Organ matters - Organs matter!

Acoustics => Building and Room Acoustics => Topic started by: KB7DQH on May 18, 2010, 12:09:20 PM

Title: I guess I'll "fire the first round"
Post by: KB7DQH on May 18, 2010, 12:09:20 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWnzzCCt3Os (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWnzzCCt3Os) andhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDlVGMESy3Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDlVGMESy3Y) are two different versions of the same music played on two different organs but in a similar, dry acoustic.
So for the "cd" version the recording was "wetted" with reverb to make the "room sound bigger".

This certainly demonstrates what can happen with doing ( or overdoing?) the reverb...

My personal opinion is the added reverb didn't tail as naturally as a well-built large acoustic structure, like a concert hall.  But it did, I think, simulate perfectly  the effect of slamming up concrete walls in a small room... that is, the sound has "no place to go" so it just rattles around and annoyingly mushes the notes together.   

Too much reverb in a space is relatively easy to remove by hanging tapestries at intervals throughout the space... A very artistic method... and one used by a local university in their concert hall (equipped with a wonderful pipe organ) to adjust the acoustic of the room.

The public high school I attended has a real theater, equipped with a fiberglass acoustical shell
which can be erected to keep the sound of an orchestra or other musical act playing on stage
focused into the auditorium rather than allowing it to get lost in the flyloft.   This device does, however, require a few hours to assemble or disassemble.  But it does effectively move the sound
out into the space where it is meant to be heard.

Although "state-of the art" for 1981 when it was designed, its "electrical-acoustical-unit" sound reinforcement was, and I imagine still is, effective in enhancing the acoustics of the place when used appropriately.  It included a Lexicon digital reverb unit which could be adjusted a number of different ways and could take a sound picked up by a stage microphone (or electronic reproduction equipment)  and could "hold" it for seventy seconds!

Last week I heard a small organ in a small, acoustically "neutral" space-- It sounded much "bigger"
than I imagined it ever could have...  Yes, carpeted floor! But this was coupled with an extremely reflective "vaulted" ceiling... and unpadded,   hardwood pews.  One could speak without amplification and be clearly heard throughout the space... I am guessing 30 meters long by 10 meters wide or thereabouts.

So there you go...

Eric