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Caveat Posteri

A discussion forum for anything even marginally Hauptwerk-related.
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organtechnology

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Caveat Posteri

PostTue Sep 04, 2018 10:22 pm

Beware of the blog http://church-organs.com. It is an Allen Organ hosted blog (stated at the bottom of the page) and if you post there about Hauptwerk you will be set upon by trolls. Sadly I did not read the part about the Allen hosting until after I posted. AARRGH!

Thomas
Complete Hauptwerk™ systems using real wood consoles, PC Sound Engines, Dante Audio for Home or Church. info (at) organtechnology.com http://www.organtechnology.com
Authorized Hauptwerk; Milan Digital Audio and Lavender Audio reseller.
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magnaton

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostWed Sep 05, 2018 3:02 am

LOL! I took the time to read almost all the posts on this site. This is obviously an Allen Organ fan page. At first glance it appears to be an 'objective' site about church organs for anyone to post that is as long as you drink the Allen kool aid. Otherwise you get banned with:
While your comments are posted in full, in the future unsupported claims will not be posted. I wouldn't be surprised if the "organ-editor" for this site and the consistent poster, yes-man, Dewy James are the same person. When reading some of the posts and followup comments, I felt like I was reading a skit for Saturday Night Live as they were overly saccharine and ignorant.

No one outside of Allen Organ or their philosophy is safe on this site as Thomas found out as did a Viscount Organ rep. Each new post is about how inferior every other technology, design, or market approach is. A common (disapproving) theme is how so many other organ companies are really assemblers as they rely on other component manufactures or vendors to complete their organs. Shame on them for this business model! The site then makes a few-pah of listing several vendors used by a well respected organ firm and 2 of these vendors; OSI and Klann have been in business decades longer than Allen. Another firm is ridiculed for using a 3rd party vendor, Lexicon, for acoustical enhancement but on their information tab "Choosing an Organ in the 21st Century" they state:
The best digital organs use a process called convolution (sampled acoustics) that goes beyond old-fashioned digital reverb to produce the convincing acoustical ambiance of a cathedral or any reverberant environment of your choice. Even if your church has carpet and padded pews, your digital organ should sound like it’s playing in wonderful acoustics.
So if Walker and Phoenix use the Lexicon product (which is convolution reverb) and Hauptwerk incorporates "sampled acoustics" within the samples or separate group of samples (surround sound variant), then doesn't that qualify them (us) as the "best digital organs"? :)

I have it on good authority that Allen is infuriated when a Hauptwerk incorporated VPO gets put into church service. After all we have no business competing in their market especially now that Rodgers (once accredited as being their only true competition) can be lumped in with the other 'inferior' European brands.

Danny B.
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engrssc

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostWed Sep 05, 2018 8:36 am

Long live Hauptwerk and all the loyal Hauptwerk folks who do really Great things. :D

Rgds,
Ed
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Grant_Youngman

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostWed Sep 05, 2018 8:37 am

Although the owner information for this domain is "private", the listed name servers give it away as a site most likely owned (and operated?) by the specific vendor that dominates. So it's no wonder ….
Grant
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engrssc

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostWed Sep 05, 2018 9:00 am

Could it be that "they" have concerns over such as H/W? Usually marketers don't "knock" competitors unless they feel threatened. :o I follow Facebook Organist Association where a few years ago, Hauptwerk was knocked as being very inferior to real pipes. Presently the "mood" has changed to admit H/W does indeed make for a pretty good practice instrument. This by die hard pipe (only) people. I think that's coming around and is reasonable (on their part). 8)

Rgds,
Ed
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cham-ed

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostWed Sep 05, 2018 8:10 pm

I've owned a number of smaller Allens over the years. And have been part of churches with Allens. These have been enjoyed. I currently have a midified old Rodgers running HW. And I'm VERY unlikely to go back.
Anyway to my story, some years ago I followed one of these Allen groups. I left after an nasty exchange. I related we used my small Allen to cover for my church's pipe organ during extensive rework. Some one was wondering if an Allen could do the same for their organ. I said it would allow them to get by but a reduced quality. You might have thought I said their mothers were hookers. It was implied that an Allen was always superior to another instrument. Rather than argue, I left. Allens are good organs but I was comparing it against our 1925 Skinner. It has been well maintained and not "Updated" in voicing. It is very similar to the St Mary, Mt Carmel instrument. And I will defend it's sound against any Allen built to date. But I would never ridicule anyone who's opinion differs. de gustibus non est disputandum
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David Baldwin

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostThu Sep 06, 2018 4:12 am

I have no time for any company whatever their business whose marketing strategy is to rubbish all competitors.
(Dr.) David G. Baldwin
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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostThu Sep 06, 2018 4:27 am

I find it hard to believe that Allen Organ, a company whose products I have often played in the past and with IMHO a deservedly good reputation for innovation and quality, would have any truck with this defamatory nonsense.

The site is risibly selective and appears to have only two regular contributors, both strongly opinionated but neither apparently very knowledgable about Allen products.

For example, the site features a close-up of the keyboards in the Johannus Studio series http://www.church-organs.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Keyboards.jpg apparently to illustrate their shamefully inferior quality.

Leaving aside that the Studio series is priced from just 5,295 (what would the comparably-priced Allen organ be?), to my eye these Johannus keyboards actually look very similar to the Allen "Standard" keyboard. They should do - they probably come from the same Italian factory. I believe Allen have used a version of the Fatar TP keyboard as their standard keyboard for years. (Allen, like every other vendor, do also offer the option of "Premium" wooden keyboards at a price, and of course it is these premium lines that tend to get featured on the Allen site!).

I know times are hard and perhaps Allen are struggling but this sort of thing smacks of desparation and reflects very badly on them.
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engrssc

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostFri Sep 07, 2018 9:36 am

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telemanr

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostFri Sep 07, 2018 3:31 pm

I especially like the “fastforward sermon”. Oh what I wouldn’t give...
Rob Enns
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TheOrganDoc

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostFri Sep 07, 2018 3:34 pm

(AMEN, Ed, ! ! ! )

> I am considering Upgrading to the P-3/41 < from the P-3/32 ? ? :roll:
I was told by the "P" Sampler two years ago, That they were working on a far superior "Para-" sample set that requires far less "Noise reduction in in processing ",
I don't know what happened to that set of samples, ? ? ?

I was captured by the sounds of "Theater Pipe Organs, when I was contracted to install, and maintain a few Wurli's, many years ago. I am still trying to approach the sounds that are locked in my head that I heard from those installations years ago as well as those I have recently heard, Mel :roll: :roll: ! "

engrssc wrote:Long live Hauptwerk and all the loyal Hauptwerk folks who do really Great things. :D

Rgds,
Ed
Mel..............TheOrganDoc...............
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TheOrganDoc

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostFri Sep 07, 2018 3:48 pm

! Sounds like Politics, doesn't it ? ? ? (" I am the "Best" ), maybe they should Post on Twitter ? ? ? ?

David Baldwin wrote: I have no time for any company whatever their business whose marketing strategy is to rubbish all competitors.
I agree with you, " David" ! ! !
Mel..............TheOrganDoc...............
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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostMon Sep 10, 2018 3:40 pm

I can't really be surprised. Whatever one's opinion of Allen organs themselves, as a company they have always been bullies, even to the point of suing GEM (the original company behind Galanti before it became Galanti-Ahlborn) over claiming that because their instruments used pipe samples they had a superior sound to digital synthesis technology. The brochures in question did not even name Allen directly. Regardless, Allen said such a statement was tantamount to lying about Allen, whose organs at the time were all overgrown synthesizers. Allen actually had the audacity to claim that there was no substantive difference between sampling and synthesis.

Allen also claimed that GEM/GOBI was making false claims about their sampling technology because some of their marketing material talked about sampling every rank "note-by-note," resulting in sound reproduction similar to what you get on a CD recording of a real organ. IMO, this was a fair claim, even though what GEM did was create modified waveforms from the field-recorded samples by analyzing the entire spectrum of the rank, and normalizing the resulting sample set. There's more to it than that, because they also isolated the chiff and breath of the samples, and layered them during playback, so that one could choose romantic, baroque, or American intonation by flipping a switch. To try to explain the technical details of such a process in marketing material is somewhat foolish. You don't want to make the eyes of your potential customers glaze over. I read their detailed descriptions at the time, and Galanti did explain the process in more depth, so it's not like they were attempting to deceive the public as Allen claimed. In any case, Galanti modified their marketing to eliminate the "note-by-note" wording.

Regardless, Allen lost the suite. They failed to demonstrate that they were harmed in any way by Galanti's marketing.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/di ... 2/1556153/

My church was purchasing a new organ in the time-frame of this lawsuit. I experienced the best that Allen, Rogers, and Galanti had at the time. Johannus was also getting into the game by selling re-branded Galantis with a different set of stops. In any case, there was no contest. Sampled instruments won hands down. Allen and Rogers were years away from releasing instruments with comparable sound quality. I haven't paid any attention to Allen since then, but I know Rogers went all samples some years later.

We bought a Galanti Praeludium II in the end. I was always amazed looking inside the thing. There was almost nothing there. The entire sound engine was a ~ 10" cube of several circuit boards on a bus, fed to an amp and a reverb unit. Lots of empty space in there. In comparison a Rogers or Allen instrument was packed to the gills, as one would expect in a hyper-polyphonic synthesizer.
Last edited by mwdiers on Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:29 am, edited 5 times in total.
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engrssc

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Re: Caveat Posteri

PostMon Sep 10, 2018 9:52 pm

Rodgers has been on a quite a rocky road. Be interesting to see how they do under the "wings" of Johannus being that there was the fairly complete shift/crew change. Only the Rodgers name survived. :roll of which, it has been said, the name is all that Johannus wanted in the purchase deal. :o

Rgds,
Ed

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