It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 8:17 am


Sound

Speakers, amplifiers, headphones, multi-channel audio, reverb units, mixers, wiring, ...
  • Author
  • Message
Offline

panjere1

Member

  • Posts: 7
  • Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 3:28 pm

Sound

PostWed Jan 05, 2022 12:37 am

I have been away for awhile. First time user was version 3. I just bought an Allen Organ MDS Theater III Deluxe Plus. I am going to modify it to replicate the Masterworks 331 Theater Organ. So I need to add more stops to the stop rail which means disassembling it and taking it to a wood shop to lengthen the bolsters to accommodate more stops, about 100 more.

To my questions:

I have 4 Mackie HR824 studio monitor speakers, a Focusrite Scarlett 616, four in and four out audio interface and a KRK Rokit 10 sub woofer. I will not be using more speakers or channels, or should I?

I will use channel 1-2 for beefier ranks and those two channels will run thru the subwoofer inputs first to pick up all of the base of the lower register pipes 'assigned to those two channels', and from the subwoofer to two of my monitors.

The other 2 channels will run straight from the Focusrite to the remaining two monitors and I will channel strings, woodwinds and traps thru those speakers assuming they dont need a lot of bass support from a subwoofer.

If anyone out there is an expert on this, I have some questions.

1: Do I need to buy another subwoofer and run all 4 channels thru the two subwoofers? Each subwoofer only has 2 ins and outs. Someone suggested I use splitters to run all 4 channels thru one subwoofer but then I minimize my ability to separate channels down from 4 channels to 2.

If I set up my way, which ranks should I run thru the subwoofer and which thru the other monitors?

For example, If I run clarinet away from the subwoofer, do I lose a lot of bass on the lower register pipes when I assign bass clarinet to my pedalboard?

Get my point? Some ranks are sort of in a gray area as to whether or not they need subwoofer support for the lower registers of ranks. Anyone have opinions on which ranks need subwoofer support and which do not?

Final question, I saw on You Tube one organist had 4 speakers for general sounds but had two more for 'acoustics' as he called them. I am guessing he meant to create a spatial component to his sound room and spread the reverb out. Is there a special component or channel on Hauptwerk to dedicate acoustics for those speakers way in the back of a room? I am guessing we dont want direct sound from the pipes out of those rear speakers, just reverb. In that case I would need 6 speakers and an audio interface with 6 outputs.

Yes?

Sure could use help with these questions.

Panjere
Offline
User avatar

mdyde

Moderator

  • Posts: 15446
  • Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2003 1:19 pm
  • Location: UK

Re: Sound

PostWed Jan 05, 2022 5:41 am

Hello Panjere,

[Topic moved here.]

Others are probably better placed than I am to make recommendations on routing ranks, subwoofers, speaker cabling, etc. There are various topics on subwoofers, e.g. most recently this one: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=20155

However, I'd make the following brief points:

panjere1 wrote:1: Do I need to buy another subwoofer and run all 4 channels thru the two subwoofers? Each subwoofer only has 2 ins and outs. Someone suggested I use splitters to run all 4 channels thru one subwoofer but then I minimize my ability to separate channels down from 4 channels to 2.


You could potentially use the subwoofer master mix bus on Hauptwerk v5+'s mixer to feed a mix of all ranks to your subwoofer. However, you would then need to dedicate an extra output channel on your audio interface for it.

panjere1 wrote:Final question, I saw on You Tube one organist had 4 speakers for general sounds but had two more for 'acoustics' as he called them. I am guessing he meant to create a spatial component to his sound room and spread the reverb out. Is there a special component or channel on Hauptwerk to dedicate acoustics for those speakers way in the back of a room? I am guessing we dont want direct sound from the pipes out of those rear speakers, just reverb. In that case I would need 6 speakers and an audio interface with 6 outputs.


Likewise you could also potentially use the 'aux reverb mix' master mix bus on Hauptwerk v5+'s mixer to feed a mix of all ranks to another speaker pair, with an impulse response reverb selected on the mixer for that master mix bus. (Doing so would of course need an extra pair of speakers and audio interface output channels.)
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
Offline

Romanos

Member

  • Posts: 600
  • Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:11 pm
  • Location: Indiana

Re: Sound

PostFri Jan 07, 2022 11:54 am

You can use as few as two speakers, no sub, or as many as 512, if you really want. It just depends on how elaborate you want to get.

I would echo the suggestion to just send a mix down of the entire organ to your subwoofer.

The way I set my system up was to parse out the whole organ between my 6 monitors, and then I also created a master mix-down channel for when I want to play with headphones. So, I can either turn my speakers on, or not, and I can still hear the entire organ either way since there is a master mix down going to the headphone port. When I still had a sub, I used a Y splitter to feed that stereo signal to the subwoofer as well; that way nothing gets left out; anything below the low pass filter for the sub gets reproduced by it.
Offline
User avatar

magnaton

Member

  • Posts: 682
  • Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:28 pm
  • Location: Austin, TX

Re: Sound

PostFri Jan 07, 2022 2:35 pm

panjere1 wrote:Final question, I saw on You Tube one organist had 4 speakers for general sounds but had two more for 'acoustics' as he called them. I am guessing he meant to create a spatial component to his sound room and spread the reverb out. Is there a special component or channel on Hauptwerk to dedicate acoustics for those speakers way in the back of a room? I am guessing we dont want direct sound from the pipes out of those rear speakers, just reverb. In that case I would need 6 speakers and an audio interface with 6 outputs.

Many Classical organ sets have a duplicate set of ranks that were recorded 'out-in-the-room' so you have a combination of hearing the organ from the console, which is close to the pipes, or as a patron/congregate farther as sitting in the room. A few sample set publishers have expanded this offering into 3 or 4 perspectives (i.e Close, Near, Far, Rear).

Theatre organs are a different animal. The organist and movie goers were all far away from the chambers. Theatre acoustics where a mix of hard and soft surfaces that wasn't completely dry thanks to the large auditorium and high ceiling. Most HW Theatre sample sets are very dry so you can add the type and amount of reverb you think is correct (large Fox theatre with over 5,000 seats or smaller neighborhood venue).
panjere1 wrote: I am guessing we don't want direct sound from the pipes out of those rear speakers, just reverb. In that case

From experience, I wouldn't bother trying to transpose a theatre organ set into a church or cathedral acoustic in this manner. Again what the organist hears at the theatre organ console is very close to what the audience hears. Of course it was more direct for folks in the balcony and more of mix for those on the first floor. So my suggestion is to simply add a little HW convolution reverb to 'moisten' them up to a point that makes sense.

The Paramount Organ Work website use to include a PDF with a recommended multichannel design. To summarize it was 4 stereo channels, (8 speakers) 4 left of the console and 4 right with a subwoofer as a mix down, as others have stated on this thread. The 4 stereo channels were all in the same HW group using the default algorithm. This worked *very* well since a theatre organ is highly unified and you benefit from having HW divvy up the ranks and notes across all the speakers. It's basically more bang-for-the-buck than a manual division of certain ranks go here and others go there. I've experimented with this both ways plus other variations and this design wins. Of course all speakers (active monitors) need to be identical. With the Paramount sets, the ranks for the Main chamber or balanced more to the left (60/40 or 70/30) and ranks for the Solo more to the right to keep with the traditional design. The exception is for tuned percussions and unison/celeste ranks have a harder L/R split.

This PDF was removed since the step by step instructions were for HW4. Hopefully you can understand the summary I stated.

Danny B.

Return to Amplification

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest