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Live Simultaneous WET & DRY audio of Mormon Tabernacle Organ

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castaway

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Live Simultaneous WET & DRY audio of Mormon Tabernacle Organ

PostTue Jan 19, 2016 6:12 pm

Live simultaneous wet & dry audio of Mormon Tabernacle Organ: The case for wet samples

This video demonstrates the importance of a building's acoustics on the character of an organ's sound. It gives you the chance to compare pipe chamber vs. auditorium, side by side (A vs. B).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBABbVOymQY

Listen specifically to the microphone in the closed pipe chamber and note the shrillness of the sound. As the swell shutters open, compare the sound in the chamber to the sound coming in from the auditorium where it has been "processed" by the acoustical environment of the Tabernacle. There is no shrillness in the sound entering the pipe chamber.

Finally, compare sound recorded with the microphone in the chamber and the microphone in the auditorium.

An auditorium or sanctuary has a function greater than that of providing reverberation. In this example, the Tabernacle's unusual shape -- elongate hemispherical ceiling and free-standing balconies (unattached to the walls) -- are what help to give the organ its distinctive sound.

This video is a good example of the difference between sounds recorded with and without building acoustics.

In my opinion, if you are going to use dry sounds and gussy them up to imitate those of a wet environment, you have lost the character of the original organ. You could just as well use any sample set, even a synthetic set. Just convince yourself that the manufactured reverberation has changed the organ sample set into whatever organ you desire to imitate.
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joeroberts

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Re: Live Simultaneous WET & DRY audio of Mormon Tabernacle O

PostTue Jan 19, 2016 7:32 pm

Yes....the Tabernacle is quite an unique structure...ahead of it's time (when built 1864-1867) with a seating capacity of about 6,000....I had the pleasure of being a quest at one of the conferences years ago....If I ever get back there (being an amateur organist)...I shall attempt to shimmy up to the console and worm my way onto the organ bench....lol ...fat chance, huh?
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Gerryo

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Re: Live Simultaneous WET & DRY audio of Mormon Tabernacle O

PostTue Jan 19, 2016 11:15 pm

It is my experience that sound is a subjective matter. What sounds good to one person will be less than satisfactory to another. One of the nice things about Hauptwerk is that we can judge for our self what we like, and make our instruments pleasing to us.

This recording reminds me of a concert I attended twenty years ago or so. Interestingly enough, it was also on an Aeolian Skinner organ (Which we still don't have any sample sets of....hint hint) I am an organ tuner by trade, and during the fiery build up to the fugue in Ad Nos, low f# of the 32' pedal reed began to stick. The organist continued to play, and being young, I crawled up into the Swell division in front of everyone and silenced the pipe. People could see me climbing the ladder, so I decided to ride it out in the chamber till the end of the piece! That was the loudest Ad Nos I have EVER heard in my life!!!!

The sounds were very much like the dry sections of the recording. Because I live in organ chambers, I am very comfortable with dry samples, and indeed they are much more authentic to my ears. (what is left of them lol)

I understand that the pure pipe sound is probably too severe for many people, and the resonance of a live room is easier to play in. It covers a multitude of sins both in the player and the organ, and it softens attacks and releases of the sound. As far as a software or hardware reverb, there are inexpensive as well as more sophisticated examples. You tend to get what you pay for.

I recently purchased a new sample set from a high quality vendor. This set required an insane amount of RAM and computing power. I played the portions of the organ that I could squeeze onto my computer, and was impressed by the modeling of the room. I then cut the tails way down, and loaded the entire organ, added a convolution, and was able to play the entire instrument. (in this case, listening to the sounds without the reverb tails showed the samples to be very high quality)

I sometimes wonder about the wisdom of spending more computing power on reverb, and room modeling than we do on the basic samples themselves. If you think about it, when you superimpose a sound with room modeling into another acoustical environment, you are already changing the way the organ acts in a room. When I invite my friends over to see my set up, I want to show them an organ, not show them how well I can do reverb!

I am not really trying to change any minds with this diatribe. I am simply presenting a different view. What I would really like is to have more vendors present their products in a wet, and dry format. That way we could have more choice and purchase what sounds good to us.
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steve till

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Re: Live Simultaneous WET & DRY audio of Mormon Tabernacle O

PostThu Jan 21, 2016 9:51 am

Gerryo wrote:It is my experience that sound is a subjective matter. What sounds good to one person will be less than satisfactory to another. One of the nice things about Hauptwerk is that we can judge for our self what we like, and make our instruments pleasing to us...

Yes this is quite true. I have also worked on pipe organs, some in people's homes. In an ordinary living room, even 4 ranks can be overwhelming. And softening the pipes takes away their character. But it does show that when we load a 40 rank Hauptwerk organ of any sort, we are not listening to anything like a real pipe organ in that room, we are attempting to recreate the sound of a recording of an organ in another room.
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engrssc

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Re: Live Simultaneous WET & DRY audio of Mormon Tabernacle O

PostThu Jan 21, 2016 10:19 pm

steve till wrote:But it does show that when we load a 40 rank Hauptwerk organ of any sort, we are not listening to anything like a real pipe organ in that room, we are attempting to recreate the sound of a recording of an organ in another room.


Which in itself is quite an accomplishment as compared to some other commercial organs, not to mention listening to something like a CD. I tend to "view" this as the difference between the old analogue video compared to the highest available High Def video (4k or better) available today. The word is detail. Then there's always the weakest link to deal with which in most cases are the speakers and right after that the amplifiers, and then the room and then . . . . :roll: .

Rgds,
Ed

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