Tue Aug 03, 2021 11:57 am
I haven't had much success adding reverb to close-recorded samplesets, which includes almost all of the Aeolian-Skinner and E.M. Skinner organs because that's how CLR/Evensong worked up until recently when they started doing surround perspectives. Nobody else seems to be in the business in the US now.
I get a fair but not great result truncating reverb on Mt. Carmel wet and adding a 4 sec convolution, and Oakland and Rosales work as I mentioned above.
I think the problem with adding reverb to a close-recorded sampleset is that moving the mics around to get close to the pipes on a large organ throws away timing/distance and direction cues that you hear from a fixed mic position that "hears" the whole organ. Expanding on that with convolution reverb adds a dimension but doesn't make up for the loss of two dimensions in the close recording. To me, close samples of a large organ with reverb sounds like a Rodgers or Allen digital organ with different pipes -- sort of a cheap imitation.
There are some exceptions, like the Georgian from Silver Octopus that works well. But the in-style registrations there are no more than a dozen stops, and close + reverb doesn't sound as wrong for a small instrument where you aren't expecting a large physical layout.