Hi all,
Thought I'd share the results of what you'd think would be a fairly insignificant re-arrangement of how I have my subs set up, but how this change resulted in a fairly noticeable improvement in the overall sound.
First, just a quick breakdown of my set-up: I have a total of 10 channels, 6- R/L in front of me, 2- R/L off to each side of me, and 2- R/L to the rear of me used for surround sets which is mostly what I have. As I've written in the past here, what channels I send ranks to is based mostly on what family the pipes belong to, so I try to pair them up with each other to the same channels with some variables based on the pipe length and experimentation as to what channel the given rank(s) sounds best. For channels 1/2 (large tower speakers) I generally send the flue pipes 4', 8' and lower including the 4', 8' and lower from the pedal including any bombarde, to channels 3/4 (smaller tower speakers) I send most any length of reeds only with the exception of a bombarde rank which again goes to 1/2 for added oomph. 5/6 (bookshelf size speakers) usually gets 2' or higher including mixtures. Channels 7/8 (bookshelf size speakers) off to the sides of me is a mix of all including the surround signal (to add more space to the side speakers), and of course the rear 9/10 (bookshelf size speakers) receives the surround portion of the signal only.
I have 2 subs, one a smaller 10" and the other with a 15" driver which for the past year or so I've chained together with both receiving the same 'mix of all' signal from 7/8 which seemed given my arrangement to make the most sense. I've been a proponent of sending the subs a mix of all and it has worked well, but I decided to try a different arrangement with the subs just to see what would happen. Well, apparently the subs working independently of each other seems to work better, at least in my case. What I did was connect the larger 15" sub independently to 1/2 and the smaller 10" sub to 3/4. So, in this case anything 2' and above is not sent to the subs, and neither sub is any longer receiving a mix of all signal.
Results? Overall the separation of the subs and dividing them up for duty on 1/2 and 3/4 cleaned up the sound, removed some perceived muddiness and added clarity. The bass response is much smoother, more realistic, and overall much more adjustable where I can go from crazy too much bass to realistic levels of bass and there is NO boom to the bass now either unless I again go crazy with either the crossovers or the volume knobs. It also gave a bit of additional but nice oomph to the 8' reeds. Goes to show you even after you think it's as good as it can sound a minor change can make a pretty big difference. I think I'll stick with this arrangement.
Marc
Thought I'd share the results of what you'd think would be a fairly insignificant re-arrangement of how I have my subs set up, but how this change resulted in a fairly noticeable improvement in the overall sound.
First, just a quick breakdown of my set-up: I have a total of 10 channels, 6- R/L in front of me, 2- R/L off to each side of me, and 2- R/L to the rear of me used for surround sets which is mostly what I have. As I've written in the past here, what channels I send ranks to is based mostly on what family the pipes belong to, so I try to pair them up with each other to the same channels with some variables based on the pipe length and experimentation as to what channel the given rank(s) sounds best. For channels 1/2 (large tower speakers) I generally send the flue pipes 4', 8' and lower including the 4', 8' and lower from the pedal including any bombarde, to channels 3/4 (smaller tower speakers) I send most any length of reeds only with the exception of a bombarde rank which again goes to 1/2 for added oomph. 5/6 (bookshelf size speakers) usually gets 2' or higher including mixtures. Channels 7/8 (bookshelf size speakers) off to the sides of me is a mix of all including the surround signal (to add more space to the side speakers), and of course the rear 9/10 (bookshelf size speakers) receives the surround portion of the signal only.
I have 2 subs, one a smaller 10" and the other with a 15" driver which for the past year or so I've chained together with both receiving the same 'mix of all' signal from 7/8 which seemed given my arrangement to make the most sense. I've been a proponent of sending the subs a mix of all and it has worked well, but I decided to try a different arrangement with the subs just to see what would happen. Well, apparently the subs working independently of each other seems to work better, at least in my case. What I did was connect the larger 15" sub independently to 1/2 and the smaller 10" sub to 3/4. So, in this case anything 2' and above is not sent to the subs, and neither sub is any longer receiving a mix of all signal.
Results? Overall the separation of the subs and dividing them up for duty on 1/2 and 3/4 cleaned up the sound, removed some perceived muddiness and added clarity. The bass response is much smoother, more realistic, and overall much more adjustable where I can go from crazy too much bass to realistic levels of bass and there is NO boom to the bass now either unless I again go crazy with either the crossovers or the volume knobs. It also gave a bit of additional but nice oomph to the 8' reeds. Goes to show you even after you think it's as good as it can sound a minor change can make a pretty big difference. I think I'll stick with this arrangement.
Marc