Hello all,
I've been looking pretty heavily the past month or so at a number of sets, and although I was pretty certain a week back that my next purchase was likely going to be the recently released SP Skinner, I've also been investigating a few other sets and at this point I'd say that the Armley Schulze is probably the one that has caught and held my attention the most. I downloaded and installed the demo a few weeks ago and have taken the time each day to use it, listen carefully to it, and evaluate it as much as possible using the various stops and settings given the limited size of the demo. I've also listened to many of the audio examples of the set on CCH and the Lavender Audio site. I really like the sound and acoustic of this set, it's quite clear, not muddy or mushy at all, can be very grand if you like and very intimate as well, and is wet enough to be very satisfying and give a good rendition of the surroundings the instrument is in.
Now for the observations and resulting questions: First off, I don't know if this is inherent to English organs or what the deal is, but I notice when the higher pitched ranks are introduced into the mix I get a fairly strong grating sound on certain notes in the background, almost a sound like one of those high pitched smoke or fire alarms going off. The culprits are the Octave 4 and Rausch Quinte 2. Isolating these two stops gives the impression that they are either quite out of tune or perhaps it's the temperament, which ever it is I can't quite figure it out. This morning I used the voicing controls on the Octave 4 and tuned it just using the master control up a few cents and this for the most part solved the issue, but there is still some beating / undulation between notes, just not as bad. The Rausch Quinte 2 displays the same issue. Was or are certain ranks of the instrument that out of tune when it was recorded, or is this just the way things are supposed to be? It seems to me that a person would have to take considerable time to go note by note and tune the ranks to alleviate this issue. Funny thing is, when I listen to all the various recordings on CCH and on the Lavender Audio website, I don't detect what I'm hearing at home, so it makes me wonder if either the set was thoroughly tuned first, or if it's just perhaps these stops are not being used much in the recordings?
The second thing I notice is: There's 3 signals you can adjust, Chancel, Nave and Surround. The set actually sounds the best to me with all 3 signals set at their full levels of 127 on the master controls. Using either Nave or Chancel by themselves along with the surround signal does not sound as full and my thinking would have been that Chancel and Surround would produce the most full sound, Nave and Surround a more distant sound, but it is quite the opposite and all 3 signals need to be there for what I feel is the best sound. This leads to somewhat of a concern for me which is I'm currently stuck at 32 GB of memory and it's looking like that's going to be the most I'm going to be able to come up with in the near future. The set in its full form loading all signals requires considerably more memory. To get around this issue in the past on other sets I have, I've loaded some of the signals @ 16 bit and the rest @ 20 bit with good results, however David highly advises in his information not do do this. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm wondering if I were to load some of the signals (maybe Surround and Nave?) @ 16 bit if I'm going to ruin the sound?
Anyways, just a few things on my mind with this set. Anyone who has the set or knows more, I'd certainly appreciate some input before I plunk down hard earned cash.
Thanks,
Marc
I've been looking pretty heavily the past month or so at a number of sets, and although I was pretty certain a week back that my next purchase was likely going to be the recently released SP Skinner, I've also been investigating a few other sets and at this point I'd say that the Armley Schulze is probably the one that has caught and held my attention the most. I downloaded and installed the demo a few weeks ago and have taken the time each day to use it, listen carefully to it, and evaluate it as much as possible using the various stops and settings given the limited size of the demo. I've also listened to many of the audio examples of the set on CCH and the Lavender Audio site. I really like the sound and acoustic of this set, it's quite clear, not muddy or mushy at all, can be very grand if you like and very intimate as well, and is wet enough to be very satisfying and give a good rendition of the surroundings the instrument is in.
Now for the observations and resulting questions: First off, I don't know if this is inherent to English organs or what the deal is, but I notice when the higher pitched ranks are introduced into the mix I get a fairly strong grating sound on certain notes in the background, almost a sound like one of those high pitched smoke or fire alarms going off. The culprits are the Octave 4 and Rausch Quinte 2. Isolating these two stops gives the impression that they are either quite out of tune or perhaps it's the temperament, which ever it is I can't quite figure it out. This morning I used the voicing controls on the Octave 4 and tuned it just using the master control up a few cents and this for the most part solved the issue, but there is still some beating / undulation between notes, just not as bad. The Rausch Quinte 2 displays the same issue. Was or are certain ranks of the instrument that out of tune when it was recorded, or is this just the way things are supposed to be? It seems to me that a person would have to take considerable time to go note by note and tune the ranks to alleviate this issue. Funny thing is, when I listen to all the various recordings on CCH and on the Lavender Audio website, I don't detect what I'm hearing at home, so it makes me wonder if either the set was thoroughly tuned first, or if it's just perhaps these stops are not being used much in the recordings?
The second thing I notice is: There's 3 signals you can adjust, Chancel, Nave and Surround. The set actually sounds the best to me with all 3 signals set at their full levels of 127 on the master controls. Using either Nave or Chancel by themselves along with the surround signal does not sound as full and my thinking would have been that Chancel and Surround would produce the most full sound, Nave and Surround a more distant sound, but it is quite the opposite and all 3 signals need to be there for what I feel is the best sound. This leads to somewhat of a concern for me which is I'm currently stuck at 32 GB of memory and it's looking like that's going to be the most I'm going to be able to come up with in the near future. The set in its full form loading all signals requires considerably more memory. To get around this issue in the past on other sets I have, I've loaded some of the signals @ 16 bit and the rest @ 20 bit with good results, however David highly advises in his information not do do this. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm wondering if I were to load some of the signals (maybe Surround and Nave?) @ 16 bit if I'm going to ruin the sound?
Anyways, just a few things on my mind with this set. Anyone who has the set or knows more, I'd certainly appreciate some input before I plunk down hard earned cash.
Thanks,
Marc