Organ matters - Organs matter!

Hi,
I don't know anything about the situation at Cranleigh, but it would be nice if the Organ could be recorded before any changes to the temperament and then at least there would be a record of how it sounds.
that raises the question, are there any existing recordings of the organ ?

regards Peter B

Hi,
firstly many thanks to Matthew Copely for giving a very interesting talk, and also to Surrey organists Association for letting some visitors attend.
Also this is the first Pipe organ I have seen with Perspex Swell Shutters !

regards Peter B

Hi,
this seems most interesting.
a link to the Surrey Organists association is
<http://www.surreyorganistsassociation.org/events.html>


regards Peter B

Hi,
I think the Organ recital  was at previous event, possibly in the Usa ?
this year there was a banquet at the Musical museum in Kew,
[ which I didn't get to unfortunately ].
I hope to make a second visit to the Musical Museum sometime, when I went before they had only just moved in the their new building.
A later AES lecture in London [ in July ] is entitled " Who decided that RT >1.5 sec is best for good choral tone?  by William McVicker"
if you can't get to the meeting I think some of the meetings may be available as a recording from the AES website.

regards Peter B

Hi,
the next AES meeting is on Tuesday the 12th July.
Who decided that RT >1.5 sec is best for good choral tone?
copy of the details
"William McVicker, organ curator at the Royal Festival Hall and an organ consultant, will provide an overview of the relationship between the acoustician and the architect, with special reference to the Royal Festival Hall.

The question of room acoustics and music will be explored, along with the ways in which our appreciation and understanding of live music has changed, as have the views of architects and acousticians."

just to clarify,
you don't need to be a member to attend the lectures and they do provide tea, coffee and biscuits before the event.


" London lectures are held at The Royal Academy of Engineering, 3 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5DG, just off Pall Mall. Meetings start at 7.00pm with refreshments from 6.30pm."

regards Peter B

Hi,
wasn't there a section in the Dom Bedos book where he described the barrel [ with pins ] and also has the music notated that relates to the Barrel.
this means that I think someone has been able to recreate what the original music was, and how it was intended to be played.
But I can't find the references to this online.

regards Peter B

Hi,
when I joined up to an email list for Hammond Organs they asked a lot of questions that were quite obscure before you could join.
regards Peter B

P.s I think the question below is a good one .....
but may assume that imperial measurements are used !
are metric measurements ever used on organs stops ?

Quote from: Voix Cynique on May 30, 2011, 01:23:41 AM
Like, as bottom C of a manual unison rank of open pipes is eight feet long, then what length of pipe would be required to sound a major third relative to middle C?

Hi,
many thanks for explaining what HR means !
regards Peter B

Quote from: Barry Williams on May 29, 2011, 11:23:01 PM
That sounds about right.  HR was certainly Hand Registration.

Barry Williams

Hi,
sorry for a question that may seem to have a straightforward reply.
I'm working on the insides of a really old analogue  Johannus Organ [ it is a long story ].
anyway it seems to have had a set of general pistons marked
PP P MF F FF T   , TA and HR
the first set of six pistons I can work out, but I'm wondering if the Ta piston might be a "reeds silent" piston ?  the Hr   switch seems to switch between the Normal stops and the preset combinations. does that seem reasonable ?

regards Peter B

Quote from: Voix Cynique on May 29, 2011, 09:08:27 PM
So if it can be restored, WHY AREN'T TCWS GIVING THAT DAMNED TOASTER ITS MARCHING ORDERS?

Hi,
that is a very good question and what I thought when I read this.
I'm guessing that there must be some politics involved ?

regards Peter

Hi,
I just saw some parts from a Robert Morton theatre organ on ebay in the Usa.
from the description " It would Swell as a Morton replacement. Very Positif about this. "
so I guess they have a sense of humour !
ebay Item number: 160590884002
but I wonder if they are being a bit optimistic about the price ?

regards Peter B

Hi,
well other people may disagree but I think BOTH Pipe Organs and Electronic Organs are difficult to play !
regards Peter B

Quote from: Jonathan Lane on May 18, 2011, 02:06:17 PMThe other option is that the current music staff are not organists and have been told an electronic is easier to play!

Jonathan

Hi,
I checked and Canford audio do have several different Cd s with test tones on.
I think that Audacity can record and play back at the same time if the sound card on your computer will support that. But I would probably use a test cd and then record the results using Audacity and then try to analyse them.
I think I have the test Cd that was made by Alan Parsons, [ bought at one of the trade shows in the 1990's and I think Alan Parsons himself may have been on the stand ! ].
this seems to be the one that is also available with the audio analyser as an option.
see
<http://www.canford.co.uk/Products/25-245_SOUNDCHECK-2-TEST-AND-DEMONSTRATION-CD-Alan-Parsons-with-SPL-meter-spectrum-analyser>

regards Peter B

Hi,
I'm sure there are other solutions but I wonder if anyone has used the program Audacity to play back a swept tone and then record the results back from the room ?
Audacity is a sound editing program but if you have a wav [ or mp3 ] file of a swept tone then it should be able to play this back.
of course you might be able to use a Cd player and play back a test track from a CD.
then record the results on a stand alone recorder
there seems to be more info at http://www.acousticsciences.com/matt.htm

looking forward to other replies

regards Peter B

Hi,
just noticed that there are a couple of sets of Organ pipes on ebay.
Item number: 330557477262
330557480130
330557483617
gedact, claribel flute and swell bourdon
collection only from NG15 area [ Nottingham ]

regards Peter B

Hi,
I always thought that the reason a horn was used for recordings was that it was needed to amplify the sound [ in an acoustic manner ] as the recording process was not that sensitive.
the introduction of electric recording techniques improved the quality of recordings no end.
[ I mean sensitivity and frequency response ].
I think I saw an Aes article where someone has analysed the early recording equipment ?

regards Peter B

Quote from: David Pinnegar on April 29, 2011, 12:36:43 AM
Hi!


I have been looking at horn physics and am intrigued by the shape of the wavefront emerging from a horn of different shapes. The one rule of horns is that the wavefront is normal to the surface of the horn - so whether conical, exponential or tractrix, all produce a spherical wavefront of a different radius of apparent source . . .

What is interesting in the original Edison acoustic gramophone recording concept is that a horn, on the basis of a spherically emerging wave seems excellent at emitting sound, but I'm not at all sure of the function of a horn in the process of receiving sound, which will be either planar wavefronts or inverse spheres. What is happening? Is the function of a horn better analysed in terms of angular reflecting surfaces?

Best wishes

David P

Hi,
but you do need to be careful as on some types of power amp the control on the actual power board will be a bias adjustment.
if this is adjusted wrongly then this can cause the amp to be damaged. [ and maybe go bang ].
it would certainly be worth trying to get hold of the info from Makin.


regards Peter B

Quote from: David Pinnegar on April 28, 2011, 03:26:47 PM
Hi!

If not a master external control there should be internal potentiometers inside which should be fairly obvious. Output amplifiers can usually be spotted very easily by the presence of heatsinks on output transistors or power amp ICs although certainly Johannus based power amp boards work in Class B very efficiently without the output transistors needing gross heatsinks.

Volume controls will certainly be near the power amps.

Best wishes

David P

Quote from: Barry Williams on April 27, 2011, 10:55:31 PM
It is probably best turned down to nil!

Barry Williams

Hi, that comment did make me laugh ! But that isn't meant to be a negative comment about Makin organs. I haven't seem a Makin organ so I can't comment on how to adjust the Volume or their quality.
is it the whole volume level that you want to change or the volume of say just the swell manual ?

I think that it also depends where the speakers for the Organ are placed.
in the early 1990's I saw one setup [ not in a Church ] where the speakers were very close to the Organ and this meant that when the Organ was loud enough for the people singing it was painfully loud for the organist.......
after moving the speakers things were much better !

regards Peter B

Hi,
and they happen to be nearby to me !
I would certainly recommend them. [ but I may not be the most impartial person to comment about them ]
also I would recommend
http://www.dalbani.co.uk/

Nikko Electronics   also in Surrey

regards Peter B

Hi,
that is a good question. As mentioned there are now stand alone recording units made by several manufacturers [ including Zoom and Roland ].
you need to look at the features / cost carefully as if you want to connect external mics  if the mics have xlr connectors you need a recorder with xlr sockets or would need you to use a small external mixer to do the same thing. But of course if you are starting out you may want to start by trying recording using the internal mics first.
most seem to allow you to play back the recordings on headphones and then you can transfer the recordings to a computer at a later date and save onto a cd should you want to.

regards Peter B