Hello All,
Here are my findings about the Anloo sample set from Prospectum
:
Well, I can hardly tear myself away from playing this fine little organ!!!!
As with many of us, the money supply is pretty low these days. I thought, however, the price of the set was so reasonable that I couldn’t resist giving it a try. I’m so glad I did.
This organ, through multiple speakers, comes closer than any other so far in giving me the feeling that I am playing a real pipe organ here in my organ room. The samples are VERY clean and clear, and yet still retain that wonderful pipe noise, the chiff and air sounds that one wants for an up-close organ. Years ago I was allowed to play on a couple very small tracker practice organs at a university. These were two-manuals and pedal instruments with one flute rank per division. As you might expect, the sound was simply charming. This Anloo sample set gives me an identical sound. . . and then some, since the organ is much larger than those practice organs were.
The organ is the perfect size for my speaker set-up. I can route the entire organ to the six 12-speaker groups (plus pedal) and only have three ranks per group. That means, for the most part, that when playing three or four note chords, all pipes go to different speakers. This is where the multiple speaker arrangement really performs best! So, I can highly recommend this organ for those of us HW folks that use many speakers and want an up-close sound.
My first impressions were not quite so great, however. I loaded the organ into the groups with no reverb tail cuts. The sound was too hollow and unreal. The one or so second natural reverb was just too much. So then I reloaded with the reverb tails cut to #2, or about .15 seconds. That brought the pipes right into the room with me. Also, as always with multiple speakers, there needed to be a certain amount of editing. The Principal 8’ sounded less than appealing at first. But after editing and balancing the amplitudes of the pipes, the difference was amazing! How beautiful it is. It’s the same for all the other flue ranks. The flutes are wonderful, for example. I’m not quite as pleased with the reeds, though I think they come through the way they should for this 1700’s organ. (I am spoiled by the bright and brassy, yet smooth, French romantic reeds, I guess.)
Once the editing was done, the organ just sounds terrific.
Here are some other things that may interest HW users.
I’ve noticed some comments lately about the idea of multiple speakers in mono vs. speakers in stereo pairs. So, I set up my second Mac Pro to have six stereo channels plus pedal. I loaded the Anloo organ into it (14 speakers in seven stereo channels as opposed to the 80+ speakers in six-seven mono groups). There is a difference. I noticed right away that the low end of the keyboard 8’ ranks just didn’t have the fullness in the stereo set-up. Playing fifths for example in the bottom two octaves is a very full and clean sound with multiple speakers each taking separate pipes. But with the stereo arrangement, just the two speakers of a group had to reproduce all the notes. . . it just was not as full a sound. (I did try to edit using HW to get both computer organs to sound as identical as possible.)
I suppose it’s not a surprise that 80+ speakers will sound fuller than 14. Mostly I think because the sound is spread out so much more with the many speakers and each speaker is required to put out less sound.
But then, there’s this: With the stereo organ I could clearly hear that old bug-a-boo distortion with the thirds playing. I set the same registration up on two different manuals so I could compare the two set-ups. And, yes, in this case, the ‘C’ and ‘E’ in the octave below middle ‘C’ definitely had noticeable beats at about 5-8 per second with the stereo output (either 8’ principal or flute). The multiple-speaker output was completely beat free. As I played the two keyboards, I quickly came to realize that the many speaker output was much clearer and real sounding. The beating thirds were there in quite a few other places on the stereo-out keyboard. I think that until one can actually hear the difference, one doesn’t realize how nasty those beats can be, and how much more real the sound is without that.
Another observation: I found that the sound was much better when I set the temperament to original tuning. The organ sort of became more alive, it seems. One of the problems that some sample sets have is that when one cuts the reverb tails to get an up-close sound they sort of begin to sound like a pretty big accordion. Not the Anloo organ. It sounds like the real thing even with virtually no reverb added since all those pipe/air sounds are right in there.
Another indication that this organ set matches my output groups well, is that when building up to the full organ, things still sound clean and clear. I don’t think I’ve ever had a sample set where all the ranks blend together as well as this. The sound just gets bigger and louder as more ranks are added. . . I think that means that I am not saturating the speakers with too much signal output.
What a pleasure it is to play this organ! I guess I’m inspired enough to set up my recording mikes again and see if I can capture this sound. I think my only further desire would be to have a third manual. (Perhaps this organ set is a perfect one to use with the CODM to enlarge it a bit.) For now, I have the smaller manual on my SWELL and the main manual on the POSITIV and then use the Rodgers console couplers to get either, or both, manuals to the GREAT. Given the beautiful sound, this is plenty good enough!
Some might worry that the organ doesn’t sound like the original Anloo instrument. I think that when we run through multiple speakers, we do tend to sacrifice that, but we can use headphones if we want the original sound.
Leo Chris.
Here are my findings about the Anloo sample set from Prospectum
:
Well, I can hardly tear myself away from playing this fine little organ!!!!
As with many of us, the money supply is pretty low these days. I thought, however, the price of the set was so reasonable that I couldn’t resist giving it a try. I’m so glad I did.
This organ, through multiple speakers, comes closer than any other so far in giving me the feeling that I am playing a real pipe organ here in my organ room. The samples are VERY clean and clear, and yet still retain that wonderful pipe noise, the chiff and air sounds that one wants for an up-close organ. Years ago I was allowed to play on a couple very small tracker practice organs at a university. These were two-manuals and pedal instruments with one flute rank per division. As you might expect, the sound was simply charming. This Anloo sample set gives me an identical sound. . . and then some, since the organ is much larger than those practice organs were.
The organ is the perfect size for my speaker set-up. I can route the entire organ to the six 12-speaker groups (plus pedal) and only have three ranks per group. That means, for the most part, that when playing three or four note chords, all pipes go to different speakers. This is where the multiple speaker arrangement really performs best! So, I can highly recommend this organ for those of us HW folks that use many speakers and want an up-close sound.
My first impressions were not quite so great, however. I loaded the organ into the groups with no reverb tail cuts. The sound was too hollow and unreal. The one or so second natural reverb was just too much. So then I reloaded with the reverb tails cut to #2, or about .15 seconds. That brought the pipes right into the room with me. Also, as always with multiple speakers, there needed to be a certain amount of editing. The Principal 8’ sounded less than appealing at first. But after editing and balancing the amplitudes of the pipes, the difference was amazing! How beautiful it is. It’s the same for all the other flue ranks. The flutes are wonderful, for example. I’m not quite as pleased with the reeds, though I think they come through the way they should for this 1700’s organ. (I am spoiled by the bright and brassy, yet smooth, French romantic reeds, I guess.)
Once the editing was done, the organ just sounds terrific.
Here are some other things that may interest HW users.
I’ve noticed some comments lately about the idea of multiple speakers in mono vs. speakers in stereo pairs. So, I set up my second Mac Pro to have six stereo channels plus pedal. I loaded the Anloo organ into it (14 speakers in seven stereo channels as opposed to the 80+ speakers in six-seven mono groups). There is a difference. I noticed right away that the low end of the keyboard 8’ ranks just didn’t have the fullness in the stereo set-up. Playing fifths for example in the bottom two octaves is a very full and clean sound with multiple speakers each taking separate pipes. But with the stereo arrangement, just the two speakers of a group had to reproduce all the notes. . . it just was not as full a sound. (I did try to edit using HW to get both computer organs to sound as identical as possible.)
I suppose it’s not a surprise that 80+ speakers will sound fuller than 14. Mostly I think because the sound is spread out so much more with the many speakers and each speaker is required to put out less sound.
But then, there’s this: With the stereo organ I could clearly hear that old bug-a-boo distortion with the thirds playing. I set the same registration up on two different manuals so I could compare the two set-ups. And, yes, in this case, the ‘C’ and ‘E’ in the octave below middle ‘C’ definitely had noticeable beats at about 5-8 per second with the stereo output (either 8’ principal or flute). The multiple-speaker output was completely beat free. As I played the two keyboards, I quickly came to realize that the many speaker output was much clearer and real sounding. The beating thirds were there in quite a few other places on the stereo-out keyboard. I think that until one can actually hear the difference, one doesn’t realize how nasty those beats can be, and how much more real the sound is without that.
Another observation: I found that the sound was much better when I set the temperament to original tuning. The organ sort of became more alive, it seems. One of the problems that some sample sets have is that when one cuts the reverb tails to get an up-close sound they sort of begin to sound like a pretty big accordion. Not the Anloo organ. It sounds like the real thing even with virtually no reverb added since all those pipe/air sounds are right in there.
Another indication that this organ set matches my output groups well, is that when building up to the full organ, things still sound clean and clear. I don’t think I’ve ever had a sample set where all the ranks blend together as well as this. The sound just gets bigger and louder as more ranks are added. . . I think that means that I am not saturating the speakers with too much signal output.
What a pleasure it is to play this organ! I guess I’m inspired enough to set up my recording mikes again and see if I can capture this sound. I think my only further desire would be to have a third manual. (Perhaps this organ set is a perfect one to use with the CODM to enlarge it a bit.) For now, I have the smaller manual on my SWELL and the main manual on the POSITIV and then use the Rodgers console couplers to get either, or both, manuals to the GREAT. Given the beautiful sound, this is plenty good enough!
Some might worry that the organ doesn’t sound like the original Anloo instrument. I think that when we run through multiple speakers, we do tend to sacrifice that, but we can use headphones if we want the original sound.
Leo Chris.