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Recording Choir Organs

Sampling pipe organs and turning them into something you can play in Hauptwerk.
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NicholasA

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Recording Choir Organs

PostTue Jan 23, 2007 3:29 pm

It's likely that the next organ I'll record will have a choir organ division. Because these divisions are typically on the side of the organ with their sound projecting at 90 degrees to the sound of the rest of the organ, should I move the microphones?

I'm just a bit confused, my logic tells me that I should leave the microphones in the same location for the entire recording. But I also figure that if I do this, the choir organ will sound extremely quiet and dull due to the microphones only really picking up reflections of the sound. Or is that what I should be aiming to achieve anyway because thats what the audience would be hearing?

If it was for a Hauptwerk 2 organ, I suppose the answer would be to move the microphones and then route that division to another set of speakers and that way you would get the best of both worlds. But what if you then wanted to hear the sound of the choir division from the front of the organ? Or what if I wanted to make a Hauptwerk 1 organ where you could only hear it from the front of the organ?
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pwhodges

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Re: Recording Choir Organs

PostTue Jan 23, 2007 6:58 pm

NicholasA wrote:It's likely that the next organ I'll record will have a choir organ division. Because these divisions are typically on the side of the organ with their sound projecting at 90 degrees to the sound of the rest of the organ,

What a strange assertion!

There have been odd positions for the choir, though. From 1880 to 1910 or so, the positive-style choir case at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, was hung on the back of the organ, facing backwards at the west door! What's more, it was Father Willis that did this (and his son HW-II who brought it back to the front).

I would say that if you are recording with full ambience, that you should attempt to find one microphone position that reflects the real-life effect of the whole instrument. If you are recording close, for a dry set, then there should be no issue - you find the best place for each division, or even pipe.

Paul
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NicholasA

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PostTue Jan 23, 2007 9:28 pm

It is a bit strange I know. But most of the organs I have seen that have a choir division have it situated on the side of the organ.

For example, the church might have a raised stage at the front with the organ situated against the far right wall of the building on this stage. The choir division might have its pipes sitting on the side of the organ facing across the stage while the rest of the organ will be pointing into the church.

I don't intend on making dry recordings... I like capturing the ambience and I only intend on listening to the playback under very dry conditions (i.e. a small room or with headphones).

I just keep remembering how microphones don't "hear" the same way that we do (and I discovered this very quickly when I did my first recordings). The difference in the recording levels from having the mic 1 meter away from the facade and 2 meters away is huge whereas it doesn't actually sound that much louder if you stand 1 or 2 meters back. I thought that doing my standard recordings with the microphones at the front of the organ would make the choir division sound incredibly distant. Or is that a good thing?
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bcollins

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PostWed Jan 24, 2007 2:47 am

My understanding is (and please correct me if I am wrong) :

The Choir division has many of the same types of pipe ranks as a positiv division - except that the 'Choir" division is usually under expression.

It is used to accompany the church choir for anthems, special music, etc.

It is undesirable to have the pipes speaking right into the back of the choir - just as a symphony choir does not stand in front of or below the orchestra.

Hence, the choir division is often found flanking the choir.

If it were me, I would record the choir division in such a way as to get all the "presence" one can. Then leave it up to the "organ builder" to position the speaker arrays assigned to the choir division accordingly.

Of course, I speak from the standpoint of one who would only install an HW organ for live use in a church.

Just my 2 cents worth....
Bob Collins
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PostMon Jul 02, 2007 4:18 am

I usually sample organs by judging the best location where the organ is heard but my organ's choir division is located at the left side so I shift the microphones to the choir and adjust the sound to the left about 85%. The program I used to record is called Audacity.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Jerry
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NicholasA

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PostMon Jul 02, 2007 5:02 am

I wouldn't move the microphones at all while recording... It will change the properties of the sound being recorded.

I tend to put the microphones in the location I woud place them if I were recording a live performance and then don't move them. I figure this would make a recording made with the samples sound more like a recording made live on site. If the choir division sounds very quiet in comparison to the rest of the organ in the recordings, so be it. This is, of course, presuming that only a stereo recording is being made.

Next time I come across an organ with a choir division projecting sideways, I'll post a picture here. Usually it's quite amazing how the trackers are arranged to turn a corner.

I use Audacity to record as well, but have found a few bugs in it which are incredibly annoying and so I'm looking for something else to record with. When recording at 192kHz (which you have to do something funky to actually get it to work in the first place), Audacity will record for 5 and a bit hours before it will simply stop recording (without announcing anything) and the project gets closed. The first time it happened I nearly had a heart attack as I thought all of my audio would be lost, thankfully you can save and then re-open the recording.

I was also doing some live recording and someone knocked my audio interfaces power cable out, when that happened Audacity did stop recording but would not let me save what it had recorded, which quite frankly, is unacceptable. Thankfully it happened during a piece that I did not need to record and I was able to get everything going again before the piece I needed to record started. As soon as it was over, I stopped recording and saved the file.
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jerryorgan

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Errors

PostMon Jul 02, 2007 6:51 am

Well Audacity works with and extension named Lame.dll, an encoder to export as MP3. Do you have that?
Jerry
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NicholasA

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PostMon Jul 02, 2007 7:02 am

Even if I did have a LAME MP3 extension for Audacity, there is no way I would be using it for mastering or any sort of professional quality recordings. This applies even more for sampling where the sort of quality degredation in MP3 is a no-no.

The bug is internal to Audacity and is not associated with an extension.
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Sorry

PostTue Jul 03, 2007 1:13 am

I'm sorry, I actually misunderstood the positioning of the organ you mean the choir organ is here?
Image
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NicholasA

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PostTue Jul 03, 2007 3:01 am

I haven't been talking about the Summer Hill organ. This was a question about another organ. The pipes that you have circled from the Summer Hill organ are dummy-pipes that do not speak. On that particular organ, the choir division is situated directly behind the great.
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gingercat

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PostMon Feb 11, 2008 11:22 am

So taking the organ in the photo as an example, and assuming all pipes project left -> right as viewed, is it better to record from down the nave, or from directly in-front of the organ?

If recording from the nave, should you aim the mics centrally towards the organ, thus avoiding a left bias? If recording directly in-front, do you not then risk the left/right being unbalanced as the right will get earlier reflections than the left?

If I can get permission, I'm considering sampling the organ I learned to play on but would be a complete beginner to the art of sampling. The organ is listed here: http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=D01796
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NicholasA

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PostMon Feb 11, 2008 2:46 pm

gingercat wrote:So taking the organ in the photo as an example, and assuming all pipes project left -> right as viewed, is it better to record from down the nave, or from directly in-front of the organ?

If recording from the nave, should you aim the mics centrally towards the organ, thus avoiding a left bias? If recording directly in-front, do you not then risk the left/right being unbalanced as the right will get earlier reflections than the left?

If I can get permission, I'm considering sampling the organ I learned to play on but would be a complete beginner to the art of sampling. The organ is listed here: http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=D01796


Record wherever you get the best sound out of your microphones. Before you sample the organ, set up your mics to record and move them around and play a tune each time you move them. Listen to the recordings and pick the position which gives you the best results (which from experience, will usually be the position facing the pipework straight on).

You definately want a good left-right balance though.

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