I have reasonable audio volume. I also note that at 0 my interface lights minimally light up. When I get into the + 5 - 7 db range audio monitor begins to respond and light on audio interfac (gigaport HD+) begin to react more steadily. Pushing to +15-18 db trim audio monitor level stays below yellow on large registration and audio interface lights up very steady. I have always wondered why the Skinner seems so quiet in comparison, for example, to the St. Anne's which at -10 db trim requires no boost.

By way of speaker location, the sub is in the corner of the room with JBL towers on either side (approximately 12x20, concrete floor with area rug in center, wall construction of hardwood on lower half of all walls, drywall above, one sliding glass door and one window). I have tried the B2031A's in every possible location and configuration over the last year. Console and room dimensions prohibit having speakers in front of me so 2031's are arranged from right to left in a semicircle behind, about 3 feet off floor at about 6 ft. intervals between each speaker on various stands, and all angled toward center of room. I know that's not an optimal arrangement for the 2031's but they seem to blend pretty well. The sub could be moved out of the corner and placed with its back to a wall but that would be about the only movement that could be done.

Edited to add this -- Could my audio interface be part or all of the problem -- the gigaport HD only allows 6 outputs at 48hz which can be overridden to switch to 44.1 8 channels or I can use reaper to do the conversion to take advantage of all 8 outputs. But when going from 48hz to 44.1 is there a loss of quality? I know gigaport was not the best interface but at the time was within budget. I could get my hands on a Behringrer FCA610 if this would make a difference --- what are your thoughts -- would this be an upgrade or make no matter??? Can't afford an RME or an interface in the 400-600 range.

Today I will do some more experimenting with an eye towards the kind advice you all have given and see where I land.

Marc, the only thing I don't understand in your advice, is going from audio interface to amp and towers first, then from amp to sub. There is no crossover/equalization feature on my amp other than a +/- bass and treble so I'm not sure how the signal received by the sub would be helped. It seems that the JBL's would receive everything that way and the bass would really freak them out. Am I missing something there?

Thanks again to all for your generous thoughts and advice.

Tom
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engrssc

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostSat Mar 05, 2016 12:36 pm

Another approach is to face the speakers into the wall vs directly facing out to the listening area.

Bass traps can be constructed rather simply using simple construction of 1" X 2" or 1" X 3" frames with sound absorbing material fastened inside, the entire setup covered with grill cloth. Size wise, something like 2' X 4' seems to work well in many rooms, these frames being "hung" around the room. You probably may need several to do the job of breaking up wall surfaces and in the process breaking up standing waves as well. These "frames" can be decorative features if built properly.

Rgds,
Ed
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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostSat Mar 05, 2016 2:07 pm

I'd suggest starting by checking the sample set's output for all the 8' and especially 16' pedal stops. Use the built in metering on your interface and check for any level increase in the bottom octave or half octave. This is very common it seems. Use the voicing amplitude controls to level this octave. It's also useful to check any ranks that get coupled to the pedal, especially the lower principals as they will have the most impact on overall levels.

Turn down the sub until there is a smooth transition from the speakers to the sub. It's extremely tempting to turn a sub's level way too high.

If the sub is not designed with the equalization or preferably servo management to maintain a strong 16Hz then add EQ sparingly keeping in mind that it is pointless and potentially destructive to add EQ below the frequency where the sub's design forces a reduced response.

Consider using a 16' stop other than the usually tubby sounding bourdon for quieter registrations. A stop with more harmonic development may blend better.

Be thankful if you have carpets, drapes, overstuffed furniture to help with room resonances. Same goes for open floor plans, sloping ceilings, and similar dimensional complications -- they really help. For remaining resonances try throwing a pile of blankets in a corner to observe any effect before spending money on overpriced room treatment products. If the blankets in the corner help then some foam products in the ceiling corners should be money well spent.
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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostSun Mar 06, 2016 7:24 am

SOLVED!!!!!! Thanks to the help and advice of all who have commented made major progress yesterday. I started from zero and revamped my audio output setting just in case I had ticked something somewhere as I am notorious for ticking things to see what they do and forgetting to untick them. Decided to bring Reaper back into play with a locked sample rate of 44.1 so all 8 channels of Gigaport would be available. Routed all pedal stops to the Sub (it is a servo sub btw) and the JBL's and made the pedals mono. Sent everything else to the B2031A's. Following Marc's suggestion disabled all sound except the JBL's and worked with the voicing to get the Bourdon smooth and fairly quiet. Then disabled JBL's turned on the Sub, turned its volume down considerably and worked with 32' Uter and sub only live to do the same. Added the JBL's back on with the Sub on and overall got a smooth transition with a solid yet not overbearing sound. I think in the past I have been trying to working with everything all at once and making the mistake of adjusting voicing sliders out of sync with both the Sub and JBL's active and both the Bourd and Uter On -- mixing up which stop the Bourd or Uter were being offensive. At any rate, i ended up getting what I wanted ... so whatever I did with your advice worked.

The other thing I did was load the set in 20bit resolution. I had not tried that before thinking that I probably didn't have enough memory to do so -- but it loaded and played well. Having read tons of stuff here about the difference between 16bit and 20bit and 24bit, etc. didn't make much difference I hadn't tried it. But perhaps, just perhaps, either the more correct voicing changes I made or something, made the organ in general brighter, more alive, and much more blended. Is it me or is it memorex?

Overall I am thrilled with the results whatever the method and I thank you all for your contributions! I have been working on this with different routing schemes (that part isn't over yet ha ha if it ever is, I plan to re-try Marc's LSPP routing system again now that the pedal probs are resolved), moving speakers, re-wiring, and constantly figuring in my head what could I do to get this right. And with a few pointers from you guys -- we've solved it.

With sincerest thanks to all!

Tom
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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostSun Mar 06, 2016 11:59 am

TomBentley wrote:SOLVED!!!!!! Thanks to the help and advice of all who have commented made major progress yesterday. I started from zero and revamped my audio output setting just in case I had ticked something somewhere as I am notorious for ticking things to see what they do and forgetting to untick them. Decided to bring Reaper back into play with a locked sample rate of 44.1 so all 8 channels of Gigaport would be available. Routed all pedal stops to the Sub (it is a servo sub btw) and the JBL's and made the pedals mono. Sent everything else to the B2031A's. Following Marc's suggestion disabled all sound except the JBL's and worked with the voicing to get the Bourdon smooth and fairly quiet. Then disabled JBL's turned on the Sub, turned its volume down considerably and worked with 32' Uter and sub only live to do the same. Added the JBL's back on with the Sub on and overall got a smooth transition with a solid yet not overbearing sound. I think in the past I have been trying to working with everything all at once and making the mistake of adjusting voicing sliders out of sync with both the Sub and JBL's active and both the Bourd and Uter On -- mixing up which stop the Bourd or Uter were being offensive. At any rate, i ended up getting what I wanted ... so whatever I did with your advice worked.

The other thing I did was load the set in 20bit resolution. I had not tried that before thinking that I probably didn't have enough memory to do so -- but it loaded and played well. Having read tons of stuff here about the difference between 16bit and 20bit and 24bit, etc. didn't make much difference I hadn't tried it. But perhaps, just perhaps, either the more correct voicing changes I made or something, made the organ in general brighter, more alive, and much more blended. Is it me or is it memorex?

Overall I am thrilled with the results whatever the method and I thank you all for your contributions! I have been working on this with different routing schemes (that part isn't over yet ha ha if it ever is, I plan to re-try Marc's LSPP routing system again now that the pedal probs are resolved), moving speakers, re-wiring, and constantly figuring in my head what could I do to get this right. And with a few pointers from you guys -- we've solved it.


Interesting thread to follow Tom, congratulations on getting the sound you are looking for. Can I please clarify whether you are also routing the pedal stops to your main speakers as well? My current configuration routes the pedal stops to both the monitor and sub woofer and I feel that it causes an in-balance of the pedal sound quality, I have considered routing the pedal stops to only the sub woofer to see if I can get better results.
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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostSun Mar 06, 2016 12:07 pm

Thanks for your interest. I am routing all pedal stop to my audio interface in mono -- in audio outputs in HW create a pedal group, then two audio outputs in mono, 1 being for 7/8 left and a second mono being for 7/8 right, with output group "pedal", then in pipe routing send all pedal ranks to the pedal group. Hope this helps. On the Skinner there are some stops tho that are derived from the gamba 16 and i believe the double diapason and i think they still end up on the main monitors but not sure about that -- my thinking gets fuzzy, for instance, the cello pedal stop is actually the choir 16 gamba. I could do some experimenting and let u know where these end up if it would help.

Edited to include the following:

Doing a quick check, on the Skinner the only stops when all pedal stops are routed to the pedal group that appear on the monitors rather than sub are the CH-Cello and CH-Gamba.

Are u also using the Skinner wet set?

Tom
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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostMon Mar 07, 2016 10:35 am

TomBentley wrote:SOLVED!!!!!!
Overall I am thrilled with the results whatever the method and I thank you all for your contributions! I have been working on this with different routing schemes (that part isn't over yet ha ha if it ever is, I plan to re-try Marc's LSPP routing system again now that the pedal probs are resolved), moving speakers, re-wiring, and constantly figuring in my head what could I do to get this right. And with a few pointers from you guys -- we've solved it.

With sincerest thanks to all!

Tom


Hi Tom,

Glad to hear some of my suggestions helped! Be forewarned, once you re-route things again after performing the adjustments you've made you may find yourself making adjustments and re-voicing again. One thing that I've been very surprised by is the effect different routing schemes can have on the sound and in particular the clarity, overall volume / presence of certain stops, etc., in fact some have resulted in night and day differences by doing nothing more than just using a different routing scheme. You also mention running your pedal ranks in mono, I've tried that myself and I don't know that it is of any benefit, I felt in my case it detracted from the overall sound, so I've stuck with stereo across the board including for the pedal ranks. I also see you use Reaper, I've found for wet sets using Reaper it is of no benefit, so I let the set do it's thing on it's own concerning acoustics. It seems the more things you introduce into the audio chain the more likely there can be problems like you have encountered. Just my 2-1/2 cents worth.

What I meant in my earlier connection from the amp to the sub description above is I go directly from the soundcard to the the amp's input (CD, AUX, etc.) then from the amp's L/R speaker outputs to the speakers (in your case the towers), I then run a separate RCA L/R cable from the same amp's aux out / record out, etc., to the L/R input of the sub, again everything in stereo. Perhaps though the way you are doing it (other than not running stereo for the pedal ranks) has the same effect as how I'm connecting things, I'd have to test it in person to know for sure.

Marc
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TomBentley

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Re: Balancing Pedal Rank EM Skinner

PostMon Mar 07, 2016 10:33 pm

Hi Marc. Actually I'm only using Reaper in order to lock the gigaport into 8 channels at 44.1 instead of 6 at 48hz. It automates that part for me and I don't have to think about resetting the gigaport everytime I re-cach an organ or load one, or make a minor adjustment that requires re-caching. I also have found it useful in tracing exactly what channel various stops ard notes are sounding from with its meters letting me know when I have something jumping out at me where its jumping out from, so to speak. I add no effects since the skinner is already wet.

I have gone back and forth between loading pedal ranks in stereo and mono. I seem to get a cleaner signal with a mono load, one for 7/9L and another for 7/8 right with no panning going on with those ranks, at least that what I think it is, its kind of an in/out modulation of tone that results with stereo, at least on my setup.

As always -- enjoy your thoughts and hard work in helping with understanding things, and the amazing amount of testing you do! I am going to next try with the pedals solved, the like sounding pipe pairs routing of yours -- I'm thinking that with the pedals all routed in the existing manner the adjustments will maybe stay in place but just in case will do it with an altHW setup so as not to mess up anything I have accomplished so far. Been there, done that!

Tom

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