Re: How a pipe speaks

[Barry Williams]

Dear Dr Pykett,

Please do not (ever) apologise for such an interesting and erudite  response.  Your knowledge and experience are surely  unrivalled here.

But please do tell us, is it possible to have a 'Bradford'  or 'Musicom' system without the intrusive 'de-tuning' or a 'de-tuning'  'blip'?  The answer has to be a short 'Yes' or 'No'.  Please let us know what the answer is.

Yours sincerely,

Barry Williams

[Colin Pykett]

Dear Barry

I'm afraid you can't force a yes/no answer to a question like this.   I realise we are all conditioned by our backgrounds, and I don't wish to appear rude, but this is the real world, not a courtroom, and I'm not in the witness box here!  Apart from anything else, I'm not sure I understand what your 'tuning blip' is anyway.  Another thing is that I am not into the business of decrying particular makes of electronic (or pipe) organs, as it's usually unfair at one extreme and potentially defamatory at the other.  You will know far more than I about that!

Having taken some time to read all your posts on this forum carefully, I think I can detect a measure of desperation, though of course I don't know whether this is true, or if it is, why it should be so.  In the meantime, until I better understand your position,  all I can say is that some (but not all) digital organs cannot be tuned as exactly as one might wish even if the supplier is fully up to speed with how they work and is expert at adjusting them.  A fairly common situation is that they might be perfectly tuned for equal temperament, say, but particular notes can only be detuned (sharp or flat) from the 'exact' frequency by a minimum precision of one cent (hundredth of a semitone).  Such random detunings will usually be introduced to simulate the less than perfect tuning of organ pipes in a real organ.

The problem then exists that, while one cent is fine at medium and low frequencies, it certainly is not at high ones.  For instance, two 8 foot stops sounding middle C (c. 262 Hz), if mutually detuned by one cent, will beat slowly just as they would in a pipe organ.  The beat frequency is slow and acceptable to most ears I would suggest.  At lower frequencies still the beat is even slower.  However, for two 2 foot stops notionally sounding top C (c. 8 kHz), the beat frequency if they are mutually detuned by one cent will be several cycles per second.  This is entirely unacceptable to my ears, and I imagine it is to many others also.  So perhaps this is what you are hearing when you describe your 'tuning blip'.  In a digital organ whose minimum tuning precision is one cent away from ET, this is something one cannot do anything about at all.  However I know of no evidence which suggests that any or all instruments using the Bradford/Musicom synthesis method suffer from this shortcoming.  Even if they do, it is certainly my experience that certain other types also suffer from it.  I will not mention them here, so please so not ask me to be more specific.

I hope this is helpful.  To conclude, and going back to one of your previous messages, my home phone number is ex-directory.  Please don't phone me at home for random troubleshooting or consultancy assistance.  I don't offer this service any more than a lawyer would!

With all good wishes

Colin Pykett

[Barry Williams]

Dear Colin,  (May I?),

Thank you, again, for a most helpful and erudite reply.

You have given me exactly the information I required - precisely!

Please be assured that I would never seek a 'freebie' from you about electronic instruments, I merely thought that an informal approach about what appeared to be a matter of physics, would have saved me asking a question publicly and possibly having it misunderstood.  As it is, with your expertise, you have given me far more information than I could possibly have hoped for - information that others clearly have and were rather unwilling to part with in respect of 'Bradford' and /'Musicom' systems, which is my particular concern in this matter.

There are many aspects of electronic instruments that lead me to conclude that certain suppliers know little about the mechanisms they sell to churches.  I have heard quite primitive electronic instruments transformed by the simplest of adjustments which the original suppliers were either unable or unwilling to make.  Likewise, even a relocation of speakers can bring a dramatic improvement.  It appears that the technnology has far exceeded the intellectual capabilities of the purveyors.

I heard a 'combination' organ last year.  All the voicing, both pipe and electronic, had been undertaken by a superb pipe organ voicer.  The result was really amazing and I could not detect all the registers that were electronic.  The real need for such instruments in churches is, thankfully, small, but  I suspect quite a few people will wish to have  a 'combination' organ in their home.  (BF, BM & L will not tolerate a 'synthetic' organ in the house!)

David refers to pipe physics.  I have a particular interest in the 'phase shift' betweent the ends of a pipe speaking, for herein, it seems, is a basic misunderstanding by those who have used electronic analysis without also using their ears. 

There is a huge amount of literature about the physics of the speech/sound of organ pipes which is readily available.  I get the impression that little new work has been done in recent years.  Perhaps others will correct me.

By the way - finally (!) by 'tuning blip' I mean any setting whereby there is a random de-tuning.  It can be detected by holding down one note with two stops drawn.  If the tuning changes, then that is, to me at least, a 'tuning blip'.  I find it disconcerting and can hear it except in fast moving music.  The less subtyle technique of simple de0tuning electronic organs in the hope of reproducing the 'chorus effect' is now, surely out dated.

Barry Williams

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

I've come across the problem with electronic tuners not being accurate enough!  Interestingly, the piano tuner we use here for the church piano uses an electronic tuner - but only to set the pitch of one string to A=440Hz - after that, it's all by ear - setting the scale and everything.  The ear is far more sensitive to minute frequency deviations than any meter scale.  (the organ tune also does everything by ear).

This is proving an interesting discussion - even if it has strayed somewhat from the original topic!

Every Blessing

Tony

[David Pinnegar]

It appears that the technnology has far exceeded the intellectual capabilities of the purveyors.
. . .

David refers to pipe physics.  I have a particular interest in the 'phase shift' betweent the ends of a pipe speaking, for herein, it seems, is a basic misunderstanding by those who have used electronic analysis without also using their ears. 

Dear Barry

May the superiority of the technology far exceed the intellectual capabilities of the purveyors for a long while to come for the sake of the pipe organ. But really with regard to electronic emulation, there's not really anything new undiscovered but it's a matter of applying it and applying it with a detailed and intimate knowledge of pipe organs. That's why pipe organ builders and those of us with a scientific background with practical pipe organ experience are able to get the best out of available technology . . .

Pipes - open flue pipes speak from both end 180 degrees out of phase and I assume but have not measured that there is a vague 3:1 ratio of sound from the mouth to sound at the end . . .

In contrast, stopped and reed pipes will speak only from one point . . .

With regard to the Hammerwood "Beast" it cannot be denied that pure tuning makes an emulation sterile. Makins set the Londonderry instrument to have different master oscillators for the Choir/Great and Swell/Pedals and they set them a fraction apart. But within the departments, the build-up of stops sounds sterile and I advise visiting organists against using all the original stops at once. The instrument has the benefit of 7 expansion extensions which are all independant apart from common combination piston control. I advise organists to register using a smattering of stops from different units and this emulates independent ranks. When setting up the instrument, as units are super-accurately regulated by crystal controlled oscillators, I set each unit a half to one cent away from the original instrument. Indeed, when one has left a unit in an unequal temperament giving almost random detunings away from the equal temperament original instrument, more than one person has often remarked on the resulting effect sounding like a large continental organ where upperwork may be in an elevated position at a higher temperature than the principle ranks. . . .

Perhaps a long string away from how pipes speak but an interesting thread which we can allocate to another section if and when necessary . . . !

Best wishes

David P

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

I spoke to Peter & Lucy Comerford last night re. the Bradford system.

Maintenance can be done by any competent engineer who works on electronic organs (they did mention a name of the person who they recommend for this area).  Obviously, if modules have failed, then they need to be replaced like-for-like - but that's no different to any other digital system.  The voicing does need some experience - C-H and others use the same, or similar systems, but have their own methods of voicing.

Secondly, the virtual pipes can be configured in the voicing software to be dead in tune - but that, as I would expect, results in a very dead and unappealing sound (- just like the analogue divider organs of the past, where a degree of chorus improved the sound no end. Again, unsurprising, since the signals are ultimately derived from the computer's mast clock.)

There are, apparently, some overseas builders still using the Bradford system - as well as the handful of custom organs that the Comerfords have a hand in.

Hope this clears up and questions and confusion.

Every Blessing

Tony

[Colin Pykett]

Tony, the issue is not whether an organ sound engine can be exactly tuned (they all can), but what is the minimum amount they can then be detuned by to simulate the slight random de-tuning from pipe to pipe that one gets in a pipe organ.

As I explained in an earlier post, one cent (typical of bog-standard commercial digital music practice) is not nearly good enough for this purpose.  The requirement is for a small fraction of one cent if two slightly detuned simulated pipes are not to beat too fast at the higher frequencies.  If one demands that two detuned 2 foot tones at top C (i.e. sounding c. 8 kHz) are not to beat more rapidly than 1 Hz, then a detuning precision of at least 0.2 cents is required.  Some would insist on an even slower beat and thus an even smaller detuning precision.

It is not for me to say whether any particular make of digital organ does or does not meet this very demanding criterion, but I know for certain that some do not.

Regards

Colin Pykett

[Barry Williams]

"....where a degree of chorus improved the sound no end. "

The fallacy is that the 'chorus' effect is only a matter of de-tuning and that organs exactly in tune have to sound 'dead'.

"....the issue is not whether an organ sound engine can be exactly tuned (they all can), ...."

Whilst it may be possible, certain suppliers either refuse to do so, or the makers refuse to release the necessary software/instructions to permit it.  This goes back to a much earlier posting and, for example, Makin Organs Limited, which company refused to let anyone hear one of their Fourier instruments without the Rotafon rotating the sound.  Other suppliers 'lock' the instruments so that the tuning is much further out than would be acceptable on any pipe organ.

All these things are much more subtle than a saleman's ear, which is why the electronic organ industry still is unable to get the best out of these instruments.  I have heard a combination organ where the electronics were voiced by a trained pipe organ voicer.  The effect was remarkable, but even the makers of this system 'voice' instruments that pass through their own hands in a clumsy fashion, rather than take note of what a master voicer has done with their mechanism.

Barry Williams

[Colin Pykett]

We seem to be going in circles on this one!  I agree with Barry that electronic organs are not as good as pipe organs, and we can't expect them to be.  So, no argument, surely?  I'm not sure what forum members can do for him though.  It's also unfortunate that he has obviously had difficulties with their tuning, but I suspect that is more to do with who supplied the particular examples in question rather than being a generic shortcoming of the breed.

I have noticed in some previous posts that he complained about the tuning of my digital Prog Organ system.  That can be tuned perfectly without any problem, but I deliberately introduce a small amount of detuning in all my sample sets.  But one of my idiosyncrasies as a player is that I introduce celestes (i.e. detuned ranks) more often than many others would, and in combinations which many might consider unconventional.  Maybe he is hearing this in a good proportion of the sound files on my website but concluding (wrongly, I'm afraid) that the organ itself is out of tune.  If he had actually played the thing himself he would have been able to form a better judgement.

I wonder whether he offered his electronic organ suppliers money to sort the problems out?  Retuning even a digital organ can be time consuming if it involves doing it on a note by note basis for each stop, which I suspect it would given what Barry has said.  If he didn't proffer them a wad o' cash, it's perhaps not surprising they wouldn't tune them to his taste.  One can't find many people today who will work for less than £150 per day, and that's for unskilled labour.  Why should they?  Solicitors certainly don't, to take a random example!

I've had similar problems with pipe organ builders when it came to time consuming adjustments.  One example concerns a builder who could not play, so he seemed to have no idea whatever of what I was talking about when I wanted the false touch on a pneumatic action organ sorted out (i.e. the amount by which the keys descend before the valves move at the touch box).  It was all over the place after he had rebuilt the instrument.  But he wouldn't do a thing about it unless he got more money.  And I have to say that's not unreasonable in general, although in this case I was miffed because it meant the organ was in a worse state after his intervention than before.

Maybe I've misunderstood, but I have done my best in earlier posts to be helpful. 

Colin Pykett

[David Pinnegar]

Dear Colin

I was very fortunate to have been able to hear your EOCS demonstration of lost organs at an EOCS meeting possibly at Washington or somewhere else . . . and found your presentation and results astoundingly interesting and educational particularly in recreating the spirit of lost organs and believe this to be of great interest and a brilliant tool to all interested in organs and organ building.

Barry - if we might be able to persuade Colin to come up to the South East, might you be interested in possibly coming and spreading news of the event to the numerous people who you know so that we might be able to make it worth Colin's while to come to Sussex with his brilliant gear? It could be a particularly interesting organ day and, with the intention of examining organ specs and trying things that can't easily be tried with different permutations of pipes, and being a wholly unique and uncommercial system does not promote electronics nor attempt to demonstrate superiority, it's there pureley as a specification design tool . . .

Best wishes

David P

[Barry Williams]

Thank you again, Colin , for another most helpful and erudite reply.

I have asked various suppliers of electronic instruments to put them in tune.  One, Allen, did so for a visit to their showroom.  The improvement was spectacular.  They got the job and the organ in the church was tuned likewise.  It is most successful.

Others have either refused to tune the organs (on a par with Makin refusing to let me hear an insturment with the Rotafon going round), or simply said that the mechanism will not permit putting the instrument in tune.

My point, which I have tried to convey, is not that the organ should be perfectly in tune, but that the de-tuning is vastly overdone. It is worrying when one is told that the maker of the mechanism has locked it so as to prevent the supplier from making propoer adjustment.

In respect of your samples, I did hedge my comments in an earlier post with the qualification that I had only heard them through computer speakers.  Notwithstanding that, I was criticised by one Board member, more or less for commenting on samples only heard in that way.  As is so often the case, things sound quite different 'in the flesh', though the only electronic organs I have ever heard tuned to pipe organ standards are the combination instruments (I have only heard one such) or the few where I have insisted on pipe organ standards of tuning on an electronic instrument.

You are quite correct in your comments about money.  The mark up on electronic instruments is huge.  I recall obtaining an excellent analogue instrument directly from the maker for about a third of the cost in this country.  Indeed, the supplier in this country was unwilling to sell the instrument we wanted, so it would have cost more and been less than satisfactory.

Your comments, Colin, about the Voix Celeste is important, for it is a greatly under-rated stop.  The late Herbert Norman thought it sufficiently important to be the second 8' flue in a Swell organ in church use, suggesting that the two 8' flues be Spitzfloten.  Allens added a Celeste rank to their small three rank analogue organs, though this may reflect the American view of such stops. 

Many times I have complained to pipe organ tuners that they could not 'lay a scale'.  So many pipe organs are in perfect tune in octaves, yet the bearings are way out.  It can be done, but there are still organ builders who tune three organs in a day, with predictably unsatisfactory results.

Barry Williams

[Barry Williams]

David,

What an exciting idea!  We must not forget that transporting equipment is expensive.

I am not at all sure that I could raise much interest amongst others, though I would do my very best. 

One of the facts that cannot be denied is that a mistake with electronic design is usually remedied at little cost.  A mistake in pipe organ design (and there have been some spectacular mistakes, even recently,) is much more expensive to put right.

I would be most interested in playing an electronic instrument with different tunings, especially for Mendelssohn, so that one can hear the effect of the differing temperaments.  Perhaps we should have a 'double blind' trial!

Barry

[David Pinnegar]

Dear Barry

Thanks for your enthusiasm and I hope that Colin might similarly be enthused to see what we might work out, particularly perhaps with the cooperation of the local organists societies, although from personal experience, there are many who simply have a blanket refusal to appreciate the specific value that electronic modelling can have prior to specifications being set in stone for execution in real pipework.

Your mention of Mendlessohn and unequal temperament is interesting for this is a subject that I have been researching particularly with the piano and come to realise that both Mendlessohn and Cesar Franck were particularly just before the great onslaught of equal temperament and their works should be re-evaluated in unqual temperament.

This is the value particularly of the Mander organ in Kellner at Cranleigh which for one I'm very keen to visit - perhaps we might be able to arrange something . . . ? Hopefully it will not be bastardised into equal temperament . . .

I have wanted to work with an organist exploring the repertoire at Hammerwood as I have with the piano on which I have been looking at techniques of tuning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjhNt-ZksVw to achieve specific resonance of the instrument and a temperament which adds significantly and is appropriate where intended
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6YEy0JAFRY
but does not detract when not envisaged by the composer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXK8hUSEojc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7axR_9P2O5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkZEWRlzT4

The Hammerwood instrument gives a selection of around 160 stops on which unequal temperament can be explored together with voicing appropriate to an instrument of that period and you'd be very welcome to come and experiment. Certainly the performance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOcCLvUeH4
suggests that one half of the Bach D minor was something out of one of Bach's copybooks rather than his own manuscript. Next time, I'd like to hear that in Kirnberger.

Best wishes

David P

[Colin Pykett]

The idea of transporting Prog Organ to other venues is attractive in every way except one, and thanks to those who have suggested it.  A major upside is that it's very enjoyable.  But the downside is me!  Unfortunately I'm just not the spring chicken I once was (if I ever was), and I don't quite have the energy any more for dismantling it this end, putting all the bits in a van, driving to the venue, unloading and getting it all going, acting as MC on the day, and then doing everything again in reverse afterwards.

What did the good book say about the spirit being willing but the flesh weak?

Best regards

Colin Pykett

[Barry Williams]

Everyone will quite understand Colin, but we still have your willingness to debate here and that is extremely valuable.

As I commented in an earlier posting, mistakes with pipe organs are costly, whereas electronics can (usually) be remedied quite inexpensively.

I shall certainly take up David's kind offer to play the Hammerwood organ in different temperaments. 
Most of all, I want him to alter the temperaments without him telling me whether he has changed it or not, so that it is a proper 'blind' (hopefully not 'deaf'!) trial. 

No doubt one of us will report the outcome on this Board.

Barry Williams

[revtonynewnham]

Hi

I identify with Colin re the problems of moving & transporting organs (and other equipment)!  Increasing age is a problem!

I look forward to the results of the proposed temperament experiments.

Every Blessing

Tony

[David Pinnegar]

Dear Barry

Great - you're welcome any time you want

Colin - sentiments appreciated - if you can configure from a midi output, is it possible to siply bring the computer and I could plug the output into whatever channels you wanted? Your demonstrations are academically important.

Best wishes

David P

[Colin Pykett]

Thanks for this interesting lateral thought David, and don't think I'm pouring cold water on it.  But the plain fact is (which I've proved to myself previously) that, if I take the complete Prog Organ system, console speakers and all, and set it up elsewhere, it's bad enough trying to point out its pros and cons to an audience when it hasn't been voiced or adjusted in any way whatsoever for the new environment.  So without its own speakers things would be several orders worse.  Then, of course, we all know how awkward MIDI can be, and I can just see us all spending most of the time just trying to get it going without its own console which at least sends the correct signals to the computer!

So, but with many thanks again for your interest, I can't see an easy way round the problems I'm afraid.

Colin Pykett

[David Pinnegar]

Dear Colin

No problem - I've got amps and speakers which will realistically perform (not merely reproduce) - anything that's put into them and there's nothing a graphic equalizer won't cure.

The possible hitch is midi signals from stop controls and matching them up.

Incidentally you might find work that Keith Tomkinson is doing interesting and were we to involve him on a demonstration, he's certainly fluid with identifying midi signals and getting things to talk to each other . . .

The work that you have done in this field is simply too good and interesting to be passed over simply because we can't overcome the logistics of demonstration. You'd be welcome to stay at Hammerwood for a weekend or whatever so as not to force everything into one day in a hurry.

Best wishes

David P

[KB7DQH]

I am getting the distinct impression that organs in the UK tuned to an unequal temperament are, like the proverbial teeth of a hen?

I should probably expand this in a more appropriate area  of the forum but without even thinking I can name two organs here in the USA which provide for dual temperament facilities, and one in a local college concert hall tuned in Kellner for which I have had the pleasure of hearing in concert on two occasions and from time to time hear broadcasts on the local radio of recordings of it (so useful for evaluating the performance of the HI-FI I might add:)

Within the last year or so the "Craighead-Saunders" organ built as part of the GOArt program has been featured on a local radio program, near the Eastman School of Music... A duplicate of a baroque-era German instrument... 

Oddly enough it was the British who were the last to adopt equal temperament (and pedals)  for their organs after the continent had largely already done so...

And now that Continental Europe (and to some extent "baroque revivalists" here in the USA)
are returning (retuning?:) to some form of Unequal temperament.........

Eric
KB7DQH