Ed: I’ve commented on your post at the end this missive.
mnailor:
My 3 sample sets are:
(1) Neil Jensen’s 3/35 theatre organ. This has the advantage of unusually even voicing, so that I can play a solo on, say, the Orchestral Oboe, without adjacent notes having a different tonality. Being an older sample set, this relies on software tremulants. These don’t sound as realistic as ranks sampled with trems, but have the advantage that the speed and depth of the wobble can be adjusted using Hauptwerk’s controls. The Orchestral Oboe is a good example – by reducing the speed and depth of the tremulant it becomes a useful solo voice.
(2) Paramount 341. Being more recent this has sampled trems, which sound more realistic; however it seems that it’s not possible technically to synchronise the wobble – it starts when the note starts, so within a chord the tremulant will often be at a different part of it’s phase for each note. For home use this is not necessarily a disadvantage. Some of the reeds in this set are only useable in chords, or combined with other stops as “colour reeds”; it would not be possible to play a melody on such stops, as the sound varies too much from note to note. Most theatre organists use at least four stops on a melody line; then any unevenness in the voicing doesn’t notice.
This is a problem for me, as I’m strongly influenced by such theatre organists as George Wright in America, and particularly Reginald Porter-Brown in the UK (1910-82), whom I knew; we often discussed registration and related matters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwOc07U7vhAThese organists used stops more individually, which to my ears gives more clarity and colour. I have a recording of Reg playing Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour” at the famous Granada Tooting Wurlitzer (4/14). I’m 99 percent certain that in the first statement of the theme he’s using only the 8ft Harmonic Tuba – and that’s all it needs.
Some of Wurlitzer’s reed voicing was superb, provided one understands how it fits into the overall tonal scheme. Reg often used an English Horn rank on it’s own – this can be heard in several places on the above youtube video (though that organ is by Compton).
I’ve often found theatre organs lacking in brightness. Two I’ve heard live are the Blackpool Tower Wurlitzer, and nearer home the 4/22 dual-purpose Compton in Bournemouth Pavilion. This lack of brightness is also noticeable on Hope-Jones’ church organs, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_nlkoKIt48Hauptwerk sample sets capture the sound faithfully; it’s more notiecable on the Paramount series, which are recorded further from the pipes than Neil Jensen’s set, which he told me was recorded very close – if I understood him correctly, just a few inches from the pipes. This preserves as much as possible of whatever brightness was there in the first place.
However most church organs do have the brightness I’m looking for, and the 1966 Schantz is a perfect complement to the two theatre organs. Being an American Classic design it tends towards brightness anyway. The Swell and Great both have complete reed choruses – 16-8-4, both brightly voiced, and both with Mixtures available if required. The Swell reed chorus sounds terrific on my system; it helps that I have two electrostatic speakers (Quad ESL57s), with an exceptionally clear top end. They supply the reverb, and also carry a mixdown of the dry signal, which helps to maintain brightness. There’s also a superb Chamade Trumpet, which absolutely sparkles. As you will realise, I love Schantz’s reed voicing! The 1966 Schantz is no longer available from Evensong, though they still offer a slightly smaller Schantz at a very reasonable price.
I’ve only produced one recording of the complete system – using all three sample sets. It’s on my Google Drive, and I’d be happy to send you a link as a pm. I don’t want to post it on the public section of this forum, as a couple of notes are wrong – I need to re-edit the MIDI file; and I incorporated a steam train whistle I found in a youtube video – I would need to ask the original poster’s permission before making this recording generally available. As it happens most of the sounds come from the Schantz, though there are also a few sections played on the Jensen and Paramount organs. Just as I was looking forward to making further recordings my desktop PC failed (wouldn’t boot out of BIOS into Windows) – eventually it had to go back to the makers, who discovered that the Windows operating system was corrupted. It had to be replaced, so I’m now reinstalling all my software; then one of the 828s died – “it never rains but it pours”!
There’s a photograph of an earlier version of my set-up here:
http://www.eocs.org.uk/picture-gallery.htmlIt’s the sixth picture – the only organ on that page with four manuals, so quite easy to identify. I dispensed with the two Behringer analogue mixers when I discovered how to bring everything into the PC digitally, and do the mixing in Reaper.
I think I now understand the concept of going direct from USB to ADAT. Here’s an example:
Laptop 2 hosts the Paramount 341. It’s connected via USB to a Cymatic LP16, which produces 16 analogue outputs. These feed the analogue inputs of two Behringer ADAT units, whose outputs are connected to the ADAT inputs of an 828. If I’ve understood correctly, there’s a simpler method. Connect the laptop via USB to a DigifaceUSB; and connect two of the Digiface’s ADAT outs to the ADAT ins on an 828. Is that correct?
So far as I can see the DigifaceUSB is not compatible with any of RME’s rackmount adaptors:
https://www.rme-audio.de/rackmounts.htmlThat would be a minor nuisance, as I have no practical skills whatever, so making up something in wood or metal is not an option. However I might be able to use a 19 inch rack tray, and tie one or two DigifaceUSBs onto it with twist ties or similar.
I’ve just tried to get inside a dead 828; three cross-head screws in the top panel unscrewed alright, but I can see that the rack ears will also have to come off before that top panel can be removed. The rack ears are secured with a strange sort of bolt that has a “circular” depression in the centre; it’s possible that this is hexagonal or octagonal and might fit an Allen key. Or should it be unscrewed by gripping the knurled outer part?
Ed: Does it make a difference that I’m in England? I believe MOTU equipment is made in America? In any case I don’t see how they could help with a unit that’s totally dead, and as you can see above I can’t at present get inside the case to see whether a fuse has blown.
UK servicing is handled by Musictrack, and when I sent them a dead 828 a while ago they simply replaced it with a new unit. That suggests to me that there was a fault so serious that it rendered the unit uneconomic to repair.