The Organ, Master of them all - general organ thread

[bioluminescentsquid]

How do we make of this Tunder? Played on the Lubeck Jakobi organ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gymz1l7q_-4

[prémont]

How do we make of this Tunder? Played on the Lubeck Jakobi organ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gymz1l7q_-4

Video unavailable, at least to me. Who is playing?

[Elk]

Johannes Unger. The link worked for me. Nice playing of music I've never heard.

Mandryka, did adjusting the volume level on your subs solve the bass problem on the Nordstoga Leipzig Chorales?

[prémont]

Johannes Unger. The link worked for me. Nice playing of music I've never heard.

Mandryka, did adjusting the volume level on your subs solve the bass problem on the Nordstoga Leipzig Chorales?

He (Johannes Unger) is the present organist in Marienkirche, Lübeck.

Strange, that the link doesn't work for me.

[Mandryka]

Mandryka, did adjusting the volume level on your subs solve the bass problem on the Nordstoga Leipzig Chorales?

Not totally satisfactorily.

I've heard four other recordings on the Waltershausen Trost - Bonegas (Leipzig Chorales), Sluys (Bohm), Messori (parts of CU3) and Kay Johanssen (Neumeister Chorales). They are all much better sounding than Weinberger playing the Leipzig Chorales. I can't say if the problem is my system, my ears, the record engineering or Weinberger's performance. For all I know, the Weinberger recording may be more truthful.

I have just ordered a "new" amp which his come recommended for driving subs. Apparently you need a lot of power (surprisingly for me) and this very powerful studio amp is highly regarded for its bass. I put new in inverted commas because it is very much in my style of "classic" equipment - this



A Crown/Amcron DC300a

If it arrives (and the vendor is showing some unusual behaviour, so I'm not 100% confident it will arrive) then I'll let you know if things change for the Weinberger.

Mutatis mutandis for Nordstoga's Leipzig Chorales.

[prémont]

I've heard four other recordings on the Waltershausen Trost - Bonegas (Leipzig Chorales), Sluys (Bohm), Messori (parts of CU3) and Kay Johanssen (Neumeister Chorales). They are all much better sounding than Weinberger playing the Leipzig Chorales. I can't say if the problem is my system, my ears, the record engineering or Weinberger's performance. For all I know, the Weinberger recording may be more truthful.

Truthfulness is a relative concept in the recording of organs, because the sound may change considerably if one changes the listening/recording position in the church. For that reason the Weinberger may be as truthful as the others you mention. You have to be in the church and listen from different positions to judge.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Truthfulness is a relative concept in the recording of organs, because the sound may change considerably if one changes the listening/recording position in the church. For that reason the Weinberger may be as truthful as the others you mention. You have to be in the church and listen from different positions to judge.

Is there any (near) agreement as to where the best place in the church is? I suspect a center-rear position, and that the performer's location is not a good location for auditing. Just guessing.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Not totally satisfactorily.

I've heard four other recordings on the Waltershausen Trost - Bonegas (Leipzig Chorales), Sluys (Bohm), Messori (parts of CU3) and Kay Johanssen (Neumeister Chorales). They are all much better sounding than Weinberger playing the Leipzig Chorales. I can't say if the problem is my system, my ears, the record engineering or Weinberger's performance. For all I know, the Weinberger recording may be more truthful.

I have just ordered a "new" amp which his come recommended for driving subs. Apparently you need a lot of power (surprisingly for me) and this very powerful studio amp is highly regarded for its bass. I put new in inverted commas because it is very much in my style of "classic" equipment - this



A Crown/Amcron DC300a

If it arrives (and the vendor is showing some unusual behaviour, so I'm not 100% confident it will arrive) then I'll let you know if things change for the Weinberger.

Mutatis mutandis for Nordstoga's Leipzig Chorales.

I am looking forward to reading your amp report.

[Mandryka]

Cyril Pallaud's Muffat's is like no one else's Muffat. He likes quiet and colourful registrations, and plays rather slowly, the result is that large sections of toccatas sound what I think of as "impressionist" - this, combined with a somewhat distant recording, can make the music difficult to hear analytically. To take one example, the opening section of toccata 3 is an extraordinary - hushed, there's clearly a lot of music going on in the low registers but it's more suggested than confidently declaimed.


For recordings with complete  toccatas or large selections  I have access to

Kelemen
Gottsche
Saorgin
Hasselböck
Pallaud
Ullman
Hester
Tüma
Radulescu


Is there anything else I should hear?

[prémont]

Is there any (near) agreement as to where the best place in the church is? I suspect a center-rear position, and that the performer's location is not a good location for auditing. Just guessing.

No, not really. Organs and churches (and taste) differ too much. I prefer to sit relatively close to the organ in order to hear the details. 

[Mandryka]

Presumably when your playing a big organ in a big church, you have to be playing for a particular spot in the audience. What I mean is, the acoustics at audience level must be a factor which determines your articulation, relative timing of the voices (the lower voices reaching the audience after the higher ones - a phenomenon I've had to adjust for when setting up the subwoofers!), tempo  and registrations.

[Elk]

So much to respond to.

Recordings of the organ vary greatly. First of all is the church. As you are all aware, the smaller the church the less the reverberation. As a listener in the church, the further back from the organ you are the 'wetter' the sound, the more reverberent. Most recording engineers would choose to record an organ fairly close to it, the mic on a tall stand. (I recently attended 2 concerts at the same church, the first in honour of the organ builder, who was in the audience. The organ didn't sound particularly good from my 2nd pew. At the second concert, I sat where the organ builder had sat at the first concert--- what an improvement! It was about a third back along the far wall from the organ. I figured he knew best, maybe even using that spot to voice the organ when it was being built.) I like walking around a church while tunes are played looking for the sweet spot.

Microphone frequency responses are also a major factor in the recording of big pipes. Many have a response slowly rolling off bass which is rather unrealistic on playback, the use of which may be intentional since very few playback systems have response low enough to do them justice and may cause those systems serious grief in the form of distortion (wildly flapping cone to no purpose). In the vinyl age, deep bass reproduction was very difficult to lay down and play back. I have recordings with 15 minute sides because of the effort to cut 32' pipes onto the disc. That in itself is a problem. A cartridge that ca remain in the groove while being asked to track such excursions is another.

Forgive me for adding a note for Mandryka from the thread on Bach on the Organ, I mentioned some cancellation of bass notes because the Gradient subs are dipole, meaning that they produce sound both in front and behind them. You said you use bass traps 1 m behind them. I'm sure they help. However, my point may have been missed. Bass fires omnidirectionlly. Therefore, the output of the rear wave from the subs will cancel some from the front when they are out of phase.

[Mandryka]

So much to respond to.

Recordings of the organ vary greatly. First of all is the church. As you are all aware, the smaller the church the less the reverberation. As a listener in the church, the further back from the organ you are the 'wetter' the sound, the more reverberent. Most recording engineers would choose to record an organ fairly close to it, the mic on a tall stand. (I recently attended 2 concerts at the same church, the first in honour of the organ builder, who was in the audience. The organ didn't sound particularly good from my 2nd pew. At the second concert, I sat where the organ builder had sat at the first concert--- what an improvement! It was about a third back along the far wall from the organ. I figured he knew best, maybe even using that spot to voice the organ when it was being built.) I like walking around a church while tunes are played looking for the sweet spot.

Microphone frequency responses are also a major factor in the recording of big pipes. Many have a response slowly rolling off bass which is rather unrealistic on playback, the use of which may be intentional since very few playback systems have response low enough to do them justice and may cause those systems serious grief in the form of distortion (wildly flapping cone to no purpose). In the vinyl age, deep bass reproduction was very difficult to lay down and play back. I have recordings with 15 minute sides because of the effort to cut 32' pipes onto the disc. That in itself is a problem. A cartridge that ca remain in the groove while being asked to track such excursions is another.

Forgive me for adding a note for Mandryka from the thread on Bach on the Organ, I mentioned some cancellation of bass notes because the Gradient subs are dipole, meaning that they produce sound both in front and behind them. You said you use bass traps 1 m behind them. I'm sure they help. However, my point may have been missed. Bass fires omnidirectionlly. Therefore, the output of the rear wave from the subs will cancel some from the front when they are out of phase.

Someone has put me on to a man who does audio room consultancy, if he's not too expensive I may ask him to come and take measurements of my room and advise me about treatment. Unfortunately, as I suspected, the Crown amp purchase is off! So I'm in the market again for a really good sub amplifier - given my system and interest (like, I'm not interested in playing reggae outside!)

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Cyril Pallaud's Muffat's is like no one else's Muffat. He likes quiet and colourful registrations, and plays rather slowly, the result is that large sections of toccatas sound what I think of as "impressionist" - this, combined with a somewhat distant recording, can make the music difficult to hear analytically. To take one example, the opening section of toccata 3 is an extraordinary - hushed, there's clearly a lot of music going on in the low registers but it's more suggested than confidently declaimed.


For recordings with complete  toccatas or large selections  I have access to

Kelemen
Gottsche
Saorgin
Hasselböck
Pallaud
Ullman
Hester
Tüma
Radulescu


Is there anything else I should hear?

Falcioni and Forni. I haven't listened the Forni disc though. What do you think about Kelemen and Haselbock recordings?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

So much to respond to.

Recordings of the organ vary greatly. First of all is the church. As you are all aware, the smaller the church the less the reverberation. As a listener in the church, the further back from the organ you are the 'wetter' the sound, the more reverberent. Most recording engineers would choose to record an organ fairly close to it, the mic on a tall stand. (I recently attended 2 concerts at the same church, the first in honour of the organ builder, who was in the audience. The organ didn't sound particularly good from my 2nd pew. At the second concert, I sat where the organ builder had sat at the first concert--- what an improvement! It was about a third back along the far wall from the organ. I figured he knew best, maybe even using that spot to voice the organ when it was being built.) I like walking around a church while tunes are played looking for the sweet spot.

Microphone frequency responses are also a major factor in the recording of big pipes. Many have a response slowly rolling off bass which is rather unrealistic on playback, the use of which may be intentional since very few playback systems have response low enough to do them justice and may cause those systems serious grief in the form of distortion (wildly flapping cone to no purpose). In the vinyl age, deep bass reproduction was very difficult to lay down and play back. I have recordings with 15 minute sides because of the effort to cut 32' pipes onto the disc. That in itself is a problem. A cartridge that ca remain in the groove while being asked to track such excursions is another.

Forgive me for adding a note for Mandryka from the thread on Bach on the Organ, I mentioned some cancellation of bass notes because the Gradient subs are dipole, meaning that they produce sound both in front and behind them. You said you use bass traps 1 m behind them. I'm sure they help. However, my point may have been missed. Bass fires omnidirectionlly. Therefore, the output of the rear wave from the subs will cancel some from the front when they are out of phase.

Insightful. Thanks.

[Mandryka]

Falcioni and Forni. I haven't listened the Forni disc though. What do you think about Kelemen and Haselbock recordings?

It's a while since I've heard Kelemen, I like Hasselböck, I'd forgotten about Falcioni, he's not on Qobuz (but he is on Spotify). If you can find a link to Forni, that would be good. I also forgot Martin Gester.

[Elk]

Digital Sound Processing (DSP) like the Anthem Room Correction (ARC) is probably the easiest solution and may obviate the need to replace your current amps. Another solution, though not as refined, rather amusing when you picture it, is to place your sub in your listening chair and do a crawl around the periphery of the room listening for the evenest bass . It works for finding a sub's optimum spot.

[Mandryka]

Yes I've heard that trick, and I've seen it done with single sealed subs, but the gradients are designed to act as stands for the ESLs!

I would very much like to get miniDSP to explore, both as a crossover and as a room correction. If you know any idiot's guide for using it, please say.

I haven't heard of Anthem Room Correction before but I will look into it. At first glance it's not quad friendly.

[prémont]

For recordings with complete  toccatas or large selections  I have access to

Kelemen
Gottsche
Saorgin
Hasselböck
Pallaud
Ullman
Hester
Tüma
Radulescu


Is there anything else I should hear?

Yes, Falcioni and maybe Tobias Lindner and Hans Christoph Becker-Foss.

My favorite remains Göttsche.

[Mandryka]

Your transfer of the Göttsche is really very successful. He is probably my favourite of the brightly lit ones, but there's something dusky about Pallaud which is interesting, and I like the tempos,  even if he hardly does justice to the counterpoint, and Pallaud's organ is characterful. Shame Göttsche didn't record all 12.