Steven,
1) The room is absolutely a part of the pipe organ. Recreating a large room sound in a small room starts with the proper recordings of the large room sound, but requires multiple transducer locations to be convincing.
2) Different locations are desirable for subwoofers as well as the mains speakers, not only for location cues, but to smooth low frequency room modes.
Sound travels at 1130 feet per second, roughly 1 foot per millisecond (ms). A room size can be "mapped" with delays, for instance if the a rank was played on the right in a 75 foot wide room, the first echo from the opposite side would not start from there for 75ms. Realistically recreating that delay time in a 20 foot wide room would require 75-20, a 55ms "pre-delay".
3) At minimum, four discreetly fed locations are required for realistic reverberation duplication. The addition of an overhead speaker would be useful, but difficult for portability.
Art
This seems like a very good idea to me; probably better than my suggestion.
The image I've attached is a half-space simulation, showing two of the RSS vented (Brian's suggestion - dark line) versus my suggestion (pale line).
It looks like a pair of the RSS drivers would:
- be 4 dB louder (at 16Hz) than my suggestion
- be only $520 for a pair; about $100 cheaper than the quad I suggested
- have less excursion above ~12Hz
Better performance for less money is a win. The downsides seem relatively minor:
- would need a filter to reduce content <12Hz (but any option will need filtering)
- slightly harder to move (bigger boxes)
- slightly more complex build
- less modular (you can't put 2 cabinets in 4 locations)
The last one is probably the only point that matters, but I have zero experience with what Art is talking about, so I don't have any sense of how important it is.
Attachments
Back to stamped frames, which is a shame. The selectable impedance is interesting, though.
Still, if they share a similar Xmax to the GTO1214 they'll move quite a lot of air for not much money, which is a priority if large sealed (or ported) boxes are to be used.
Chris
Originally Posted by weltersys
At minimum, four discreetly fed locations are required for realistic reverberation duplication.
To duplicate the reverberation of various size rooms, the first reflection from each wall must be discreet (as in the Latin "discrētus", for separated or distinct) from the others to achieve 360 degrees of lateral localization, or immersion.
The OP is looking to not only reproduce the low frequency bandwidth of the pipe organ, but the sound of the room it is in.
LF extension at levels exceeding pipe organs is technically not difficult, though expensive and physically rather large and heavy.
Reproduction of a large room sound in small rooms requires more than just stereo mains and a sub to be "immersive", and is driving ever-increasing discreet location formats for theaters and home theaters.
Although quadraphonic music systems never took hold, formats like 5.1 (5 full-range channels + 1 LFE channel) are now common, 7.1 catching up, and 22.2 using 24 speakers has been demonstrated since 2005.
Unlike most instruments, the room is literally part of a large pipe organ, so to reproduce it accurately, one must also reproduce the room.
Room's responses are another kettle of fish discreet from LF reproduction...
Cheers,
Art
At minimum, four discreetly fed locations are required for realistic reverberation duplication.
A room has a minimum of four walls, each typically a different distance from the sound source. The initial echo from each wall will be a different time length depending on it's distance from the source.
To duplicate the reverberation of various size rooms, the first reflection from each wall must be discreet (as in the Latin "discrētus", for separated or distinct) from the others to achieve 360 degrees of lateral localization, or immersion.
The OP is looking to not only reproduce the low frequency bandwidth of the pipe organ, but the sound of the room it is in.
LF extension at levels exceeding pipe organs is technically not difficult, though expensive and physically rather large and heavy.
Reproduction of a large room sound in small rooms requires more than just stereo mains and a sub to be "immersive", and is driving ever-increasing discreet location formats for theaters and home theaters.
Although quadraphonic music systems never took hold, formats like 5.1 (5 full-range channels + 1 LFE channel) are now common, 7.1 catching up, and 22.2 using 24 speakers has been demonstrated since 2005.
Unlike most instruments, the room is literally part of a large pipe organ, so to reproduce it accurately, one must also reproduce the room.
Room's responses are another kettle of fish discreet from LF reproduction...
Cheers,
Art
[annoying pedant]
Do you mean 'discrete', Art?
[/annoying pedant]
Thanks for your discretion in pointing out my misuse of "discreet" for "discrete"!
Art
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Infinity bought out the selectable impedance thing some time ago. With the first models, you could select between 1 ohm and 4 ohms (obviously two 2 ohm coils switched between series and parallel connection), and then they changed it to between 2 ohms and 4 ohms (I'll leave it up to the reader to work out how they managed to achieve that
).From the current stuff on the JBL and Infinity websites, it looks like the parent company is focusing the "JBL" branded products at the lower end of the market and the "Infinity" branded products at the upper end.
If Dayton was to come out with a cheaper paper or even kevlar-coned version of their RS HO series for car audio use, it would likely be a much better value than what either JBL or Infinity are offering at the moment.
Art makes a very good point that not many people think about an that is the room is an integral part of the organ. I have found a short video from Milan Digital Audio, the makers of Hauptwerk, the software that will run the Sample Sets of the organs I build. Hopefully this sill add some understanding of what my goal is in creating my audio setup so that, since I do not have the structures that these organs are in, I can have the sound of the space as well as the organ. Here is the video.
I have also run across a friend of mine that is playing the 1927 4/32 (4-manual and pedal with 32-ranks or pipes) WurliTzer in Grace Baptist Church in Sarasota, Florida. He is playing the William Tell Overture. Please listen to this through your best audio system and NOT through headphones as you will not hear the LFs in the recording. I hope this helps.
I have been trying to locate speaker placement for a large Hauptwerk setup and compare it to a large church diagram where you have an organ placed in (maybe 2 places) is able to fill the space with sound.
Hauptwerk can be used with as few as 2 speakers (stereo) and a subwoofer. Technically the sky is the limit and due to certain inherent issues with the way certain intervals of a rank of pipes interact with each other, it is necessary to send those to separate speakers (i.e. 3rds and 5ths). It is similar to having two actual pipes close to each other and when played together, both pipes "draw" to each other, making one a bit flat and the other a bit sharp, something that you avoid.
One things that I am not sure of is how to use a "wet" sample set (one that includes the room sound) with equipment that creates certain delays to give the feeling/sound of a large reverberant space, given that the sample set itself has reverberation recorded into the samples.
Dry (non-reverberant) versions of some sets are available and you can add your won reverberation to it. They are not available on all sample sets.
Steven
My friend Owen Jones was mentioned in an earlier post. He built a theatre organ using 60 audio channels. You can see his arrangement here. He uses several theatre organ sample sets, the largest being a 4/50 (4MP/40 rank). You will also see his TL speaker that was the last that i know of that he added.
Steven,
With the cost of digital mixing consoles with multiple effects engines having dropped to an affordable level, you could take as many output channels to the console, then mix dry or delay reverb effects to fit the room and the organ samples. A mixer like the Behringer X32R or Midas X32R (better quality, 10 year warranty, more $$) would work well, and has at least 100 "scenes" that could be recalled, so you could balance and save any configuration and mix you'd like, with 32 inputs and 8 discrete outputs. More inputs can be added in banks of 16 channels, and the parametric EQ available on each input and output can sculpt the sound exactly to the tonality you prefer.
The onboard effects available now make Owen's 1980s Alesis midiverb seem rather shallow by comparison.
Art
Art, I appreciate your suggestions of newer technology, but after looking at the products you maned, they seem more suited for a touring band, or studio. I do understand that they have remarkable capabilities, however, I could build a well appointed, entire Hauptwerk organ for the cost of the Midas unit alone. Owen built his system/organ over a couple of decades and he built and put together most all of it himself. I have attached a CAD drawing of his layout as I was looking at different audio setups (usually used in home theatres (5.1, 9.2 and 22.2). I know that in every space, things will be different either in surface material, size furnishings, etc. His space is smaller than mine as he had to comply with his "better half's" wishes One thing that strikes me with all of this and that is that in the majority of case, except in extremely large organs and organ that perhaps have been added to through decades or even centuries, that the chambers are in basically one place...perhaps 2 (on either side of the theatre or church). In both cases, again, except for rare cases, everything is in front of you and effectively pointed at the audience. I realize that these organs are in very large spaces, either 1920s movie palaces or large churches/cathedrals. Some (especially churches are so large that their reverberation is as long a 10 seconds causing the need to play the music at a much slower tempo and in many cases, especially in the Romantic period, the style of pipe voicing didn't lend well to a space like this. Things get "slushy" as I like to call it, where the end of previous notes are still quite present and others are being added as the piece progresses. It ends up sounding very muddy and like a musical version of a Picasso painting (my apologies if you are a Picasso fan). I know, without question that reverberation will be necessary because even though the space I intend on using for the organ I will build for myself will be in a fairly "normal room and although it doesn't have carpet or absorbent window treatments, or any upholstered furniture, it will only have a hint of natural reverberation, not nearly enough to be acceptable. I am not trying to create the acoustics of National Cathedral or any similar space, but I am also not going to be satisfied with a dry result either. I doubt whether I would go over 1.5 or 2 second reverb and in most ordinary houses, that is a huge amount. I will also post a small graphic and explanation from Paramount Organ Works that suggest a minimum audio setup that will address the issue with pipes or ranks competing with each other as pipe being play too close together will draw to each other and cause on to be sharp and the other to be flat. Their suggestion is a 10 speaker setup made up of 4 channels. This way you can have different ranks/voices coming from different channels/speakers thus allowing them to mix in the air as they would with a pipe organ. They do not get specific at all as to the parameters of any of the speakers and say you can get away with fewer or use more. I was going to follow something along the line of 12-14 channels plus subwoofers and have a number of different types of speakers used for flutes, diapasons and similar ranks and other channels for reeds and strings and have representations from small tweeters down through mid-high, mid-range, mid-low and low (very general idea. The mid to higher frequencies would most likely be handled by studio monitors as I have found them to almost universally have a very clear sound and can handle most thing that I have tried them with. I could double or triple them to achieve the Paramount guidelines while giving a fuller sound. I would do similar things with each type of speaker, not placing them all over the room as you would a home theatre, but more from one side of the space. I am not saying that I won't end up with some speakers placed in other parts of the room, but since every room is different and I am using my home as an experimental space, I can determine quite a bit from real setups and see how changing different parameters or aspects help or degrade the desired effect. Most of the installations in other places, I am imagining will be using smaller organ sample sets as it is more cost effective for them. Also in a nursing home you don't have the same ability that you would most likely have in a church. A school could go other way, but if I am to try to do this as best as I am able and to accommodate different environments, I need to be able to experiment in, what I would call the most difficult situation...a small, non-reverberant room. I may learn that was not the best avenue to take, but it seems that if you have some of the large-space elements available, some of the issues you would have with reverberation would be already present, at least to some degree and only a bit of enhancement would be needed. I know I have spoken more generally about the entire sound/speaker aspect here, but the higher frequencies are not anything near as much trouble to produce as the very low frequencies, that is why I have been trying to concentrate on that here. Here is the image of Owen's space (a converted garage), so it looks to be a two car garage, but I am not sure. It is his CAD drawing. The other will be that very general idea from Paramount Organs. Owens Organ.jpg - Google DriveScreenHunter 155.jpg - Google DriveThis is the Paramount Audio PDF. You can look through it if you like to see what I have said about the splitting or ranks across channels to avoid audio conflicts or you can just look at the front page and see the recommended minimum. ParamountAudio.pdf - Google Drive Hopefully some of this can help. The LF driver and enclosure still seems to be a sticking point as numerous examples seem to still be viable. Since I cannot gain you level of knowledge in a short amount of time, I need something specific that follows my criteria to be "agreed upon", to save me from a great deal of unnecessary expenditure, work, and time. Thank you, Steven
One thing that strikes me with all of this and that is that in the majority of case, except in extremely large organs and organ that perhaps have been added to through decades or even centuries, that the chambers are in basically one place...perhaps 2 (on either side of the theatre or church). In both cases, again, except for rare cases, everything is in front of you and effectively pointed at the audience. I realize that these organs are in very large spaces, either 1920s movie palaces or large churches/cathedrals. Some (especially churches are so large that their reverberation is as long a 10 seconds causing the need to play the music at a much slower tempo and in many cases, especially in the Romantic period, the style of pipe voicing didn't lend well to a space like this. Things get "slushy" as I like to call it, where the end of previous notes are still quite present and others are being added as the piece progresses. It ends up sounding very muddy and like a musical version of a Picasso painting (my apologies if you are a Picasso fan). I know, without question that reverberation will be necessary because even though the space I intend on using for the organ I will build for myself will be in a fairly "normal room and although it doesn't have carpet or absorbent window treatments, or any upholstered furniture, it will only have a hint of natural reverberation, not nearly enough to be acceptable. I am not trying to create the acoustics of National Cathedral or any similar space, but I am also not going to be satisfied with a dry result either. I doubt whether I would go over 1.5 or 2 second reverb and in most ordinary houses, that is a huge amount. I will also post a small graphic and explanation from Paramount Organ Works that suggest a minimum audio setup that will address the issue with pipes or ranks competing with each other as pipe being play too close together will draw to each other and cause on to be sharp and the other to be flat. Their suggestion is a 10 speaker setup made up of 4 channels. This way you can have different ranks/voices coming from different channels/speakers thus allowing them to mix in the air as they would with a pipe organ. They do not get specific at all as to the parameters of any of the speakers and say you can get away with fewer or use more. I was going to follow something along the line of 12-14 channels plus subwoofers and have a number of different types of speakers used for flutes, diapasons and similar ranks and other channels for reeds and strings and have representations from small tweeters down through mid-high, mid-range, mid-low and low (very general idea. The mid to higher frequencies would most likely be handled by studio monitors as I have found them to almost universally have a very clear sound and can handle most thing that I have tried them with. I could double or triple them to achieve the Paramount guidelines while giving a fuller sound. I would do similar things with each type of speaker, not placing them all over the room as you would a home theatre, but more from one side of the space. I am not saying that I won't end up with some speakers placed in other parts of the room, but since every room is different and I am using my home as an experimental space, I can determine quite a bit from real setups and see how changing different parameters or aspects help or degrade the desired effect. Most of the installations in other places, I am imagining will be using smaller organ sample sets as it is more cost effective for them. Also in a nursing home you don't have the same ability that you would most likely have in a church. A school could go other way, but if I am to try to do this as best as I am able and to accommodate different environments, I need to be able to experiment in, what I would call the most difficult situation...a small, non-reverberant room. I may learn that was not the best avenue to take, but it seems that if you have some of the large-space elements available, some of the issues you would have with reverberation would be already present, at least to some degree and only a bit of enhancement would be needed. I know I have spoken more generally about the entire sound/speaker aspect here, but the higher frequencies are not anything near as much trouble to produce as the very low frequencies, that is why I have been trying to concentrate on that here. Here is the image of Owen's space (a converted garage), so it looks to be a two car garage, but I am not sure. It is his CAD drawing. The other will be that very general idea from Paramount Organs. Owens Organ.jpg - Google DriveScreenHunter 155.jpg - Google DriveThis is the Paramount Audio PDF. You can look through it if you like to see what I have said about the splitting or ranks across channels to avoid audio conflicts or you can just look at the front page and see the recommended minimum. ParamountAudio.pdf - Google Drive Hopefully some of this can help. The LF driver and enclosure still seems to be a sticking point as numerous examples seem to still be viable. Since I cannot gain you level of knowledge in a short amount of time, I need something specific that follows my criteria to be "agreed upon", to save me from a great deal of unnecessary expenditure, work, and time. Thank you, Steven
Steven,
1)Unless I'm not reading correctly, you are interested in "touring" a well appointed organ which potentially has more channels/voices than most touring bands.
The Midas M32R goes for about $2100, the X32Producer around $1200. Either has the same basic system with 40 input potential and 8 output potential, 8 effects engines that can be mixed between any of the channels and outputs.
2)If you were to consider using 4 decent discrete reverb units, your cost would already be around $1200. The onboard effects of the X32Producer could easily re-create the acoustics of National Cathedral or any similar space, and allow instant recall to compare various configurations. The onboard effects duplicate sounds of effects that each used to cost thousands of dollars.
You could change the sound from the LaScala to the National Cathedral to the corner bar with a push of a single switch, once you have "saved" the desired effects.
3) Proximity of speakers to each other has no effect on their pitch.
4)If by "channels", you mean separate amplification and speakers, going with 8 would be plenty, and inputs and outputs could be mixed as desired from a console- more control, less $$.
5)Doubling or tripling would be less effective than reverberation mixing as far as a realistic representation of the sound of a pipe organ in a room.
6)There are many ways to reproduce the LF of a large pipe organ.
It is your choice as to which you find most viable.
For flexibility, ease of transport, and faster "room tuning", the multiple cabinet approach (four would be plenty) would be preferable to a single sub of the same output level.
Each sub could be paired with one (or more) top cabinet for ease of mixing "room sound".
Cheers,
Art
Wrong! Unless you are counting the floor, in which case you'd have a three-sided (if the floor was not considered a side) pyramid*. Not counting the floor or ceiling, a room can have a minimum of three walls. Granted, it is fair enough to say it is most commonly found that rooms have as few as four walls.
Kidding aside, you can't make a room sound like a big church. You can play a recording that nicely captures the big-church sound, in which case you are listening to a nice recording of a big church in your smaller room.
If you apply a close-your-eyes criterion, you can imagine you are in a big church or you can - even more easily and true to the sound reaching you - imagine you are in a smaller room listening to a recording of....
The same acoustic circumstances apply to adding trick reverb, in which case the argument becomes an infinite regression.
When you put BBQ seasoning on peanut butter, you get peanut butter with BBQ-like flavour, not barbequed peanut butter.
B.
*for the sake of mathematical simplicity, I am assuming walls are straight.
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Ben,
Granted, a pair of stereo speakers that play a recording that nicely captures “a big-church sound” will not reproduce the reverberant sound of a large room in a small room, as they at best are the acoustical equivalent to opening a pair of windows in the front of a small room placed in a big church.
With four wide dispersion speakers each with discrete reverb and delay processing, each directed at a wall and a portion of the ceiling in a small room, one can be surrounded by a sound field that emulates the reverberation of a much larger room with far more realism than one could achieve with a direct-facing stereo pair. If the reverberation system is properly set up, it is not hard to imagine yourself in a completely different room if you close your eyes.
The more discretely processed locations of reverberant speakers, the more realistic the reproduction of an acoustic space can be, but four can do a pretty convincing job.
Art
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