Hello! I am an organist

[Josq]

Hello, first of all: thanks to so many of you for this fascinating forum. I discovered ASR recently and I am learning a lot here. Can't stop reading!

I live in The Netherlands. Currently working as a data specialist, but having some background in micro/nano- and biotechnology.
I am also an (amateur) organist and I frequently play during church services in our small congregation.

At home, I have a digital organ (partly DIY), using Hauptwerk software, which can simulate real pipe organs (www.hauptwerk.com). Basically, every pipe of a real pipe organ is being sampled, usually including the full reverb tail, although "dry" recordings are sometimes also been made. This results in (very) large sample sets - large church organs have thousands of pipes! Those sample sets are loaded into the RAM of a computer - I have 64GB now, and for some sample sets I need all of it. Using MIDI keyboards, all samples can be played back instantaneously.

I have this software now over 7 years, whereas the Hauptwerk software is already 18 years old now - and fortunately it is still being developed. Over time, many organs in many locations (large cathedrals, village churches, concert venues) have been sampled and I own/have owned quite a few of these sample sets. There are also active online communities, I participate in the pcorgel.nl forum (Dutch) and the official Hauptwerk forum.

Initially, I was very impressed and fascinated by the realism of Hauptwerk and by the opportunity to play so many famous organs at home. Over time, thanks to other pcorgel forum members, I realized that the experience could get even better by paying attention to the fidelity of audio reproduction. I am using room correction for years now, I have ARC 2.5, but I now prefer REW, using Reaper as a DAW. Still, I am studying what I can do to continue to improve and what I can recommend to other organists.

I still have many questions, and I plan to ask them on this forum the coming time. For now, I'll leave with my most general question: what kind of audio equipment would you recommend to me and my fellow organists? My situation is quite common among organists using Hauptwerk. A few considerations:
*The organ console is situated in my living room (a not so large L-shaped room), with small kids around
*The console is placed against a wall and off course I am sitting on the organ bench while playing, facing the wall. So near-field for the front speakers.
*Consequently, I have a very well defined sweet spot for optimization: the organ bench
*The Hauptwerk software is powerful enough to manipulate each sample individually (especially when combined with Reaper) : EQ, adding IR reverb, stereo panning, mixing, sending them to separate speakers... Often, each pipe is recorded at different positions in the church simultaneously, so we can use closely recorded samples for front speakers, distant samples for rear speakers, etc.
*The goal is however to recreate the original sound of the organ, including the original acoustics. I like to hear the organ as if I'm standing at the optimal listening position in the church, which may be a large cathedral with up to 10s of reverb, or a very dry sounding village chapel...
*Budget for audio equipment somewhere around EUR 2000 in the coming 2-3 years, and willing to continue to invest. Second hand equipment no problem.

Looking forwards to your replies, many thanks in advance!

 

[Zek]

I think it would be better to ask a question on some forum where there are musicians.

 

[Josq]

I think it would be better to ask a question on some forum where there are musicians.

Thank you for your reply, but I'm here not for the musicians perspective but for the audio science perspective.

 

[RayDunzl]

Pipe organs can be very powerful instruments.

They also have the ability to play very low frequencies.

Reproducing the accurate timbre of the selected ranks would indicate a requirement for low harmonic distortion at (assumedly) realistic playback levels.

Those are some considerations I would pose for further study.

Welcome aboard.

---

What are you using to play back the signal now?

 

[pozz]

Hi @Josq a multichannel system with subs would serve you well.

 

[restorer-john]

Oh boy, this would be an actual fun build. Basically a near-field image but with all the acoustics of the venue, along with a system that can go to 16Hz at realistic SPLs.

No pissing around with silly little 2 ways. I can see some big 15" JBLs, horns and some big amps, along with a bunch of DSP channels and sound field speakers.

EU$2K aint gonna cut it.

 

[Doodski]

Welcome to ASR @Josq I'm with @restorer-john on the parameters of the audio system. You'll need big bore speakers that will last.

 

[RayDunzl]

"The pipe organ, described by Mozart as the “King of Instruments,” is indeed a formidable instrument, capable of expressing an incredible range of tone color and having a dynamic range in excess of any other musical instrument".


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https://www.inspiredacoustics.com/en/inspirations/blog/acoustics-pab-organ/view

"The 92-stop, 5-manual concert hall organ is located at the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in the Palace of Arts Budapest complex (abbreviated as the PAB organ). Built jointly in 2006 by the Pécsi Organ Building Manufacture as the main contractor and the Werkstätte für Orgelbau Mühleisen as the subcontractor, uniquely at the same time the concert hall was being built, the pipe organ is one of the largest of its kind in the region.

The instrument has dedicated HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems for keeping the temperature and humidity inside the pipe organ steady. The 442 Hz-based equally tuned instrument has 5498 flue and 1214 individual reed pipes, 4 engines with 8 blowers, 22 slider and 22 auxiliary wind chests and a wind pressure between 85 and 130 water mm. It weighs approximately 38,000 kg."

"An overall view of the sound level of all stops reveal that the theoretical peak-to-peak dynamic range of the PAB organ is about 81.7 dB, however, in normal use, it is expected to be around 73.4 dB assuming the loudest section is a two-handed double-pedal C major chord in Tutti, at the recording position."

Hmm...

If we assume a baseline of, say, 30dB SPL for a nearly silent in the big room mid-frequency note, the 82db range takes you to 112dB.

 

[Alexanderc]

My church had an electronic organ with a huge subwoofer. Probably 18 or 22 inch driver in a vented cabinet about 2 feet by 2 feet by 6 feet long and way over 100 lbs. Two of us strong lads had difficulty carrying it. This in addition to two large three-way speakers and a half dozen smaller 3-ways. And it’s not a huge space, maybe 200 person capacity. Church got struck by lightning and fried all the amps so it was all replaced. Don’t know what the amp specs were.

 

[MRC01]

... what kind of audio equipment would you recommend to me and my fellow organists?
...
*Budget for audio equipment somewhere around EUR 2000 in the coming 2-3 years, and willing to continue to invest. Second hand equipment no problem.

For organ music you want good bass response: linear response, extended depth, and low distortion. If you can use headphones, I recommend a pair of good planar magnetics. The good ones have flat response down to subsonic frequencies with significantly less bass distortion than conventional dynamic headphones. And they can reproduce that low bass at realistically high SPLs. Also, planars are a purely resistive load which is relatively easy to drive, giving you flexibility on what kind of amp to use.

...I like to hear the organ as if I'm standing at the optimal listening position in the church, which may be a large cathedral with up to 10s of reverb, or a very dry sounding village chapel...

For this, with speakers, your room is likely to be the limiting factor. The spaces you like are much bigger then your listening room. You can get a subwoofer to reproduce that bass, but if the room is attenuating the lows and causing peaks & troughs in the response then it won't sound good. My suggestion is to measure the room (using a calibrated mic and Room EQ Wizard) and use room treatments or EQ as needed to fix the biggest peaks & dips.

 

[RayDunzl]

I can do a reasonable imitation of an organ here.

Organ Showpieces from St. Paul's Cathedral

It's a dense sound.

Hmm...

Preamp is at 141/151... That's high. Normal is more like 45/151. So this source likely isn't very high level on average.

Yup.

Loud but not painfully so at the peaks. 107.7dB peak noted. 80.9 dBLeq unweighted for the 3 minutes.

EQ subtracts 6db (at least).

Low note says 17Hz.

About 50dB dynamic range unweighted (ambient and microphone noise is the limit there), maybe 75 or so at mid frequencies in the room.

In-room RTA track 2 (I think)

track 2 spectrum from disk

The disc shows about 55dB range:

I'll need to run the room correction again, there's been some changes since I last flattened things out.

 

[q3cpma]

Subs are mandatory, you didn't pick the easiest nor the most economical hobby.

 

[pjug]

*The console is placed against a wall and off course I am sitting on the organ bench while playing, facing the wall. So near-field for the front speakers.
!

Maybe consider turning it around to face into the room with speakers at some distance, if your goal is creating a sense of being in the audience? I have no idea what your rig looks like, so don't know if this suggestion makes sense.

 

[RayDunzl]

Or, just get a new house...

 

[North_Sky]

Big horn speakers with mammoth horn subwoofers?

 

[Josq]

Hello all, another 12 replies overnight plus a very nice private message... this is a REAL forum! Thank you all so much.

At this moment I have active M-audio speakers: DSM3 for the front, BX8a for the rear. Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 sound card.
I am quite satisfied with the DSM3's. I use them in a classic listening triangle, 80cm from my ears, a few centimers above ear height - a real organ is typically above ear height too. They might be a bit bright (but that can be EQ'd) and I suspect an off-axis dip at the crossover frequency (2kHz).

Less satisfied with the BX8a's, muddier sound. Partly because they are situated a bit further away (about 2.5 m) and on a shelf close to the ceiling, so more reflected sound.

The BX8a are right behind me now, for a better sense of envelopment I would like to place them a little behind me on the sides but I need to reconfigure my living room to do that. Can be done if my wife approves.

I'm hunting now for speakers that can replace the BX8a's or that can be used as extra channels. Got second-hand Genelec 8020c's very recently, first impression is that these much smaller speakers perform on par with the EQ'd DSM3's. A pair of second hand JBL LSR305 is on the way.

I have no sub yet. Definitely on my wish list!

 

[solderdude]

Hello, first of all: thanks to so many of you for this fascinating forum. I discovered ASR recently and I am learning a lot here. Can't stop reading!

I live in The Netherlands. Currently working as a data specialist, but having some background in micro/nano- and biotechnology.
I am also an (amateur) organist and I frequently play during church services in our small congregation.

At home, I have a digital organ (partly DIY), using Hauptwerk software, which can simulate real pipe organs (www.hauptwerk.com).

I worked (in my younger years) for the late Jaap Keizerwaard. He lived in the same village as me and had a radio/TV and organ shop and serviced it.
It's where I learned a lot when I was a young lad repairing everything that came in the shop. Also did some small work on the Keizerwaard organ, better known as 'Magic Organ' made famous by Cor Steijn.
Some of the recordings were made by Jaap on his own mixing console (really good console) and know how the organ was built-up.
Very impressive.

Too bad he is no longer around. His last year was tough and while he forgot about everything around him (didn't even recognize me) he played piano and organ as 'normal'.

 

[Hipper]

If all the qualities of an organ AND it's location are controllable in your organ software, meaning they will be reproduced by your speakers, then surely what you need is to hear only what the speakers put out undamaged by anything else, namely your room and its contents.

The biggest issue you will have is controlling the bass frequencies, both to prevent sound damage and to go as low as organs go. And doing that in a relatively small room and one that has other uses - your living room - will be difficult. I would have thought that, as lots of bass traps will be unacceptable, all you can do is control bass by careful use and placement of speakers and multiple subs (indeed separate speakers for the bass, and for the mid and high frequencies would be useful) plus some sort of DSP/EQ arrangement. I don't know too much about Reaper but it seems to be more about recording then playback. Home listeners use software such as Dirac, Acourate or others, or hardware such as DEQX, MiniDSP, Antimode, or in my case a Behringer DEQ2496.

If you haven't already I suggest you learn what you can about the behaviour of bass frequencies in a small (home) room. Armed with that you can see how to try and manage them. Going nearfield will mostly deal with the higher frequencies as this method is designed to prevent reflections that can mess them up.

If you really can play as low and loud as a church organ in your living room, what on earth do your family and neighbours make of all this? If they think badly, controlling the bass will lower the bass energy in your room and therefore reduce what might escape!

 

[gene_stl]

Since this is only partially about reproduction I would recommend 1) Multiple subwoofers (multiple subs are what audiophiles and Home Theater people are considering to be "state of the art " nowadays 2) Since you already have active speakers and have active ones on the way, let them all play. It will lower distortion and give you more headroom perhaps at the expense of some focus but I would try it.
The JBL LSR 305 are biamped which is good.

You will also want to use caution on the volume control since the waveform may be more powerful than on a recording.

 

[Josq]

I worked (in my younger years) for the late Jaap Keizerwaard. He lived in the same village as me and had a radio/TV and organ shop and serviced it.
It's where I learned a lot when I was a young lad repairing everything that came in the shop. Also did some small work on the Keizerwaard organ, better known as 'Magic Organ' made famous by Cor Steijn.
Some of the recordings were made by Jaap on his own mixing console (really good console) and know how the organ was built-up.
Very impressive.

Too bad he is no longer around. His last year was tough and while he forgot about everything around him (didn't even recognize me) he played piano and organ as 'normal'.

Hi, a fellow Dutchman... from Berkel? I lived in Rotterdam and The Hague when I was a student, now I'm living in the east of the country (Enschede)


Didn't know so much about the 'Magic organ' (too young?), I read a bit about it, its a fascinating story. You probably had a very good time working together with mr Keizerwaard.

If all the qualities of an organ AND it's location are controllable in your organ software, meaning they will be reproduced by your speakers, then surely what you need is to hear only what the speakers put out undamaged by anything else, namely your room and its contents.

Yes that would be my strategy.

If you really can play as low and loud as a church organ in your living room, what on earth do your family and neighbours make of all this? If they think badly, controlling the bass will lower the bass energy in your room and therefore reduce what might escape!

I don't think I need as much as loudness as a real church organ. There is a big difference in listening distance. And I don't have direct neighbours