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Messages - David Pinnegar

#1701
[quote link=topic=150.msg439#msg439 date=1279533062]
These divisions are exactly what Satan wants - if he can get the church arguing about internal matters, then the prime work of "making disciples" tends to be ignored. 

I have severe reservations about "multi-faith worship".  At best it's bound to degenerate into a politically correct "lowest common denominator" mish-mash. . . .

I'm beginning to ramble, so I'd better leave things there for now and go and do some proper work![/quote]

Hi!

Far from rambling, you make important points.

Whilst I have a wide inter-faith respect and urge others likewise, I agee with you about the degeneration into a mish-mash. Perhaps one might regard as each religion being a different lens through which we can see God, but of course if we cut two different focal length lenses in half and apply them at the same time to the camera, we end up with something that is neither one thing nor the other and an indeterminate image which is out of focus.

On the other hand, we all come into this world naked and we all go out of this world naked. There are many roads in between.

The driving force that takes us long distances might be compared to the combustion of fuel inside an internal combustion engine. It doesn't matter whether the fuel is diesel or petrol as long as one is fired by high compression and the other by a high voltage spark. Some engines might be one cylinder whilst others might need a dozen to move. All are carried upon a framework upon which is mounted bodywork in which many people take great pride washing their cars visibly on weekend mornings whilst others let the rain do the washing. People might argue that their car is better than the next man's or that their colour paint is better than that horrible colour over there. . . . But the colour nor the paint have any meaning without the substrate of the frame carrying the engine within. When we drive our car on the road, the road exists because we are not the only car that drives.

At Albi Cathedral in France, Chaldon Church in Surrey and numerous other places, we see imagery of the Last Judgement, sorting out those who had been good enough and those who hadn't. At the Parthenon in Greece, we walked into the temple celebrating the creation of the First Woman, (the image of the event being upon the podium supporting the statue above) under a frieze which appears to be the first Judgment - in biblical terms of Genesis 6 and Job Chapter 1, the Sons of God appearing to ask "Is it a good idea to make them in our image?", there being a debate between those responsible for human civilisation and those representatives of temptations resulting in sins which are intended to destroy us. Whether it be the First or the Last, the concept remains the same and contemplation of either leads to the same result.

However, I believe that each faction of religion, and indeed each religion, like a lens to which is applied a lens-hood to reduce the glare that dazzles and obscures the image, can focus its texts and teachings through the lens of "Does the way I interpret the meaning of this cause me not to love my God and or to love my neighbour as myself". It's the equivalent of putting on a wide-angle converter to see the bigger picture and thereafter a telephoto attachment or telescope to zoom in to the far view.

It's a challenge, and not an easy one.

I hope that others may continue to pose challenges in this thread, possibly from other religions too, and also in other threads of this section of the forum. A cosy, comfortable concensus merely leads to the self-satisfied invention of a god in our image whereas God the Creator is always challenging, always asking us to ask questions. Qui la Cerca la Troba

Best wishes

David P

#1702
Hi!

Two things happened yesterday which crystallised thoughts which have been in solution for some time.

I went to a funeral and the grand-daughter's boyfriend was very newly born again, possibly a trainee priest. He was unable to accept that Christianity and Islam share the same God. He focussed on the mantra: "There is no way other than through me . . . ." and I explained that this was actually in a way a parable and that "through me" could be interpreted as "the way I show" as in "what I teach". He could not see a way in which this could be perceived through the perspective of his being boxed in by the literal authority of the text that brought him comfort through absolute and unquestioning belief. Whilst Deists might believe that we were created by god in His image and Atheists might believe that we descended through a process of wonderously unique evolution, one wonders whether this trainee priest's God was an invention made in his image for his own comfort. Any challenge to such a safety zone becomes a threat to his own persona as a result, and cannot be contemplated.

When happening to be talking to a lady about the root of the Renaissance being the discovery by the Crusaders moving into Toledo in 1180 and discovering that the Arabs had preserved the Greek myths and that they corresponded with the story of Genesis resulting in aspects of the Authorised Version of the bible, the young man challenged me as to whether I should be discussing such heresies in Church. To many, God is an invention of man in man's image for their own comfort.

I explained that all religions say "Follow me, this is the only way", and therefore are mutually exclusive, this exclusivity being an invention of mankind to promote and retain power in appointed lines of men. This process promotes the religion, and arguably is a route to God, but is not an injunction by God himself. He could not understand that there is only one God and that the God of Islam is the God of Christianity, nor could he understand the concept that the seed of God rests in each one of us, leading to the process of finding God through interior meditation.

He was disturbed by the analogy that he had known the lady who had died by way of her daughters but that there were many there who had known her themselves.

We do not take enough notice of the story of Babel. We know that before Babel humankind was united, afterwards being scattered to all parts of the world and having disparate languages.

These languages create great cause for argument - "Our Father which Art in Heaven" is in French "Notre Pere qui est dans le ciel" - which comes back into English "Our Father who is in the Sky". It's not a surprise therefore that Claude Vohrillon Rael wrote a book entitled "Let's welcome our Fathers from Space".

Having come away from Babel with different slices of cake, we are persuaded that our cake is the whole cake. People then argue as to whether strawberry cake is the true cake rather than chocolate or coffee. Personally I prefer a few nuts to make me chew, or even better, Fruit Cake. But in fact the original cake was Vanilla.

The reality is that Christ gave instructions to do two things

  • :Love thy God with all thy heart.
         Of course this causes argument in literality but at a deeper level, it works, and we ignore the spirit of the injunction at our peril. It depends on our perspective and definition of God. To a Big Bang theorist, to anyone who believes that our universe, planet, life and environment were created in some way by an Invisible, All Powerful and Sentient force (All forces are sentient - Newton's law - all force produces an equal and opposite force - so all forces know the nature of opposing forces), then this injunction to love our God translates into loving our environment. To an Atheist who appreciates the uniqueness of our evolution, in effect, the processes or forces of evolution are their god, and we end up simply arguing about the same thing from different sides of the mirror. To love thy God therefore is translated into loving all that surrounds us and in particular all that has arisen out of the process of natural forces.
  • (2) Love thy neighbour as thyself - this equates to the human form of the relationship between masses, which without Gravitation, would otherwise fall apart.
Christ was teaching the fundamental laws of the universe.

God teaches Unity. Man teaches Division - Divide and Rule.

The curse of Babel was to put obstacles in our way to getting too close to Heaven and finding God. Divide them and make them argue was the curse.

So in the interpretation of texts, if we see any reason for division or discord in texts, we should bear in mind that if we see a textual cause to lean to division or discord, either our texts conveyed through the eyes of men and translated through the tongues of men carry the underlying curse of Babel or our interpretation is wrong. The divisions are simply a structure to keep lines of authority in men in power.

Alice Bailey went as a missionary to India. She came to realise that there is no fundamental conflict between Christianity and Buddhism, Buddhism giving us the injunction to exclude "Deceit, Desire and Hate" from one's heart in order to achieve Nirvana, Heaven, Enlightenment. This accords so much with the Christian view of sins which prevent our entry to Heaven.

Many people see the needless arguments between the Factions of God as reason not to believe in God. God tests us as to whether we pay lip-service to the words that come out of mens' lips or whether we obey God's laws of universal harmony in our actions.

So when we read yesterday that Anglicans have allowed women to be Bishops in the Church ministering unto humankind and then we read that the Pope's Church has equated the ordination of Women as being as sinful as Child Abuse, we have to observe an organisation self promoted by men rather than anything to do with God.

Ice Cream is wonderful. Flavour is a luxury and a matter of personal choice. Flavour is wonderful for enabling people to develop a liking for Ice Cream. But Flavour itself is not Ice Cream. And Flavour cannot exist alone without the substrate of Ice Cream to carry it.

Perhaps saying that Fundamentalism is evil is a little strong - Fundamentalists carry the seeds of the teachings of God - but in ignoring the convolution of texts with the parable of Babel, they simply miss the point, simply going into orbit in constant danger of collision with other satellites.

The closing organ voluntary to this lady's funeral was Wachet Auf.

Sleepers, Wake!

Best wishes

David P
#1703
Hi!

For some time I have been considering brain function.

The brain operates upon multidirectional switches called neurons which can fire (turn on) in any of some thousands of directions to connect up with any of the thousands of neighbouring neurons. I believe there are two essential rules:
1. Neurons have a preference to firing in the same directions as they have fired before. (This means that drugs which cause neurons to fire in new and odd ways can do permanent damage)
2. There is a feedback mechanism which registers pleasure/displeasure success/failure

From when we are babies, the brain is blank but by successive experiences of pleasure and displeasure learn good and bad behaviours, habits and knowledge, patterns are built up, the neurons firing in directions that result in pleasurable and successful brain activity transformed into physical actions.

It's therefore essential academically for the brain neurons to be fired up in the most diverse and complex ways to programme flexibility into the brain by the time at which the rate of neurons dying exceeds the rate of creation of new cells in the late teens and early twenties.

From the baby, the pathways of communication through the brain grow as if exploring the rooms within the house, the garden, the local street, the local village, the road to the local town, the route to the Town Hall and the shops and then the motorway to the next city and airports to international places.

These fast express routes become ever more used and trodden pathways within the brain so that when we are used to doing something we can almost do it in our sleep without having to think about it (apply the feedback checking mechanisms along the way). When we lose our memory and go senile, our motorways are so broad and the concrete walls at the side so strong that we find it difficult to find the exits to the motorway, and we know that the routes we need are down below those bridges, under the flyovers that we can't seem to reach anymore.

When we die, our brains shut down. Our knowledge is gone. For some in senility that happens before we die. When we see someone whose brain is not functioning as it was before, are they the same person? What is the person? Where is the soul? Does the soul, does the good person enure beyond the realms of the brain having ceased function? When the brain does not function can we experience the soul?

It's easy to see the brain as a biological computer in the mere mechanics of life. Yet is there something more? Perhaps thought is not limited merely to the brain - there are documented cases of people having been given heart transplants for instance from a musician and then, not having been interested in music before, take an interest and liking to music. In areas of telepathy we see something more, unless our thoughts can simply mechanically interact with matter and other brains. Is prayer a form of telepathy or merely brain training to envisioning something happening so that the neurons are opened up towards that result and open their paths towards it? In the phenonomae of ghosts or provable reincarnation when people recall demonstrable detail of past lives do we experience something more than the biological computer theory of the brain allows?

Best wishes

David P
#1704
Hi!

Thanks for mentioning this - yes - really great inspiration and an interesting combination of two easy to plug in Ahlborn units. It was actually this that was one of the pointers on the path showing me that the enlargement of my concert instrument was feasible - http://www.hammerwood.mistral.co.uk/concerts.htm

It was a brilliantly imaginative project to take an organ to where no organ had ever been before and get it to say "hello" to a new crowd!

Best wishes

David P
#1705
Dear Tony

I quite agree with you! Of course God is more than "nature" in the limited sense of the natural world that we see around us. I was significantly flamed and accused of "ranting" when elsewhere I commented on the way in which one has to understand a composer in order to understand a composition and that therefore a particularly high profile performer well known for being "God-free" was unlikely to be the best interpreter of sacred music. But there is a difference between being godless and Atheist as the godless acknowledge nothing but self-supremacy, whilst many of the Atheist take upon themselves the responsibility which understanding of an evolution into us, through an absolutely unique set of circumstances and chances, brings.

The extent to which one draws a line between an evolution arising out of such unique circumstances and a creation is so very thin that I wonder if people really see how futile it might be to draw the distinction, as perhaps there is none. It therefore becomes unnecessary to rail against God.

I have written elsewhere about God being hidden in the dimensions which we know exist but cannot be seen, perhaps being our descriptions of those dimensions, which we know from the fact of modern mathematics and physics to exist, being our actual description of God. We might call the hidden, unseen and all powerful influences of those dimensions upon our space as the effects of the "Holy Spirit", the "Father" being those forces and laws of which all matter and energy must obey, and the "Son" being the personification of the Father's actions and teaching within the human realm.

I was led into this thread by users of Hauptwerk and a visitor to the EOCS meeting here the other day - it's very clear that atheist organists are a part of the operation of the church. What is interesting is that the organ has clearly got atheists into church! Perhaps they simply don't want to acknowledge the role that God plays in their lives.

Best wishes

David P
#1706
Hi!

I'm coming to find a lot of organists who proclaim themselves atheists. But the funny thing is that a good paid up member of the atheist party is often as good a member of any church as any who proclaim belief in God, in just the same way that Marxism and Nazism meet. Of course this is not comparing beleif in God or anti-belief to either of those man-made systems . . .

But the point is that atheists believing in the uniqueness of the wonder of evolution which has produced us often feel bound by a moral code representing respect for that uniqueness of chance which has resulted in us. Whether created by evolution from nature, or from God, the result is the same. Is God Nature?

Best wishes

David P
#1707
Miscellaneous & Suggestions / Re: Stumbled onto...
June 30, 2010, 02:00:57 AM
Hi Eric!

You know, I'm not sure that I ought not to ask Forum Admin to delete that post - apart from anything else on account of the colour of the stop tabs making me queasy . . .:-\

QuoteAs a traveling performer, I'm unable to have the relationship with site–specific organs that most musicians have with their personal instrument, and from which they and their audiences benefit night after night.

Well actually it's just this that gives me the greatest respect for the greatest of organists. The fact that an organist can arrive at one of the most complex instruments in the world (so says an organist that has played the third largest pipe organ in the world) and achieve a performance of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9usBggyS5Nk
in just a few hours really tests the metal of a performer and demonstrates his world-scale prowess.

The performer you have linked to here would not dare to do that. In seeking to avoid the challenge of adaptation to strange instruments he demeans his rank in player status. Furthermore, the instrument that he's planning on putting on bandwagon would enable the performer to simply mass produce concerts and I'm not sure that this is particularly in the interests of the musical art. Doing so reduces him to being a circus performer. Part of the art of playing is to come to terms with a strange instrument and work with the musicality of that instrument. Audiences often think "What would performer X do with this instrument" and expect the performer to crank up that instrument to roar with joy, often in churches to Praise of God. In the KUSC.org interviews he prides himself as coming from a GodFree background. I postulate that without God in one's life the false God of Mammon can take over.

In making comments upon turning organ performance into a circus act putting display of technique before musicality and calling a spade a spade with regard to the fortune that someone is making by selling a computer as an organ to the value of $1M instead of in any way contributing to the pipe organ building art, I have unashamedly upset members of a forum elsewhere. I have also upset them by pointing out that the repertoire is largely in praise of god and needs to be understood by a performer in that context if the composer's composition is to be in any way authentically performed. I'm sure that I have heard this performer pouring disrespect to such a concept but believe it to be spiritually and musically sound.

I hope that I won't upset anyone here to whom the Organ matters.

The proof of the pudding is in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSf7-4t_SWc which knocks spots off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha3A1JmfBNQ and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEPUY4yOT0s at 3:53
The orchestration of the first grand chord is imaginative, but it's starting to lead merely into synthesiser playing, perhaps like a Wersi electronic, and the grandeur of the real instrument at St Maximin speaks with the authority of its player.

Best wishes

David P

PS The sound of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E46VhBTi5_g epitomises why I have also been known to rail against electric pianos!
#1708
Hi!

It's normally quality rather than quantity that counts . . . but in your posts we're lucky to have both!

Yet another story of a pipe organ displacing an electronic. . . . This is starting to get interesting. I'm not sure how many of these examples are being turned up at the moment but perhaps there should be a new category for such posts . . . !

Best wishes

David P
#1709
Hi!

Thanks for posting this! Does this instrument have some of those Compton "synthetic stops" which are referred to on posts elsewhere? I seem to recall that Percy Vickery on one of the EOCS CDs talks about such stops on Wurlitzers in his introduction to registration and the cinema organ . . .

I hope people are supporting these tea-dances. . . .

Best wishes

David P
#1710
Dear Eric

Once again, thanks for bringing a heads-up on this news from across the water.

Such stories show that the organ can really appeal to younger people without having a performance artist turning the instrument into a circus act.

Unfortunately people who comment about how circus act promotion of the organ might not be the most musical nor appropriate way of bringing the organ into a higher profile nor how six figure sums are proposed to be spent putting a virtual circus show on the road tend to get drummed out of town elsewhere by a bandwagon of "friends" and one is accused of ignoring young talent.

But your newspaper articles show where young talent and musicianship is at its best.

Best wishes

David P
#1711
New Pipe Organs / Re: Replacing an Electronic...
June 29, 2010, 02:13:43 PM
Dear Eric

What an inspirational piece of news! Thanks so much for posting. This is the proof of the pudding that electronics can really generate enough enthusiasm for pipe organs to be built in future to replace them. The electronics have to be bad enough for people to know that pipes are better yet inspirational enough to lead to people understanding that the King of Instruments is really worthy of its name.

Best wishes

David P
#1712
Hi!

In addition, if there is time, I might do some playing with an introduction to French Baroque and French Classical with playing tips and registration.

My organ has goodness knows how many ranks of Trumpets, all with speakers honed to their tonality - even different types on a stereo "pair" to take account of French Baroque voicing and to cope with the Montre also coming through one of those channels - so it's ideal for the Grand Jeu and we also have a Grand Tierce.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2pdYou-Rs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1YcEjz8Xro
(sadly my playing isn't that good . . . )

So if anyone else has party pieces in that genre, Hammerwood's a good place to come to rehearse them before going off to France!

Best wishes

David P
#1713
Organ building and maintenance / Re: Hybrid Organs
June 26, 2010, 10:53:07 AM
Quote from: revtonynewnham on June 26, 2010, 09:34:16 AM
And again, the speakers are going to be an issue - he will need to invest significant funds for that alone.

:-) Give me $100,000 to play with and I'd get an astounding outside rig to play with, and change to spare. That leaves $893,000 to spare . . .

Best wishes

David P
#1714
Hi!

No - the Hammonds did not try to emulate a transient - the contact "click" either being suppressed by viscious treble cutoff or being a "feature". However, later Hammonds with "Percussion" had a quint on percussion which might have been intended as a first step towards simulation.

Best wishes

David P
#1715
Organ building and maintenance / Re: Hybrid Organs
June 24, 2010, 04:11:31 PM
Quote from: revtonynewnham on June 24, 2010, 08:34:19 AMAs with any organ, the quality of the voicing is the ultimate factor - and undoubtedly, synthesis-based systems are far more complicated to voice effectively than the sample-based ones.  I've seen the software for voicing the Bradford organs, and the degree of control - and hence the number of variables - is immense - and among other things, allows adjusting every harmonic against time in the "attack" phase.

I'm not saying that sample-based systems can't produce good results, but I do wonder about taking sounds of pipes recorded in one environment and trying to reproduce them in another.  It's perhaps significant that Copeman-Hart - generally regarded as the Rolls-Royce of digital organs - also use synthesis-based technology.

Dear Tony

This is actually one of the important reasons for the existence of this forum, so that one can voice opinions feely without upsetting controlling vested interests.

On a forum devoted to sampling technology, the concept that speakers with differing idiosyncracies are an important part of voicing is a total anathema. Were there to be speakers without idiosyncracies, then there would be only one type and one manufacturer . . . and it seems pretty obvious to me that such characteristics can detract from, or be used to enhance the result. I think that they think that mentioning such things is a criticism of their technology which in which, of course, all factors are entirely controllable without requiring further control or modification at the electroacoustic stage. Some speakers fight with the fundamental requirements of reproducing organs whilst others work with the characteristic nature of organs to enhance the result.

There are, of course, two purposes for using reproducing technology, one for home practice, transporting one's living environment to a specific organ in its acoustic environment, and the other for being an organ transported as an instrument into an environment in which it performs. These two purposes require different treatments in terms of recording and reproduction, and confusion between the two leads to significant misunderstandings, or perhaps even those manufacturers have an awareness of the inherent problem you point out about transporting the sound of a pipe to sound in a different environment, and don't want attention drawn to it. However, solutions are only found if problems are capable of discussion.

Your comment about being able to control the attack phase of each harmonic is interesting and, potentially relevant. It is the attack that considerably assists the decision making process of the brain in deciding that a sound is real. When one hears gutteral syllables of singers through conventional studio monitors and hi-fi quality PA systems recommended by some manufacturers, one appreciates that such systems are not succeeding in reproducing reality.

It's lucky for the survival of the pipe organ that most manufacturers of electronics think that perfection is in the sophistication of their systems rather than any aspect beyond mere electronic control . . .

Best wishes

David P

#1716
Quote from: revtonynewnham on June 24, 2010, 09:33:39 AM
It's a pity that I can't get to Sussex for the 3rd - but I'll be interested to hear about the results of the various trials, especially as I need to sort out some decent speakers (at minimal cost) for my computer simulator organ.

Dear Tony

We'll be trying various things on the day including some hideously expensive types but for my instrument I use some extremely cheap units which I have now paired up well with some others to emulate the expensive ones.

These are on http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200484424052 and I'll be happy to give you a pair as a present and if you'd like more you're welcome at cost price. They can go into any cabinets for 8 inch units but if you don't mind cutting some thin MDF, I'll give you templates for cutting some enclosures which transform them up a notch and which I make extensive use of on my instrument.

For multi channel one could mount them in long boxes
____________
|  /  \  /  \  /  \  |
^ ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^
one unit per compartment, interconnecting at the back wall with a 1/2 inch gap, each or each pair (if one uses the combination pairs) serving a seperate channel. These could be vertically mounted PA speaker style or mounted on the opposite wall horizontally to give space such as that you experience with the pipe racks above your head.

I'll also be demonstrating a unit using a child's toy . . .

Best wishes

David P
#1717
Hi!

It looks as though two people will be bringing Hauptwerk to the EOCS meeting on 3rd July in Sussex - one with a theatre organ emulation and another a chamber organ. This should put speakers through their paces. 2pm.

Please can you let Don Bray, Southern Region Chairman, know if you would like to come - contact details on http://www.eocs.org.uk/cntctus.html

I'm half a mind to put just a single stereo pair on the roof of the Porte Cochere if it's a fine day and see if, whilst playing Hauptwerk we can achieve any illusion of realism with a feel of an organ above our heads. Of course in mid air, bass will be lacking but it will be an interesting pointer for 8ft and above. Or we could do it on the South Front where the walls of the house will reinforce the sound slightly. However, both of these possibilities will be a little time consuming to set up, so any volunteers will be welcome and it's a long time since I have laid hands on the 2.5mm speaker cables I used to use for such setups. The speakers will not be the Mackies favoured by some manufacturers.

I'll also demonstrate a speaker that I'm working on for Tuba stops.

Other areas of interest are a foot blown pipe organ tuned to Meantone, and pianos tuned to unequal temperament which demonstrate the paucity of standard piano tuning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41xRupc3Hz8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw8FjHvHu30

We might also plug a Hauptwerk machine into a pair of cheap speakers that I use for a couple of channels on "the beast" and, again, see if we have the illusion of a pipe organ on the balcony upstairs. A couple of channels could then feed a couple of esoteric units adjacent and having the opportunity to try various options will be an interesting experiment.

Of course, if anyone wants to grasp the nettle of playing "the beast", it will be available, but it's much more complicated to get to know than a Hauptwerk emulation of a conventional instrument. If anyone is interested in theatre organs, Percy Vickery's analogue instrument will also be available.

Best wishes

David P
#1718
Organ building and maintenance / Re: Hybrid Organs
June 23, 2010, 11:11:24 AM
Quote from: revtonynewnham on June 23, 2010, 09:54:46 AM
However, the sound of this instrument is good enough to demonstrate the superiority of well-voiced synthesis over sample-based digital organ technology - but that's a different issue.

Dear Tony

It would be very interesting to explore that in another thread on the electronics section. Whilst the voices of the Viscount CM100 are VERY useful, I can't say that I'd like a whole organ built upon them.  Sample based - have you auditioned Hauptwerk? Personally I think a mix of techniques is best and then one avoids any signature of any particular one . . . Of course the proprietry manufacturers can't do that as each of them manufactures the best . . .

There's an analogy with the Tower of Babel here which I'll explore in the Atheists' Corner sometime. Can you second guess what I might be thinking of?

Best wishes

David P
#1719
Organ building and maintenance / Re: Hybrid Organs
June 22, 2010, 07:45:26 PM
Hi!

Poor quality - it's likely to be the speakers. The problem is that people think that "hi-fi" speakers should be used and at best then the organ sounds no better than an organ reproduced through a hi-fi system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_eJ60PmtM  and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nrvPmirH7c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W2QdAOwhjY are fair examples in standard style whilst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2pdYou-Rs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1YcEjz8Xro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7onQgsLU9c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cL8QDLv8vM
demonstrate a little of what I can do with the right speakers to "create" an instrument.

It stands next to a pipe organ with which I compare it with vicious criticality.

Concepts of hi-fi speakers and their suitability for organs are so very ingrained that many electronic organs suffer and hybrid organs will be poor as a result.

I'm aware that one maker of electronic organ signal sources recommends speakers such as:
http://www.mackie.com/products/hrmk2series/downloads/HR824MK2_Specs.pdf and such speakers, for hi-fi PA might be superb but they will most definitely not enable an instrument to sound better than a mere hi-fi system.

Thank goodness! Pipe organs benefit as a result, although bad electronics can turn people off the instrument as an instrument altogether. For this reason, electronics should be good, and the pipe organ should be competing against electronics on grounds of longevity, better investment strategy, and, however good the electronics are, pipe organs should win in being more "alive". From my observations, foundation stops of pipe organs are more alive than whatever electronics can muster, and Trompettes and Bombardes too. Perhaps higher aliquots and other exotic tone colours might add interest to an instrument electronically, but it's a bridge that should be crossed only with caution. . .

I advised on a large electronic organ project in the USA and the maker wrote: "I've recently had some deeply held preconceived notions challenged by another member of the Crumhorn Labs forum. He suggested a different set of drivers that would outperform the ones I've been using. Despite my skepticism, I researched the issue at length and . . . In a word, I'm impressed."

So it really is very much down to the speakers . . .

Best wishes

David P
#1720
Quote from: Barrie Davis on June 21, 2010, 09:39:48 AMI do have to say that the electronic that replaced this fine organ is like a damp squid.

Hi!

So often electronics fail on the standard of their speakers.

I got into hot water in recent days for venturing to say on an electronics related forum that special attention should always be given to speakers and that hi-fi speakers simply made an electronic organ at best sound like a hi-fi recording and that one needed to pay acoustic attention to the nature of the electroacoustic interface in order to make the speaker sound like a pipe . . .

The hi-fi people there could not bear their assumptions of perfection to be challenged. Thank goodness for that - electronics are to continue to sound only as good as hi-fi reproductions and pipe organ builders are assured business for at least the time being!

Back to topic . . .
QuoteI've heard that some restorers have come unstuck on this by assuming that unused relay banks for mixtures should have been connected and were overlooked(!) - and have hence changed the sound of Compton's harmonic mixtures.

So many organs have lost their character by people confusing mixtures and harmonics - the removal of Harrison flat 21sts - the Septieme, 7th harmonic from harmonics can seriously take away the bite of the reed with which it's intended to be used.

Best wishes

David P