Bells And Whistles On Toast

[Guest spottedmetal]

Referring to Spotted Metal's comments about certain Allen organs, I hope that the Allen currently used by Carlo Curley is worth listening to, and would be appreciated by the audience.

I haven't heard Carlo's - but the one at a local school sounds roars like a jet engine overhead and my middle son complained of an inadequate squeaky vegetarian thing - well certainly not voiced for the building - when an Allen substituted for when his school chapel organ failed recently. However, it should be said that the organist preferred the Allen on account of it "having a decent stoplist", even if ex-choristers did not.

Leaving aside the action points for the moment, any reasonably competent organ builder is going to spend a great deal of time firstly designiong a coherent spec, and then voicing and finishing the organ in situ to suit the building. This represents an enormous amount of time and skill, and rarely, if ever, is matched by electronic organ builders. . . . I know that some (electronic) firms offer voicing on site

The voicing of digital organs by installation engineers is often no more than the twiddling of a few knobs - relative volume, treble, bass, and if you are lucky "scaling" which means enhancing or taming the top and bottom octaves. The real voicers tended to be stuck back in in the factory. (Apologies here to one digital voicer on this forum who is to be very highly respected - but the generalisation came out a of a discussion with a pipe-organ builder who was being tempted to go over to the other side. The gentlemen wearing two horns were blatantly inviting him over for the easy life, including the joys of commission on every sale. When one sees companies proudly boasting that their speakers have replaced the pipes in the organ cases, never to be seen, let alone heard again, one might justifiably view the "arts" of such installations with the greatest of cynicism! )

Add to this the unavoidable harmonic distortion introduced by feeding too many notes through one loudspeaker, and the results are going to be inferior whatever you do.

Yes - quite - the beat frequencies generated by a mixture or chord through a speaker are much more prominent than those of a pipe organ at the same distance, often with pipes only heard in the organ chamber or at the console if near enough.

Surely the way forward is to build organs with much better speaker systems, that is to say, with multiple speakers not only per department but perhaps per note name...all Cs to one speaker, all c# to the next and so forth....expensive, but not approaching pipes although you may end up with up to 24 speakers per division......and then creating, not sampling, sounds which are manipulated in the building concerned to produce the desired results.

Whilst I try to insert humour in my posts I wasn't joking in referring to the pipe organ builder who played with such an electronic creation with a separate speaker to each note. It still wasn't good enough.

As for reliability in the electronic sense, why then, the answer is surely to use a PC, just as Hauptwerk does, and also Colin Pykett's excellent Prog-Organ. I understand that many people would be concerned about reliability with a PC, but hey, that's an approach to the matter that belongs in another age.

 

Having maintained and repaired computer systems since DOS and the 086 processor, Window 1 and the original Mac Plus running OX1, I'm not at all sure of this. An architectural student who worked on CAD for me in the early days told me that computers were magic, no longer logic. It took me a while to accept his wisdom, but now having become exasperated by a Linux webserver doing odd things for no apparent reason, I have come to agree with him totally. . . .

 

just copy all the programming onto a second computer. If the first fails, then just undo a few cables and use the second, while you have the frirst sorted out, or better yet, replaced...

If only life was quite that simple. The reality is that technological advancement will outstrip the hardware and software before you can sneeze, leaving one high and dry a few years down the line. 10 years from now, the computers we use now will be unrecognisable. Procedures involved in commissioning hard discs just 10 to 15 years ago are now wholly redundant, associated interface electronics are now rareties and discs are relying not on tape-recorder style magetic recording but on quantum scale magnetic effects. 10 years ago, I think we were just progressing from 486s to 586 converters and Pentiums. The BIOS chips (nothing to do with BIOS of course ! ) were often not Y2K compatible and certainly would not support the discs of today. In those days, custom building a machine from disperate parts, as one did, was hell when the supplier changed their manufacturers of video cards, serial interfaces and the like. The scale of differences with future machines will not be dissimilar.

 

In contrast, bellows are bellows, slider chests are slider chests and pipes are pipes. Air is air and the speed of sound is not going to change.

 

The science in toasters is getting to be very well advanced. The trouble is, that the art in them is still in its infancy and it will take some considerable time before we are discussing the merits of the Viscount style of reed voicing versus the Allen style. Trouble is, they are as yet only copyists, and it will take many years before they become artists in their own right.

I'm not sure that any electronic manufacturers can be called artists when they are only copyists, however inventive. However, having said that, there are levels of art, and individuals such as John Pilling were incredibly inventive in their day trying to achieve the impossible, some things that we already take for granted. He did a few things to achieve accurate imitation including splitting harmonics of some stops including the main Diapason between channels. This meant that one could match the speakers to the parts played by both channels in producing the sound. He, together with others who read and contribute to this forum were and are artists in the art of reproduction, but reproduction it remains.

 

Thanks to Pilling, my original toaster is a very model of the Harrison & Harrison that is so valuable to experiment upon in order to test ideas and concepts to assist one day, perhaps, for the making of suggestions for a pipe instrument which is potentially under threat.

 

Pilling's Diapason based on the leathered variety was one of the reasons for me trying to find a better one. But having found one that much more nearly approximates that of my beloved Hunter behind, I end up choosing Pillings rather than the "better" one for the reason that it blends better. Whilst some denigrate the leathered-diapason era, one sometimes wonders if they had a wisdom that we've lost - and Arthur Harrison's flat 21st in his harmonics was an example.

 

However, the reality of toasters is that their manufacturers are expert in hi-fi reproduction but not always in the physics of sound generation. One of the special features of the Londonderry Cathedral toaster was its 7ft high speaker. For the moment, I've retained the beast, but it showed an appalling understanding of both speaker and pipe design, producing a resonance that made the bottom five or six notes boom, tamed only by voicing on the organ itself.

 

I wonder if perhaps we are missing out on the opportunity to digitalise more of the most outstanding organs. . . . If some of the finest instruments could be digitally recorded, note by note - and perhaps have precise measurements of pipe scallings and voicings to boot - there would be the beginning of a database of the finest instruments, to learn from, analyses, reproduce and (perish the thought) in the event of the loss of one of these organs have something of a template for reconstructing. If when practising my home organ I could flick a switch and bring up the specification and sound of say, Weingarten, Armley or Saint Sulpice...A sort of organ DNA database. Is this actually being done, or are the makers of electronics still tending to sample random churches that are prepared to let them have their pipe samples still, with not much regard for the quality or coherence of the tonal schemes therein? And what could builders of pipe organs learn from such an enterprise?

 

IMHO there is much merit in this for conservationists, players and pipe-organ builders alike. I'm firmly of the opinion that before commissioning a new instrument nowadays we should be able to know not only what it is going to look like with visualCAD, but also how it's going to sound like with auralCAD. Unless pipe-organ builders take this on board, then the electronic reproductionalists will be able to inspire so much more certainty in their clients and thereby have the edge, just being able to bring on a particular variation at the click of a hardware or software switch.

 

How many pipe organs have been commissioned, only for their patrons to regret their decisions on the paper turning into aural reality?

 

As far as players are concerned, when one watches those YouTube videos of Daniel Roth, the ability to be able to practice on an instrument which is as strange a beast as any that are different to those with which we may be able to be familiar with, would be invaluable before any recital. However, perhaps slavish attention to copying detail is merely mechanical. Finding the spirit of the beast . . . that's the art.

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

[Guest spottedmetal]

The mechanical problems are principally with the manuals. They have a rather Heath Robinson contact design which is not at all robust. On several occasions - usually half an hour before weddings! - the churchwarden and I have made panicked fixes with a soldering iron to repair it.

Hi!

 

Are such contacts like these?

 

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

[Guest Geoff McMahon]

David, there is at least one image too many in your sig, and one of them is only funny the first time one sees it. Please drop one of them; and if you are keeping the one of the manuals please make it smaller. Thanks.

 

Moderator, Mander Organs

[Guest spottedmetal]

David, there is at least one image too many in your sig, and one of them is only funny the first time one sees it. Please drop one of them; and if you are keeping the one of the manuals please make it smaller. Thanks.

Dear Mr Mander

 

Yes - sorry - will do in the morning - exhausted tonight - wife is calling me to dinner - proved a very intriguing formula possibly for rescuing an unloved H&H. Please come and see/hear it when you are in our direction.

 

Best wishes

 

David P

[Guest spottedmetal]

Dear All

 

After wearing the white coat and waving a soldering iron for days and nights . . . it was all worthwhile (although there are more controls to add . . . ! )

 

Here's the verdict:

 

Many thanks for your very kind hospitality at the Organ Recital

yesterday. I thought it was a fantastic event and enjoyed every

moment, in particular the organ recital was stunning.

 

Having played the huge 5 manual after the event, I thought I might

email just to get in touch. I know you were keen for young organists

to get involved and I support you all the way. I'm afraid we just

haven't got the numbers of new organists coming through any more and

repertoire is being lost as a result.

 

Organists are welcome, as are organ builders who want to preserve H&Hs!

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

 

PS Here's Hugh relaxing after the battle . . .

 

[Guest spottedmetal]

Dear All

 

I have deliberately removed specific details of what I have done from the initial description above: the concept has been to assist the repertoire, organ appreciation, pipe organs, and not to assist those wolf-like toaster manufacturers who want to score up as many dead replaced pipe-organs as possible. The performance instrument created is likely to stir some interest, no-one can go and buy one off the shelf, and I'm not at all keen on giving the toaster-makers too many clues as to the reasons for its success for them to then go and emulate.

 

Having said that, I hope that members might be able to be slightly more relaxed at the organ-appreciation concept described under the "interesting the nighclub generation" post. Last Monday was a resounding success with an audience of 95 - approaching the numbers attending the "big recitals" referred to elsewhere on the board - and we were not detracting from any other pipe-recitals of which I'm aware in the South East of England. The south east is increasingly a place of property development rather than culture - there's an example of this on Ebay at the moment: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=120238741505 and without the sort of enthusiasm I'm trying to generate, the organ, and its music will be lost, confined to the bones of the dinosaur pit. But it's not lost yet and the raptuous applause at the concert on Monday proved that its far from a lost battle and that appropriate interest can be re-born.

 

The programme was a success - we had the intended bangs although I didn't hear the bells - a good excuse to do it again - and we did not toady in any way to dumbing down. The organist is an amenable and jolly genius, the right combination to engage an audience, reciting all, to the fascination of the audience, without music and he played a brilliant programme of Vierne, Bach, Durufle, Demessieux and Germani finishing with the 1812. Although the YouTube video sound of the latter item is terrible - sounds more like an Accordion, (we've seen on this board an accordion sounding like a brilliant organ, so perhaps I should not be too embarrassed by this) the effect in real life was completely stunning and it rose to the occasion for Vierne and the whole of the rest of the programme unimaginably well. One person said that there were moments when he thought he was at Notre Dame.

 

The headmaster of a local school wrote to me this morning in terms of a school report:

Congratulations on an excellent concert yesterday. Nicely informal but with some excellent organ music and the bangs livened up a tired 7 year old and saw him away enthusiastically.

He went on to say that he had emailed his head of music to bring some of their more enthusiastic musicians to future concerts.

 

If people won't come into Church to hear, then one has to bring the organ to the people. I know full well that the same organist could not have achieved the same audience and the same result in the local church.

 

Even two decades ago, there was a healthy network of local music societies and gramophone societies. Such music societies concentrated by necessity on drawing room music, string and wind quartets and piano duos. The organ could not gain an entrée and lost out in that era of music appreciation. Certainly in the south east, most of such organisations have died. There is mileage, I believe, in tapping into what such local networks remain, trying to engage local headmasters and music departments . . . but what one does has to be absolutely stunning and of the highest quality.

 

Nothing half hearted. One must set out to achieve an outstanding success.

 

Not doing anything by halves, this was why I set out to create an outstanding performance instrument, and it now lives as more than the sum of its parts. One day, it would be wonderful to get it built for real . . . with pipes . . .

 

Can anyone quote for that . . . ? And where could we build it?

 

What about persuading Glyndeborne to rebuild their instrument!?

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

 

PS Does anyone have any solutions to adding electric remote control of a tracker pipe organ without ruining it and without horrendous expense?

[Tony Newnham]

Dear All

 

 

Spot

 

PS Does anyone have any solutions to adding electric remote control of a tracker pipe organ without ruining it and without horrendous expense?

 

Hi

 

Laukhaft (Sp?), I'm told by Mander Organs, have a special pull-down magnet with a forked operating lever for just this purpose - as far as the "feel" of the trackers are concerned, it's just not there. No other modifications needed - except for stop control, and that again shouldn't be too much of an issue. Such set ups seem to be routine on concert organs (and others) with dual consoles (Bridgewater Hall for example). The rest of the electronics are widely available either from the Internet or the specialist suppliers such as SSL, etc.

 

Every Blessing

 

Tony

[Guest spottedmetal]

Laukhaft (Sp?), I'm told by Mander Organs, have a special pull-down magnet with a forked operating lever for just this purpose - as far as the "feel" of the trackers are concerned, it's just not there. No other modifications needed - except for stop control, and that again shouldn't be too much of an issue. Such set ups seem to be routine on concert organs (and others) with dual consoles (Bridgewater Hall for example). The rest of the electronics are widely available either from the Internet or the specialist suppliers such as SSL, etc.

 

Incredibly helpful! Thanks! I've looked up Laukhaft on Google without results . . . so if anyone has further clues they'd be appreciated. But this project will have to wait till the autumn.

 

By the way, does anyone have ideas for further diminutive controls for a console? My lit stop buttons under the manuals work well but there are still more to fit somewhere . . . taking a break for contemplation at present!

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

[john carter]

Incredibly helpful! Thanks! I've looked up Laukhaft on Google without results . . . so if anyone has further clues they'd be appreciated. But this project will have to wait till the autumn.

 

By the way, does anyone have ideas for further diminutive controls for a console? My lit stop buttons under the manuals work well but there are still more to fit somewhere . . . taking a break for contemplation at present!

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

Try Laukhuff, you may have more success.

JC

[Guest Cynic]

Incredibly helpful! Thanks! I've looked up Laukhaft on Google without results . . . so if anyone has further clues they'd be appreciated. But this project will have to wait till the autumn.

 

By the way, does anyone have ideas for further diminutive controls for a console? My lit stop buttons under the manuals work well but there are still more to fit somewhere . . . taking a break for contemplation at present!

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

 

 

It's Laukhuff

I'm sure other suppliers also do these - what you're after are known as heavy-duty pull-down solenoids. They are wider than the trebles of any normal soundboard, so you have to mount them in staggered rows. I have half an idea we have already discussed this technology!

 

Afraid to say, I think any sort of intervention such as you propose is not going to be either easy or terribly kind to the tracker job. Your ethical answer is to find a real heap of an instrument where your vandalistic tendencies will not destroy a thing of beauty. (Mostly joking, of course!) What is a heap musically need not sound such if you have a decent voicer on call and a few spare ranks to replace what's on it to start with. Vice versa, an organ that is on its last legs mechanically can still sound pretty good. Few things beat a nicely made stopped diapason, a well-regulated full-length English Oboe, or a lightly-blown chorus 8' 4' and 2'. The most state-of-the art, expensive Electronics do not come close. IMHO of course.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Are such contacts like these?

A little, but to my untrained eye, significantly less solid-looking!

 

That said, the contacts are at present the least of our worries. I arrived at choir practice yesterday, turned the organ on, hit General Cancel followed by one of the pistons... only to be greeted by something that sounded like a detuned asthmatic harmonium at a distance of half a mile. So we shall have the full thunderous might of 'Jesus lives! Thy terrors now' on an upright piano tomorrow. Hey ho.

[Guest spottedmetal]

It's Laukhuff

Brilliant - Thanks!

Afraid to say, I think any sort of intervention such as you propose is not going to be either easy or terribly kind to the tracker job. Your ethical answer is to find a real heap of an instrument where your vandalistic tendencies will not destroy a thing of beauty. (Mostly joking, of course!)

Um. Yes. Quite agree - it's a possible experiment in mind and only to be executed with the greatest of care - and the Hunter is such a gem, I'm very reticent to approach doing anything that contradicts conservation principles.

 

Few things beat a nicely made stopped diapason, a well-regulated full-length English Oboe, or a lightly-blown chorus 8' 4' and 2'. The most state-of-the art, expensive Electronics do not come close. IMHO of course.

One might beleive otherwise were one to be taking some of the comments on the "What Is Wrong With Hybrid Organs" thread seriously. However, this is exactly why I have contemplated adding some real air shifter content to some good electronics, although the effect of the current electronic combinations is good enough and has the advantage of no blower noise nor noisy trackers . . . and some exceptionally exciting tuttis.

A little, but to my untrained eye, significantly less solid-looking!

 

Oh dear! The examples photographed above are flimsey enough and hell to work on when wearing a pullover as the L shaped contacts are so easily caught up. I understood they came from a dead 70s Wyvern, but they seem to work adequately effectively. Interesting to adjust - I aimed for a distance of 1mm and this gives a fairly top of key contact point.

 

That said, the contacts are at present the least of our worries. I arrived at choir practice yesterday, turned the organ on, hit General Cancel followed by one of the pistons... only to be greeted by something that sounded like a detuned asthmatic harmonium at a distance of half a mile. So we shall have the full thunderous might of 'Jesus lives! Thy terrors now' on an upright piano tomorrow. Hey ho.

Can you get hold of the circuit diagrams? Sounds as though one of the power supplies might be a problem or a mechanical contact at fault. If the beast is really at this end of the days, it doesn't hurt to make sure the beast is unplugged, then go through every circuit board, multiway connector and every chip in its socket wobbling each and pressing it into place. One of my friend's Johannus lost its diapason and something else and this treatment cured everything.

 

However, bottom line - let's see what Trinity Wall Street will be like in 15 years time. Please anyone can you tell me when you see a skip outside?

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

 

PS In due course, I've got a pair of tracker manuals spare, (they have flat sharps with round fronts - very distinctive style - anyone any idea of the maker?) and a vintage ivory clad electric keyboard (with sharps tapering to the back) missing the top octave of contacts (I'm given to understand of a type still made by KA), which I'm unlikely to be needing - but do need a slither of ivory to replace on the Hunter and don't want to scrap whole manuals just for a slither.

[Guest Cynic]

Brilliant - Thanks!

Um. Yes. Quite agree - it's a possible experiment in mind and only to be executed with the greatest of care - and the Hunter is such a gem, I'm very reticent to approach doing anything that contradicts conservation principles.

One might beleive otherwise were one to be taking some of the comments on the "What Is Wrong With Hybrid Organs" thread seriously. However, this is exactly why I have contemplated adding some real air shifter content to some good electronics, although the effect of the current electronic combinations is good enough and has the advantage of no blower noise nor noisy trackers . . . and some exceptionally exciting tuttis.

 

 

Friends of mine, Paul and Muriel Goodman have a respectable (as these things go) Allen two-manual with various MIDI bells and whistles. About five years ago, Paul and friends added two pipe ranks to this, they play through the MIDI. He has a Diapason rank from 8' and a Trumpet/Trombone from 16'. The pipe ranks are nothing particularly special but it is splendid how they back up, fill in and spice up the Allen. He regularly arranges concerts upon it in the way you do - sans explosions and balloons so far as I am aware. The two performers that he has particularly booked (playing aside, because of their engaging presentation to audience and their general drawing power) are Carlo Curley and Geoffrey Morgan.

 

link:

 

http://www.devonbedandbreakfast.co.uk/history.htm

 

I certainly think if you want to add some pipework to an electronic this is far more justifiable (and likely to improve matters) than adding electronic stops to a pipe organ.

[Guest Cynic]

Brilliant - Thanks!

Um. Yes. Quite agree - it's a possible experiment in mind and only to be executed with the greatest of care - and the Hunter is such a gem, I'm very reticent to approach doing anything that contradicts conservation principles.

One might beleive otherwise were one to be taking some of the comments on the "What Is Wrong With Hybrid Organs" thread seriously. However, this is exactly why I have contemplated adding some real air shifter content to some good electronics, although the effect of the current electronic combinations is good enough and has the advantage of no blower noise nor noisy trackers . . . and some exceptionally exciting tuttis.

Oh dear! The examples photographed above are flimsey enough and hell to work on when wearing a pullover as the L shaped contacts are so easily caught up. I understood they came from a dead 70s Wyvern, but they seem to work adequately effectively. Interesting to adjust - I aimed for a distance of 1mm and this gives a fairly top of key contact point.

Can you get hold of the circuit diagrams? Sounds as though one of the power supplies might be a problem or a mechanical contact at fault. If the beast is really at this end of the days, it doesn't hurt to make sure the beast is unplugged, then go through every circuit board, multiway connector and every chip in its socket wobbling each and pressing it into place. One of my friend's Johannus lost its diapason and something else and this treatment cured everything.

 

However, bottom line - let's see what Trinity Wall Street will be like in 15 years time. Please anyone can you tell me when you see a skip outside?

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

 

PS In due course, I've got a pair of tracker manuals spare, (they have flat sharps with round fronts - very distinctive style - anyone any idea of the maker?) and a vintage ivory clad electric keyboard (with sharps tapering to the back) missing the top octave of contacts (I'm given to understand of a type still made by KA), which I'm unlikely to be needing - but do need a slither of ivory to replace on the Hunter and don't want to scrap whole manuals just for a slither.

 

 

Flat sharps with round fronts? At least one possibility is Father Willis. I wonder what happened to the instrument that used to be attached!

[gazman]

Hele & Co also used to supply and fit these types of keys for a while, at least in the early part of the 20th century.

[Guest spottedmetal]

Flat sharps with round fronts? At least one possibility is Father Willis. I wonder what happened to the instrument that used to be attached!

Um - yes - I had the idea that they would have been from something rather interesting - I guessed mid to late Victorian. I bought them on Ebay some time ago from someone building an enormous beast (from memory) destined for his French house. His partner was complaining about ranks of pipes taking up rather a lot of room - from the garage to the bathroom.

 

I'll try to do some pics of the manuals in the next few days. The ivories are not split between front and back but are cut to fit the whole key going around the sharps

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

[Guest spottedmetal]

Friends of mine, Paul and Muriel Goodman have a respectable (as these things go) Allen two-manual with various MIDI bells and whistles. About five years ago, Paul and friends added two pipe ranks to this, they play through the MIDI. He has a Diapason rank from 8' and a Trumpet/Trombone from 16'. The pipe ranks are nothing particularly special but it is splendid how they back up, fill in and spice up the Allen. He regularly arranges concerts upon it in the way you do - sans explosions and balloons so far as I am aware. The two performers that he has particularly booked (playing aside, because of their engaging presentation to audience and their general drawing power) are Carlo Curley and Geoffrey Morgan.

 

link:

 

http://www.devonbedandbreakfast.co.uk/history.htm

Thanks so much for this - sounds and looks exciting! The picture on the site looks interesting - love the hooks holding mitred pipes from the ceiling.

 

An interesting complication on such an approach is that the reverberant enhancement which I'm using here is working extremely well - applying this to an additional acoustic pipe department would be a challenge . . . and for the purposes of presenting the best of the repertoire, in organ terms only the best is good enough.

 

I'm wondering if anyone else is doing this sort of thing around the country as semi-domestic events such as these, even if by their apparent eccentricity alone, can generate so much enthusiasm.

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

 

PS For those with comparatively small spaces there are often single or two rank MIDI operated pipe units on ebay made by an enthusiast in his garage - I haven't heard one of them but from the photographs of such units perhaps one might shudder at pipes meeting such an impoverished fate.

[Tony Newnham]

An interesting complication on such an approach is that the reverberant enhancement which I'm using here is working extremely well - applying this to an additional acoustic pipe department would be a challenge . . . and for the purposes of presenting the best of the repertoire, in organ terms only the best is good enough.

 

I'm wondering if anyone else is doing this sort of thing around the country as semi-domestic events such as these, even if by their apparent eccentricity alone, can generate so much enthusiasm.

 

Best wishes

 

Spot

 

Hi

 

There are electronic systems available for this application (at a price). A while ago I did a little research on the web - but sadly, the results seem to have gone AWOL. I came up with about 4 or 5 specialist systems.

 

I think Graham Blythe has(had?) something in his home concert room. If I remember anything else, I'll let you know off list.

 

Every Blessing

 

Tony