16Hz for church organ

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Now you're getting it . . . each of the speaker boxes represents a set of pipes or, in organ terms, a "stop". The box for the 32' stop will produce the sound that replicates a rank of pipes the longest of which is 32', and no more than two or three of which would ever sound at the same time. The pedal or manual key that causes those notes to sound may be coupled to other sets of pipes as well (often but not always sounding in different octaves), the sound of which would come from different speakers or, in the case of a hybrid organ such as we're talking about, from ranks of actual pipes as well.

It's not a case of subwoofer bigger than woofer bigger than midrange bigger than tweeter . . . it's a rank of 32', a couple ranks of 16', a dozen or more ranks of 8', and maybe a few 4' as well (for the "angel chorus"). The speakers represent the various ranks of pipes (and their various locations) . . . they do not all sound together, and which ones sound (and what notes) is determined by the organist at the keyboard. It may not be the "best" way to do things, but it is the traditional way, and it's the way that makes an electronic organ sound most like a "real" pipe organ in a real venue. As an add-on to an existing wind organ (ie a "hybrid") it's possibly the only way to do it that doesn't sound, at least sometimes, glaringly un-natural.

If you have any experience and memory of the sense of envelopment produced by a real pipe organ in a large church or hall compare that to the sound of the "organ" setting of an electric piano . . . (where "woofer bigger than mid bigger than tweeter" does apply).

Well you said it, and I have to agree, that's a terrible way to do things. Can you imagine home speakers like that? There's a really good reason you don't see this anywhere else in the world for any other application.

It's not a good idea but it's tradition so I'll let that go.

It's not a case of subwoofer bigger than woofer bigger than midrange bigger than tweeter . . .

It really is. The speakers that need to extend lower need more volume displacement and bigger boxes. This is the way physics has always worked.

And pipe organs don't seem to be any exception to physics, I just looked at pics of pipe organs online and the longer pipes take up WAY more space than the smaller ones, which is in stark contrast to your next post.
 
Well you said it, and I have to agree, that's a terrible way to do things.
But I didn't say that . . . and I expect that everyone here knows it.

There's a really good reason you don't see this anywhere else in the world for any other application.
You see it in the back line behind pretty much every rock band ever. And every "acoustic" band too . . . every violinist, violist, cellist and bass player has their very own box. What a shock. It would be so much more . . . efficient . . . if all the sound came from just one speaker . . .

Don't know where you've been hanging out, but clearly not in the music business . . .
 
Well you said it, and I have to agree, that's a terrible way to do things.

That's not what he said, and it's not a terrible way to do things. By splitting up the different groups of sounds (which incidentally are also usually tuned to slightly different pitch references) and allowing them to mix acoustically instead of electrically, the ensemble sound more closely emulates a real pipe organ, where of course each sound originates in its own point in space, and mixes acoustically with all the others.

I've heard more than once what happens when some know-it-all sound engineer decides that all those boxes are a "terrible idea," and mixes everything down to one or two channels. The organ always ends up sounding like a giant glob of snot.

Can you imagine home speakers like that? There's a really good reason you don't see this anywhere else in the world for any other application.
Are you serious? I don't have to imagine home speakers like that - I'm surrounded by five of them right now, just like millions of others, everywhere in the world! It's really not any different (please tell me you don't listen exclusively in mono at home!), just that even more channels are sometimes desirable in the organ scenario; remember we are trying to emulate a multitude of individual sound sources there.

It's not a good idea but it's tradition so I'll let that go.
It's not just a "tradition." I think you may still be conflating music production with music reproduction - they share many of the same goals, but not all. I think your advice re ported enclosures (and lots of them) is spot on in this case, but once we get out of the bass range there are other objectives at play here.

-- Jim
 
A lot of stuff getting confused here: voices, ranks, stops, instruments and their individual musicians who want their own wawa box to kick... and some people have never heard of Fourier the mathematician and his famous transform of all sound sub-components into a single pressure stream.

There is a long and interesting history to simulating instruments. Funny thing, when I was at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, many people (often musicians with an urge to program DEC computers) there was incredible energy devoted to instruments like the violin (so-so) and piano (hopeless). Perhaps some of you have seen that movie with Hal singing a song about bicycles? From our department but a year or two before I got to Bell.

But back in church, there are qualities of an organ that are not "simulated" by Fourier math. For example, a big effort in the 50s went to the Leslie rotating loudspeaker that introduced kind of spatial warble and beat-note to the sound. Odd as it looked (and as distracting), it greatly added to the sense of compressed-air realism.

For sure, some aspects of organ sound just can't be captured satisfactorily by a speaker box .... like the sound of organ bells high up in the chest and the sound of a noisy swellbox opening and closing.

Ben
 
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Yes,sir. Sorry about that. I've since created a link from which I could post them. If there is a way to upload them from my computer, I couldn't seem to locate it.

I'll try to do better.

Bach On

It's actually pretty simple, if the first dialog box is not present click "Go Advanced" and then you will see a Manage Attachments browse window open, click the first button in the upper list and navigate to the picture you want to upload, continue down the list until you have selected all of the pictures you want to upload, then click upload and wait for the "close this window" dialog to appear before closing the manage attachments window:
 

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But I didn't say that . . . and I expect that everyone here knows it.

No you didn't say the word terrible, I did. What you did say was "It may not be the "best" way to do things, but it is the traditional way".

And the other guy that seems to know about organs said "I view this as a sales technique to sell multi-channel organs at a high markup"

So one guy says it's not the best way, the other guy says the engineering is determined by the marketing dept... And no other type of system in the world that I'm aware of uses multiple boxes with overlapping passbands. That adds up to what?

You see it in the back line behind pretty much every rock band ever. And every "acoustic" band too . . . every violinist, violist, cellist and bass player has their very own box. What a shock. It would be so much more . . . efficient . . . if all the sound came from just one speaker . . .

Don't know where you've been hanging out, but clearly not in the music business . . .

Yes, I know every instrument has their own box. But how many of those instruments have multiple boxes with overlapping passbands? There's a reason this isn't common. Even though every instrument in a band has their own box, that box is usually usually mic'ed and played back through a larger system which also doesn't not have multiple boxes with overlapping passbands.
 
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Are you serious? I don't have to imagine home speakers like that - I'm surrounded by five of them right now, just like millions of others, everywhere in the world! It's really not any different (please tell me you don't listen exclusively in mono at home!), just that even more channels are sometimes desirable in the organ scenario; remember we are trying to emulate a multitude of individual sound sources there.

So your home speakers have multiple boxes per channel with overlapping passbands? I seriously doubt it, and there's really good reasons why that never happens.
 
For sure, some aspects of organ sound just can't be captured satisfactorily by a speaker box .... like the sound of organ bells high up in the chest and the sound of a noisy swellbox opening and closing.

Ben

Isn't this kind of like saying there are some things that can't be captured by a digital recording ... like the sound of vinyl scratches, ticks, pops, and rumble?

Is a noisy swellbox a pro or a con?

And are you going to answer the leaky sealed box question at some point?
 
By splitting up the different groups of sounds (which incidentally are also usually tuned to slightly different pitch references) and allowing them to mix acoustically instead of electrically, the ensemble sound more closely emulates a real pipe organ, where of course each sound originates in its own point in space, and mixes acoustically with all the others.

I've heard more than once what happens when some know-it-all sound engineer decides that all those boxes are a "terrible idea," and mixes everything down to one or two channels. The organ always ends up sounding like a giant glob of snot.

What you are talking about specifically here is interference between the different sound sources, if you like it and it sounds good that's fine.

Looking through the various pics of pipe organs it's clear that the various organs have vastly different pipe placements (some are vastly larger systems than others, some have the pipes clustered, some have the pipes spread out, and they ALL have different layouts, some with pipes large to small, some have small on either end and large in the middle, some look more like a city skyline) so there's clearly no defined or preferred interference pattern and they are all going to have their own signature sound. I seriously doubt the interference is mandatory to good sound production though, and I'm pretty sure a good engineer could produce a very good sound downmixed to one or two channels.

As is the case in most sound production, good or bad sound is usually the result of the engineer's skill.
 
There's a pretty great video of a tour of the inside of the organ at Methuen..I can tell you firstha....well, second hand, that their 32' stop actually occupies...uh, 32 feet of space 😛 Nearly an entire section of smaller pipes could probably be turned sideways and crammed down it, so I'll stick with the opinion that 1 15" woofer is woefully inadequate for capturing the essence of that pipe if the competing pipe sections of half / quarter / eighth of it's size are all rocking 12" drivers.

One could probably even make the case that every single section of speakers should be full range, or at least a lot closer to it. Yeah, even a 32 foot contra bombarde should probably have tweeters.

We can pick apart the pros and cons of instrument speakers vs home ones, but to be honest, I think in this instance, instrument amplification techniques stand to learn a few things from musical reproduction systems.

Here's the video, in case anyone is interested walking around behind an organ facade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xszl67k_eEQ
 
I work right down the street from this place (Andover) and have been telling myself for years that I should go see/hear it play sometime.

Thanks for the reminder!

Methuen Memorial Music Hall

Oh, you lucky....

I know they probably wouldn't let me in there...or maybe they would, with a donation.

Just once I'd like to take a seat at an organ like that and feel what it must feel like to unleash those pedals. I can play a bit of piano, but it'd probably be an insult to organists if I actually tried to get a tune out, haha.
 
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Organs, ad nauseum

Pipe organs depend on many individual pipes to make all the sounds we hear. A small pipe organ like ours may have 2,000 pipes. Larger pipe organs may have, 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 thousand pipes. And each pipe can play only one note. Several thousand may be playing at any particular time, depending on the requirements of the music or the preferences of the organists.

There are probably well over a thousand different kinds of organ pipes. There are, for example, probably over 40 different kinds of trumpet pipes. And each one sounds different from the others. Our organ has only one of those styles of trumpet pipes, though some larger organs might have two or three.

http://www.organstops.org/

One initially confusing thing about pipe organs is the method used for dividing them according to octaves. The point of reference for these is the lowest pitch on the manual or pedal, the low C - which is 64 cycles (hertz is an electronic term and usually not used in pipe organs. The pipe that will produce that 64 cps sound is 240 cm long.

Organs don't use the metric system, so it is expressed in feet. If the lowest note in a rank of pipes (C) is 8 feet, then all the pipes in that particular octave are called "8 foot pipes". They aren't all 8 feet long, or they'd all have the very same pitch. A pipe half that length for the C in the next octave would be 4 feet (with the pitch starting at 128 cps). So ranks in that octave are called "4 foot pipes". There are pipes half that length with pitches up yet another octave. They called "2 foot pipes" - starting at 256 cps.

Pipes an octave lower are referred to as "16 foot pipes" - the lowest sounding at 32 cps. And "32 foot pipes" will sound yet an octave lower - with the lowest sounding at 16 cps. Only a handful of organs have 64 foot pipes - which would be an octave lower.

It is common for 8 foot, 4 foot and 2 foot pipes to be assigned to play at the same time by pressing one key. Or a 16 foot and a 2 foot pipe might be assigned to play when a key is pressed.

More confusion occurs from the names and styles of pipes. Some traditional names are used that stem from organs in different countries. So the very same rank of pipes may have more than one name. Pipes are grouped according to their name and their length. So an organ might have a 16 foot flute, an 8 foot flute, a 4 foot flute, and a 2 foot flute. On another organ these might be named the Gedect - which is a German name for the flute.

Part of the challenge for an organist is not only to learn how to play the right keys and pedals, but to also learn which of the many sounds of a pipe organ sound good together. What sounds are played at the same time is generally called the registration. Sometimes learning what works is just a matter of artistic taste and experience,

Each rank of pipes has a distinct sound. Viewed on an oscilloscope, it is easy to see the different wave forms. Some have more overtones and partials. Other have very few. Some pipes just play the overtones. The material (zinc, lead or tin alloys and wood of various kinds) of the pipe may alter the sound. So a flute made from metal will often sound different from a flute made of wood. All the pipes of one kind in a particular octave are called a rank. The pipes are handmade, there is an infrastructure of control mechanisms that supply air to the pipes. Mass production for such specialized items is often impractical.

Costs of pipe organs have risen. Much of the work in building them is done by hand. Too, some of the parts are made of things like leather that will dry out and begin to leak over time. Extensive rebuilding adds to the cost of owning a pipe organ. Typical costs for a new rank of pipes might run from $4,000 for very small pipes to as much as $50,000 for the larger 32 foot pipes. Our modest pipe organ is currently insured for $250,000. A million dollars for a new large pipe organ is not considered excessive.

Electronic organs were an attempt to imitate the traditional sound of a pipe organ at a substantially lower cost. Early models of electronic organs could only be said to rival the sound of a pipe organ in the most general manner. Any comparison would easily reveal the differences in stark terms. In those days it was common for electronic organs to have only one or two speakers. But electronics made great strides with the advent and development of integrated chips, computer processing units, and computerized memory.

Electronic organs have gradually improved so some of the the best rival the sound of a pipe organ - at least to many people. Use of actual pipe organ digital samples have contributed to that improvement. Why - a big part is cost. A quarter of a million dollars for a big digital is considered major.

We wanted to enhance the available sounds of our modest pipe organ. Cost and available space were our issues. We're going to be adding the equivalent of 12 ranks of pipes using digital samples. Some of the pipe sounds would require large pipes. Other pipe sounds would require less space. We will also have the ability to change the sounds by selected samples stored in the memory of the sound engine. Our hope is to make the blend between the real pipes and the digital sounds so subtle that MOST people won't be able to tell the difference. Careful Voicing (balancing the sounds - both pipes and electronics - will be required to accomplish that. Ours will be what has come to be called a hybrid organ.

There are many people who reject the electronic organ as a poor imitations. That often includes hybrid organs too. They only accept an instrument with pipes as real organs. Some people can still hear the subtle difference between the best electronics and a real pipe organ. There are people who occasionally have heated debates at the organ forum about this. But to a growing number of people, the differences are becoming harder to hear - and even when they can be detected, economic factors may cause them to compromise and accept those differences.

Manufacturers of electronic organs have done their very best to closely imitate real pipe organs. Most found that the large variety of of subtle sounds often became less distinct if too many sounds were sent to only one or two speakers. One common pipe sound is called the principal - also called the diapason. These pipes tend to be somewhat louder than some other pipes. 8 foot, 4 foot and 2 foot principals can keep a pair of speakers pretty busy. Sending many other sounds at the same time created a situation where softer sounds were often swallowed and lost. Improvements in speaker design and manufacturing helped, but sending pipe sounds to speakers specifically tailored to accurately reproduce them has also become the norm. Too it was discovered that having sounds coming from multiple points created interactions that more closely rivaled the interaction among the thousands of pipes of a real pipe organ.

I have many CDs of what I consider fine organs. I enjoy listening to them on our home stereo system. We might get an even better sound with a better system. But a mix down of all the sounds I've been describing to just a pair of speakers represents a risk of losing some of the subtle sounds of the original instrument.

Lots of people have worked hard over the years to engineer good electronic organs. Many use some of the same simulation and modeling tools people on this forum use to produce a better sound. Someone with a goal of doing so might be able to get a great sound from just two speakers. But I've yet to see or hear any commercially viable organs that have done so. I'm not saying it can't be done.

Cameron Carpenter is a talented contemporary organist who has contracted with one organ company to build him a touring organ that is unique. He didn't want to be tied to doing concerts in churches, which often had the most robust organs. Too, he seems to be trying to merge the traditional church organ sound with a different style of organ called the Theater organ. Music played in a theater might seem out of place in a church setting. So he has started touring this past Winter with his new instrument. Organ people have been interested in the technical details - many of which are closely guarded secrets. Here is a picture of Carpenter's touring organ onstage. It all fits into a single truck and can be unloaded and setup in about 90 minutes. Here's pic of the touring organ.

http://www.shutterfly.com/lightbox/view.sfly?fid=c4c6486620375784#1429209723856

You will see that there are 24 speakers spread across the stage. Most of the cabinets contain a two transducers. Some have removable horns for specific sounds the organ can produce. They are spread across stage to imitate a large pipe chamber packed with pipes. Not visible is a group of 20 speakers - some as large as a refrigerator to produce the lowest sounds of the organ. The console communicates with an offstage fileserver that can transmit up to 64 channels at the same time to the amps that power the various speakers. Carpenter has hinted in interviews that the cost of the organ was right at a million dollars. He also plans to buy a second one that will be kept in Europe for when he tours over there.

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It's probable that some skipped or quickly skimmed over this long explanation. And that's fine. But I wanted to see if I could explain WHY some electronic organs use so many channels and speakers.

Thanks to all who provided me with input and advice. I learned a lot.

Bach On
 
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Didn't skip any of it, I try to soak up as much as I can. I've always loved pipe organs, as I consider them the hands down king of musical instruments.

Since the start of this thread, I've found renewed interest in learning some of the finer details, watching videos on youtube of organ tours, and a multi-part special of some of the more interesting organs in the world. I find them fascinating, and participating here...even though it's been rough at times, thoroughly enjoyable.

I would view the herculean task of supplementing a physical organ with synthesized stops, especially extremely low frequency ones, a challenge that would bring me great happiness. I'm almost envious of anyone who has the opportunity to do so professionally.

I know us home audio reproduction types can get a little carried away sometimes with some truly bizarre recommendations, mostly rooted in personal subjective preferences. Rest assured however, we come at this with the best intentions, and if there's a way to bridge the gap between traditional organ speakers and what could end up being a superior version that borrows from other ideas, speaking for myself, I'd love to see it.

In the end, if you come back and say "Wow, that driver / cabinet you guys suggested really gives us some oomph we didn't have", I'd be grinning like a kid for the rest of the week.

Edit: Also, shutterfly won't load for those of us without a shutterfly account, if at all possible, could you attach images directly to your post? 🙂
 
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Didn't skip any of it, I try to soak up as much as I can. I've always loved pipe organs, as I consider them the hands down king of musical instruments.

Since the start of this thread, I've found renewed interest in learning some of the finer details, watching videos on youtube of organ tours, and a multi-part special of some of the more interesting organs in the world. I find them fascinating, and participating here...even though it's been rough at times, thoroughly enjoyable.

I would view the herculean task of supplementing a physical organ with synthesized stops, especially extremely low frequency ones, a challenge that would bring me great happiness. I'm almost envious of anyone who has the opportunity to do so professionally.

I know us home audio reproduction types can get a little carried away sometimes with some truly bizarre recommendations, mostly rooted in personal subjective preferences. Rest assured however, we come at this with the best intentions, and if there's a way to bridge the gap between traditional organ speakers and what could end up being a superior version that borrows from other ideas, speaking for myself, I'd love to see it.

In the end, if you come back and say "Wow, that driver / cabinet you guys suggested really gives us some oomph we didn't have", I'd be grinning like a kid for the rest of the week.
Well spoken. Me too. Thank for tutorial from Bach On.

A few weeks ago, PBS showed a documentary on refurbishing the biggest of 'em all. The giant at the Boardwalk auditorium in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Worth seeing for many reasons.

Even if you are not a tracker enthusiast (as many of us are these days after E. Power Biggs started recording at the Harvard-Flentrop tracker 50 yrs ago), the sound of this organ on an elderly recording I have is both monumental and thoroughly garbled and awful (due to reverberation).

I think I would add organs to the list of unreproducible instruments (starting with pianos).*

Ben
*Oooops, hope I didn't give away my pessimistic opinion on electric organs in saying that.
 
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Thanks for this in depth explanation.

The pics don't work, you need to log in to shutterfly to see them.

I'm going to strongly disagree (again) that acoustical interference is necessary for good sound reproduction and that you need several channels to provide this interference. Even when you do it with lots of channels and lots of speakers it's still not going to be the same as pipes would do it. And there are SO many different pipe layouts (some have pipes spread wall to wall and on different floors of a building while others are very small and compact) there's no way this interference can be set up the same for different organs.

I'm also going to disagree that certain sounds are lost when produced with speakers instead of pipes. A noisy windbox and other spurious noises are an exception, those won't be produced at all, but the sounds that are SUPPOSED to be produced WILL be produced with an accurate speaker.

This is what crossover design is all about. We study in depth how to AVOID having drivers (and/or whole separate boxes) playing the same frequencies and interfering, having complementary slopes for each passband so they blend well, notching out spikes in response, placing the sound sources within 1/4 wave of each other so they approximate a single source, and tailoring a flat frequency response while presenting a load that won't hurt the amp.

So you can see that none of these concepts are new to (some of) us on this forum, the difference seems to be that organ designers actually strive for acoustic interference at arbitrary frequencies caused by arbitrary distances between sources, which sounds a bit ... well ... arbitrary. This stuff can all be pretty accurately predicted - we do it with speakers and have software for it. Based on sound intensity and distance between sound sources we can predict very accurately what the total summed sound will be at any location in relation to the sound sources. And it WON'T be uniform, if the sound sources are further than 1/4 wave apart the sound will be different based on where the listener is in relation to the pipes (or speakers). We actively try very hard to minimize this effect in quality speaker designs. The crossover works to prevent the different drivers from fighting with each other, and instead to act harmoniously as an approximation of a single source.

If that's not what you want from a pipe organ that's fine, but even the organ manufacturers can't pretend that this interference is planned in an acoustic way or repeatable with different organs (even if they use the same parts) unless the pipes are laid out EXACTLY the same. And something tells me from looking at pics of organs that they are laid out to be visually appealing, not for any acoustical engineering perspective. So the interference may be pleasing and desirable, that part I can't argue with, but it is COMPLETELY RANDOM unless it's careful designed for, and it doesn't ever appear to be.

A speaker that has a smooth and accurate frequency response WILL NOT just lose sounds that are in the mix. That just doesn't happen. It does happen all the time if you use average speakers with average bad frequency response with all kinds of peaks and dips, when they are played in acoustically challenging spaces with no attention paid to reflections or other acoustic issues. BUT if you have really well designed speakers and attention is paid to how they interact with the room you will not ever just lose sounds that should be in the mix.

The real difference would be dispersion. A single channel speaker is never going to be able to accurately reproduce the dispersion properties of a two story wall to wall pipe system.

I suspect dispersion and (bad) engineering are the main reasons people don't like electric pipe organs. As you point out it can be done well (probably very well) if you have a million dollars. A weekend warrior hack at the mixer controlling a bunch of random and disparate antique audio gear isn't likely to do a very good job, and it's not surprising that it's not common to see this done well, there simply are not many good engineers that are going to work for free (or even for what an average church can afford). Call up Danley just for fun and ask them what engineering consulting and equipment is going to cost. I guarantee they could do a VERY good job but you are looking at tens of thousands of dollars minimum.

Anyway, I knew how pipes worked physically (wind boxes feeding pipes) but didn't know too much else about them, so thanks for all this. It takes a long time to type a detailed informational post and I appreciate it.
 
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