The archetypical Keyboard

[Theo Verelst]

Sometimes it's fun to go waaaaayyy back to think about how all the keyboard related madness actually came to be in the Western world, and nothing says "keyboard" in a more profound, original and weighty way than a well arranged pip-organ!

 

Late in my teens I've played (electronic) organ in a churchy/gospel setting, and as a kid I went to the reformed church, which in the 70s of course had a pipe organ, so it's a bit deja vu for me, and probably a lot of other folks when I look at something like this:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Mr. Garthore I think is a very good organ player (I"ve looked at a mumber (though certainly not all) of his videos, and in this video he touches on something I happen to find interesting already for a long time. How does the keyboard (keyboards and pedal) of a physical pipe organ (i.e. no electronic simulation) "respond" as a consequence of the technique used to carry the keyboard signals to the pipe actuators. In the case of the above organ: there appears to be a completely mechanical connection from the keys (I suppose rods) to the pipes. I have the feeling that such a type of (recently built) organ plays the best and most varied, because there are no timing issues or indirection effects messing with the organist's tactile feelings.

 

Great sound, though it requires strong, wide frequency range playback equipment to get all this.

 

T.V.

 

[Gretel]

ThatËs a a good video. I really enjoy listening to pipe organ music, and the introduction of the different stops to the listener and the general layout of the organ was quite interesting.

[Tom Williams]

Tracker organs -- fully mechanical, nothing electric except for the air supply -- are fascinating stuff. They were literally the most complex thing built by humans until the 20th century. Regarding timing issues, the biggest problem is that lower pitched pipes tend to take more time to speak -- to start making sound. A 32' flute stop might take 100 ms to speak, and if it's 30 meters from the player (or choir) there's another 100 ms delay. The most skilled organists actually compensate for this by "striking" keys or pedals a little early.

[mate stubb]

For a small organ, a tracker action can't be beat. Once you start trying to play a lot of stops at once, or couple to another keyboard, the tracker action can get very heavy.

[Theo Verelst]

All those relays, pneumatics or even midi connections can't be good for the sound coming out right. Like a good player on a piano, the physically "neutral" connection, and the feeding of the reverberation without artificial amplification and it's quirks can give good harmonic and rhythmic natural sound that can act well as a benchmark for other principals.

 

For instance what about equal loudness curve musical references, maximum mid-frequency sound pressure level humanness in the sound. Once the air compressor (s) created potential acoustic power hits those pipes, there at least is nothing digital or electronic to mess up the audio waves, so all (psycho) acoustic perceptions are not the result of signal processing features!

 

On the other hand at the moment you play back a digital recording of all those wonderful omni directional and potentially binaurally pleasing sound waves on a standard Digital to Analog Converter, things start to deteriorate easily, and scientifically souns methods to maybe prevent this are hard. Also, hearing back those wonderful 16'/32' stop pipes properly will require power and size in your studio or home theatre amps and speakers, while a normal HiFi system might well blow up some components if you try to replicate that whole power pipe organ sound at full blast. Luckily for me my audio monitoring system thus far is cool and accomodating what I wanted, so there can be some attention for the music.

 

Maybe I'll do an inspired video with a corrected Kurzeil organ sound, monitored on the same audio system, which honesly can match some the majesty of the real deal, so some of you guys might want to play with the patch download to try it out for yourselves.

 

TV

 

[Synthoid]

A pipe organ with a sequencer?

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-76joREEUwIY/UDeYrXwHMpI/AAAAAAAATqQ/Wz8s84KbU1E/s640/funny-animal-pictures-of-the-week-018-036.jpg

 

 

[PianoMan51]

There"s a section in the middle where his improvisation (I7 VI ii V) repeated many times, leaves me waiting for the last 4 bars of St Thomas.

[stoken6]

Sometimes it's fun to go waaaaayyy back to think about how all the keyboard related madness actually came to be in the Western world, and nothing says "keyboard" in a more profound, original and weighty way than a well arranged pip-organ!

Hey everybody, a Theo thread that isn't about the limitations of digital processing.

 

All those relays, pneumatics or even midi connections can't be good for the sound coming out right. Like a good player on a piano, the physically "neutral" connection, and the feeding of the reverberation without artificial amplification and it's quirks can give good harmonic and rhythmic natural sound that can act well as a benchmark for other principals.

 

For instance what about equal loudness curve musical references, maximum mid-frequency sound pressure level humanness in the sound. Once the air compressor (s) created potential acoustic power hits those pipes, there at least is nothing digital or electronic to mess up the audio waves, so all (psycho) acoustic perceptions are not the result of signal processing features!

 

On the other hand at the moment you play back a digital recording of all those wonderful omni directional and potentially binaurally pleasing sound waves on a standard Digital to Analog Converter, things start to deteriorate easily, and scientifically souns methods to maybe prevent this are hard. Also, hearing back those wonderful 16'/32' stop pipes properly will require power and size in your studio or home theatre amps and speakers, while a normal HiFi system might well blow up some components if you try to replicate that whole power pipe organ sound at full blast.

My mistake.

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

[RandyFF]

Interesting point about natural sound sources, and with a piano for example, the way the sound is created makes for a beautiful sound. But a pipe organ? I've heard various pipe organs, and no matter how good, more often than not the sound is awash with reverb 'cause of the room. But yeah, I haven't heard a really good pipe organ in a room that didn't wash out with reverb, I imagine at full volume it'd be quite magnificent.

[Tom Williams]

Interesting point about natural sound sources, and with a piano for example, the way the sound is created makes for a beautiful sound. But a pipe organ? I've heard various pipe organs, and no matter how good, more often than not the sound is awash with reverb 'cause of the room. But yeah, I haven't heard a really good pipe organ in a room that didn't wash out with reverb, I imagine at full volume it'd be quite magnificent.

Ah, but the builders actually take the room into account when voicing the organ. Believe it or not, that's the intended sound, reverb and all.

 

[Nathanael_I]

As far as a pipe organ with a sequencer, absolutely! A composer in Hollywood brought a Wurlitzer pipe theater organ back to better than new condition, and has wired it up for full console + MIDI, and he regularly uses it to thicken scores. Here's one report.

[JoeToGo]

A good Wurlitzer pipe organ is hard to beat. Used to go see silent movies in a theater, and even the variety of a small orchestra wasn't as awesome as Dennis James at the mighty Wurlitzer.

[RandyFF]

Interesting point about natural sound sources, and with a piano for example, the way the sound is created makes for a beautiful sound. But a pipe organ? I've heard various pipe organs, and no matter how good, more often than not the sound is awash with reverb 'cause of the room. But yeah, I haven't heard a really good pipe organ in a room that didn't wash out with reverb, I imagine at full volume it'd be quite magnificent.

Ah, but the builders actually take the room into account when voicing the organ. Believe it or not, that's the intended sound, reverb and all.

OK, but only to a point. For example, in a gym the sound is super washed out, not much you can do to fix that. In a super tall and wide church with almost all hard surfaces, the echo can be overwhelming. Perhaps they try to compensate for that, but I'd be curious to know what organ design helps to achieve a desired sound. And no, I don't believe it, when the sound has so much room reverb and the notes are hopelessly overlapping, that is not a intended sound. A bit of that is effective for achieving a God-like spacious sound, but at some point it's just too much.

[Synthoid]

As far as a pipe organ with a sequencer, absolutely!

 

First I ever heard of one... rather unique.