Comparison of Willis organs

Sixty-Five stop 1877 Father Willis by Milan vs. the 67 stop 1892 Willis by Lavender audio. I am in the market for a British organ and am torn between the two very similar ( by specification) Willis organs. Although they are of similar specification, has anyone done an A-B comparison ? I would be interested in their comments since there is a three-fold difference in the price to purchase these sample sets.

Antoni

I found this article to be a useful starting point:
http://www.contrebombarde.com/concertha ... d/limit/10

[mdyde]

[Topic moved here.]

No direct A-B comparison, but I had the Hereford and now I have the Salisbury 1&2. I was not entirely satisfied with the Hereford, maybe it is in the recording (which was done at multiple locations in the church), maybe it is in the overall intonation of the organ. I find Salisbury much more convincing. It is very expensive however, as is the case with most MDA sets. Sets from e.g. Sonus Paradisi and OAM have the same quality at least, offer surround options, and are significantly cheaper. But they haven't ventured into Britain yet.

One alternative to consider is the Armley Schulze, the demo's sound very convincing to me.

I do have both 3 volume sets, and they are both useful. Salisbury's reverb is much more prominent than Hereford's. Like sitting in the middle of the cathedral vs being closer to the divisions and getting the reverb in the background. Would really like to be able to buy variable perspective surround versions!

I personally think Salisbury has a better sound and overall ensemble, and find Hereford's diapasons hard-sounding. But I'm sure they accurately present the instrument and I'm just used to foundations that are designed to blend better like French organs. So I tend to play Salisbury more. Hereford does have a more flexible stoplist and is also a fine sample set.

Try the demos before buying anything.

It all comes down to what you want in your virtual organ.

I am now in my seventies and the organ has become a different instrument for me. Gone is the dexterity of youth. (Thus, gone are my Bach and Widor.) I amuse myself with lesser compositions and have become interested in orchestral transcriptions for the organ. (However, many transcriptions of the early 1900's are beyond me, too.)

Thus I became interested in American Skinner organs and ultimately in English organs. (Despite the recent appearance of the Los Angeles samples, I think there is still no good Skinner organ sample available.)

Before my purchase I tried samples from three Willis organs: Lavender, Milan and the Silver Octopus compiled-Willis.

I discarded Silver Octopus from the beginning. The Octopus organs are a compilation of ranks from many different Willis organs. This type of recording necessitates very close-up microphone positions (dry) since you cannot build an organ composed of disparate ranks with varying environmental (wet) acoustics. For me, the Octopus organs sounds harsh and brittle, reminiscent of a 1700 Baroque organ.

My choices ultimately became either Salisbury or Hereford. I chose the Hereford.

The Hereford lacks the variety of 16' pedal stops that the Salisbury offers. In addition, the softest Hereford pedal stop is too loud to accompany the softer Swell stops. The only solution was to reduce the volume of the softest Hereford 16' pedal stop and then readjust the 16' Flute to bridge the gap to the loudest stop, the 16' Diapason

The Hereford Swell 8' string is an incredible accompaniment stop.

The Solo reed stops and the 8' Flute (all with actual tremmed versions and not simulated versions as in the Salisbury) are gorgeous.

The Great Third Diapason is suggestive of Skinner. (I am partial to Skinner soft Diapasons as solo voices.)

Finally, I prefer the closer-to-the-front acoustics of the Hereford. The Salisbury acoustics are too wet for me; I do not sit near the back of a cathedral when I attend an organ recital. A further detractor in the Salisbury acoustics is a certain muddiness -- a very subjective term which I cannot explain well to you.

The Solo reed stops and the 8' Flute (all with actual tremmed versions and not simulated versions as in the Salisbury) are gorgeous.

I don't believe this is true. I understand the Salisbury Solo and Swell stops use original sampled trems. To my ears they also sound gorgeous.

From the horse's mouth...

"The OST® (Original Sampled Tremulants) method of recording was applied allowing users to play real sampled tremulant ranks for the entire Solo division as well as all reeds and the Vox Angelica."

Salisbury trems are sampled. The tuning of some of the trems is a bit problematic, though. I am not sure if an update was ever issued.

See here for more an excellent exposition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGKvu-fi4_U

I must declare an interest: I have the Salisbury set but not Hereford and, not being an organist, I prefer the more remote sound because that is what I am most used to. YMMV as we say on the Internet.

Regards,

Thanks for all the responses, but I seem to be no further ahead than from when I started. For sure it is hard to A-B compare the Salisbury to the Hereford when you only have one of the sample sets. I seem to think (from the responses) that the Salisbury sounds better. Remote ( or lets say, more remote) microphone placement seems to capture the grandeur of the organ, better than closer microphone placement but at the expense of losing the individual subtle sounds of the pipe.
Older organs where the console is placed almost within the casework, and with maybe a small section of pipes located behind the organ console allows the sound to pass right over the organists head. The organ sounds less grand than if a listener were downstairs sitting in the middle of the church. Same organ - different sound. Then you factor in different acoustics and voicing,etc. Same organ builder, almost the same specification - different sound. Then you take both organs with similar specifications and possibly different pipe scaling and voicing techniques, factor in microphone placement, and certain recording techniques - different sound again.

Antoni

I second the notion to try the Armley-Schulze, especially the surround sound version. The 11 rank demo is truly amazing! If you have a multi-channel setup and place the speakers accordingly you can turn your listening area into the acoustics of a cathedral.

The set comes with proprietary faders where you can tweak which location you want to hear more (Chancel, Nave, or Reflection). So if you feeling more like an organist (close to the pipes) or a parishioner or somewhere in between, you can dial it in .

Danny B.

Ignore the sample sets for a minute.

If you were to ask an English organist which is the best of the Willis cathedral organs, you'll likely get one of three answers; Salisbury, Truro or Lincoln.

Sample-wise, both are fine pieces of work but with different approaches to sampling. I don't own Salisbury but have played it a few times (more than I've played the real instrument), and have used Hereford as my daily sample set since it was in beta; I genuinely love playing it.

Both are very good representations of their instruments in their respective acoustics.

I personally feel that the Salisbury set has a bit more punch and presence, and Hereford is a bit more ethereal/distant. Salisbury was recorded, I believe, from between the choir stalls (in between the two organ cases) so sounds like it would if you were listening in the Choir, whereas Hereford is more like sitting at the console.

For me, it would be hard to pick between them. If they were both the same price, I'd buy Salisbury, because I think the proper organ is a less compromised instrument than Hereford, e.g. the swell isn't buried beneath the great, the solo stops all speak properly into the building, etc. And you have 8'+4' Tubas However, the Hereford set is 1/3 the price of Salisbury for a mighty fine instrument.

I have both the Salisbury and the Hereford. I find myself gravitating to the Salisbury more often than not. It's the one I have loaded at the moment. In fact I was just practicing on it. But I enjoy both.
Price, of course, can of necessity be the deciding factor.

I have both the Salisbury and the Hereford. I find myself gravitating to the Salisbury more often than not. It's the one I have loaded at the moment. In fact I was just practicing on it. But I enjoy both.
Price, of course, can of necessity be the deciding factor.

Agreed; I'm pretty certain that if I ever got financial clearances in triplicate to buy Salisbury, I'd only play that. In the same way that I own a few other samplesets, but only ever play Hereford.

I second the notion to try the Armley-Schulze, especially the surround sound version. The 11 rank demo is truly amazing! If you have a multi-channel setup and place the speakers accordingly you can turn your listening area into the acoustics of a cathedral.

The set comes with proprietary faders where you can tweak which location you want to hear more (Chancel, Nave, or Reflection). So if you feeling more like an organist (close to the pipes) or a parishioner or somewhere in between, you can dial it in .

Danny B.

I have the 32 extended, and the Hereford. They are completely different beasts. The Armley absolutely rocks! Set up a 3-way sound system, to get the most out of it. (Send Console in front of you, Nave to right and surround to left) You won't be disappointed. So far, (the complete/extended is not out, yet), it's the first sample set I have bought that I can find no fault with.
Hereford, on the other hand, can sound quite muted in the top end, and not quite correct coming from one stereo pair. I find sending the choir to right and solo to left in the above triple stereo arrangement fixes a lot of the image problems, but I wish the de-noising was re-done to give more clarity in the extreme trebble. (I'm being fussy here......, but, David, if you're reading.. )
The pedal stops need a wee bit of voicing, (turn bourdon down, open wood up!, nothing too drastic) but the XL version gives the choir bourdon, enclosed, which makes a suitable bass for the vox angellica (+ if you have a PROPER sub, works wonderfully on top of the open32 to add harmonics). The Gt bourdon can also be used to good effect to under-pin most of the quieter swell stops, with the solo doing solo duties.
What is worth considering is that both of these combined can be had for less than salisbury. Armley really gives the impression of playing at the console, if that is how you like things. Hereford can be made to. Salisbury has a far greater clarity than Hereford, but is more distant and will never give the impression of sitting at the console (unless you count a future mobile one).