Re: Allen Acoustic Portrait™ - Actual Sampled Acoustics

[Paul IL]

The main thing about the new $55K (2 manual, 44 stop) Quantum instrument is improved digital processing. I heard one last week in the show room and found that the pipe sound emulation is a definite improvement over the previous Renaissance model. But I don't think anyone will ever duplicate Notre Dame in your living room. Headphones might help - didn't get to try that. The long reverb still sounds faked to me.

[NYCFarmboy]

thanks for the info Paul!

I will wait to have Notre Dame duplicated in my living room. (laughing).

This new technology of sampled accoustics is such a revolutionary idea.... I guess just like the original digital organs the first time they did it the results were nice..but not spectacular but I am guessing over the next few years Allen & Rodgers, Phoenix will incorporate this more and more.

Imagine what digital organs will sound like in 10 years! I think Allen is onto something here, but will take some tweaking to get it right.

[buzzyreed]

Imagine what digital organs will sound like in 10 years! </p>

</p>

They will all be Haupwerk based.</p>

[JPSmith]

I'm sure sampled acoustics sounds good when an organ is played in amore or less acousticallydead space like anorgan showroom or a carpeted living room, but what if any benefitwould it bein anon-deadspace like most churches?

[jbird604]

Count me as a tentative skeptic on this. I haven't been impressed by any Acoustic Portrait setups so far, but perhaps it is being done more artfully by some installers or dealers. I can't yet tell that it's anything that different from the digital reverbs that have been around for severalyears, and are getting better and better as processing power and memory become cheaper and faster.</P>


Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of digital reverb.Itvery often makes quite a dramatic improvement in an organ installed in a dry setting, and can even improve a setting that is moderately live but still a little dry for organ.</P>


To my ear, the "convolution" processors do not yet sound any better than the Alesis "Concert Hall" settings on the MIDI-Verb4. The Alesis has the advantage that one can tweak numerous parameters to get it just right for the room. The "sampled acoustics" are what they are, take it or leave it.</P>


Perhaps, as was suggested, when this concept is more mature it will surpass what can be done with the generic reverb units. We'll see.</P>


John</P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>

[radagast]

Count me as a tentative skeptic on this. I haven't been impressed by any Acoustic Portrait setups so far, but perhaps it is being done more artfully by some installers or dealers. I can't yet tell that it's anything that different from the digital reverbs that have been around for severalyears, and are getting better and better as processing power and memory become cheaper and faster.</P>


Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of digital reverb.Itvery often makes quite a dramatic improvement in an organ installed in a dry setting, and can even improve a setting that is moderately live but still a little dry for organ.</P>


To my ear, the "convolution" processors do not yet sound any better than the Alesis "Concert Hall" settings on the MIDI-Verb4. The Alesis has the advantage that one can tweak numerous parameters to get it just right for the room. The "sampled acoustics" are what they are, take it or leave it.</P>


Perhaps, as was suggested, when this concept is more mature it will surpass what can be done with the generic reverb units. We'll see.</P>


John</P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>
<P mce_keep="true">I agree that I haven't noticed a big difference in Acoustic Portrait over other types of reverb. One reason MIGHT BE that Allen's system, which was developed by a company called Lake ( I believe Dolby bought them), is real-time.</P>
<P mce_keep="true">Convolution reverb many times is a non-real time process that takes times for a computer to crunch and then produce a result you can hear applied to the original audio signal. Maybe the real-time process loses some effectiveness in order to be able to produce results while someone is playing.</P>
<P mce_keep="true">Bill</P>

[JPSmith]

Real-time convolution reverb is extremelyprocessing-intensive, hence I imagine that Allen's system applies convolutionat the audio output channel level, as opposed to convolving each rank or each pipe separately. This is not going to provide the most realistic result, as in the real worldeach individual rank and indeed eachpipeinteracts independently and differentlywiththe room acoustics. A more realistic resultcan be obtained by convolving each rank or ideally each pipe individually, but the processing power to do this in real time is currently cost-prohibitive. Ascomputing price/performance continues to improve, real-time convolution reverb will improve as well. </P>


Hauptwerk is soon going tohave a real-time convolver plug-in, and will also benefit from processing power improvements. In fact PC processingprice/performancewill almost certainlycontinue to improve faster than price/performance of purpose-built audio processing hardware, as it has in the past, so I suspect the Allens etc. of the world will have a hard time keeping up.</P>

[arie v]

Paul,</p>

You are correct that the new Allen Quantum organs sound a bit better. Each new generation from Allen (and likely all their competitors as well) are improved as processing power, memory increases, and improved processing of samples and the knowledge base gets larger. </p>

However, you will find Allen, Rodgers, Johannus, those three expecially are big on catch phrases, Trademark names etc.</p>

Acoustic Portrait is just a plug-in sampled reverb system, that Allen is buying from someone else. Convolusion is not new, and may not even be any better. But because Allen has it, it has got to be better. On a Quantum CD I have, it doesn't sound any better than most other E_Org reverbs. The long delay one to me just sounded wierd. Of all the electronic reverbs I have heard, I think Rodgers/Roland RSS is the best. The RSS can no longer be had, as Roland has pulled it from the marketplace. It is now only found in Rodgers organs.</p>

Someone else mentioned about what digi-organs will sound like in 10 years. My guess is not much better than today. Why you say? Well unless there is a massive turn around in sales, there isn't much money for R &amp; D. In fact profits at most companies are non-existent. What you may see, is more and more the approach of Hauptwerk, using the PC as the tone-generator. That way at least companies won't have to invest massively in hardware development. Right now, pretty much every digi organ out there built by the major companies, has technology in it that is basically from the late 90s. The rest is just adding to the feature list, and incremental improvements.</p>

Having seen the trend in organ sales the last few years, my guess is that in less than 10 years, a number of vendors will be gone, and others will be smaller.</p>

AV</p>

[JPSmith]

In my view, the limiting factor in achieving absolute realism in digital organs will not much longerbe the realisticgeneration of individual pipe tones. Perhaps it already isn't-- the top sampled instruments and Hauptwerk havealready reached the point where it is very difficult to distinguish <U>individual</U> notes played in a good live acousticfrom their real counterparts. The "last frontier" is the ensemble problems (harshness, thinness, lack of build-up )caused by theintermodulation distortion, mixing distortion and signal compressionthat inevitably arise when the sounds ofindividual pipes are mixed electronically before they reach the amplifiers andloudspeakers. As we all know, the more stops are drawn on any digital organ the lesslike the real thing it sounds, even if the individual sounds are of "discrete" origin. The problems withmixingthe sounds of individual pipesin the electronic domainare well describedin this article</P>


http://www.pykett.org.uk/EndOfPipeOrgan.htm</P>


There is a solution -- lotsof discrete high-qualityaudio channels, as in dozens or preferably hundreds -- so that most or all of the mixing of individual pipe sounds occurs inreal space, rather thanelectronically. But this is very expensive to achieveand probably will remain so,since advances in price/performance of high-grade audioamplifiers and loudspeakers occur at a snails' pace, compared to digital processing hardware. (The author of the above articlemaintains, with some justification, that loudspeaker quality has actually declined in recent years.) I envisionthat in the near future amuch larger portion of the total cost of top-tier digital organ installations will be invested inthe amplifiers and speakers, relative to the tone generationand console control electronics. This is already happening in the Hauptwerk world.</P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>

[Chiff Drawbar]

Inprofessional studios, Lexicon is the last word in digital reverberation. Has this company ever been approached to develop a better reverberation unit for digital organs? </P>

[robmcw]

Yes! Lexicon seems to be the last word in digital effects, but at a price. List price for the 960L is about $17,399,00, PCM 91, about $3,129, MPX1, about $1,129, and their baby's from $299 (MX200), $824 (MX400XL).

[arie v]

Hi,</p>

Lexicon IS the LAST word when it comes to digital reverb enhancement. However the system they have is not really designed with digital organs in mind. The system I am referring to is called LARES (Lexicon Acoustic Reverberation Enhancement System). It is hugely expensive, and it is a separate system. There is an digi-organ setup in England that has a system in the room, but is not part of the organ. It supposedly sounds fantastic. It is owned by designer/voicer Graham Blythe, and the organ is a Musicom based Veritas organ.</p>

The LARES system is said to cost over $100,000.</p>

Not something your average digi organ buyer would want to purchase.</p>

Arie V
</p>


</p>

</p>

[Clavier]

What about TC Electronic? As I understand it even their cheap stuff keeps pace with Lexicon's median products. At the premium these electronic organs are going for, what's $1500 for a TC M3000?

[organist777]

Howdy,</p>

I am looking at the schematics for Johannus organ's reverb unit right now, and it specifically lists "Alesis" brand reverb for every model J-nus. </p>

Phoenix Organs uses different Lexicon units according to the needs of the specific organ being built. Some organs have can even have two Lexicon units. The basic controls for the units can be accessed though the LCD control window on the console, but the Lexicon units can also be adjusted using the units own controls. This allows for an infinite range of reverb effects as desired or needed. Phoenix Organ engineers and Lexicon engineers are in communication, and so Lexicon does know what Phoenix wants and has done some custom work for Phoenix. Lexicon is considered the best by the vast majority of sound professionals. </p>

(There is no comparison between the Alesis sound and the Lexicon sound... my .02 worth.)
</p>

As for organ reverb of any sort, in my opinion, it should be used <u>very</u> sparingly, if at all in a church setting. There is no way it will not sound fake when everything else in the room is sounding from the ambient acoustics. In this situation, the most that should be used is just enough to take the dry edge off the dry acoustics... 1/4 to 1/2 second, maximum reverb time.</p>

However, I think reverb is useful, and if set up right, very pleasant to use in a home or studio installed organ. Good units can add appropriate sounding acoustics (and delays with added speakers) and give an very close representation of good building acoustics. Phoenix now has a very nice surround sound system just for home or studio installations.</p>

[OFF-TOPIC... sorry, it's been awhile since I posted anything anywhere.]
I keep hearing talk that there is some sort of terrible recession in organ sales. Let me say, that this must be a regional problem because in the Southeast US the market is [Y]hot[&lt;:o)] for high-end organs and pipe organs alike! The economy in my area is sizzling and has been for a decade or more! Take a look at some of the pipe organ builder sites in the S.E. and see the backlog of work they have. I have a church right now that I put a small organ in last spring that has been waiting (will be waiting) a very long time just to get a <span style="font-style: italic;">very</span> small non-speaking facade... no delivery date in sight. Digital organs are enjoying the same economy. [:D]I'm a happy camper.
</p>

[:)]Dave.</p>

</p>


</p>

[Choirmaster]

However, you will find Allen, Rodgers, Johannus, those three expecially are big on catch phrases, Trademark names etc</P>


Ugh. And a real annoyance they are too. You go on the Allen organ website and every bloody fancy name for a bit of technology has a poncy logo to go with it all lined up in a row. Please bin them just tell us it's got 'sampling', 'reverb and 'a speaker system', and cut out the pretentious PR bullshit.</P>

[jbird604]

organist777 wrote: "As for organ reverb of any sort, in my opinion, it should be used <U>very</U> sparingly, if at all in a church setting. There is no way it will not sound fake when everything else in the room is sounding from the ambient acoustics. In this situation, the most that should be used is just enough to take the dry edge off the dry acoustics... 1/4 to 1/2 second, maximum reverb time."</P>


I understand your argument, but I find it pleasing and beneficial to use a fair amount of digital reverb in my church setting. The room is only moderately live -- smooth sheetrock walls and ceiling, but carpet (tight-knit) and pew cushions are present, though the choir has hardwood flooring. Compared to a lot of cushy/fluffy really dead worship spaces, our is pleasingly good for singing, just too dry for organ to really soundmarvelous.</P>


So I give the organ a fairly hefty dose of reverb -- the default "concert hall" on Alesis MidiVerb4 -- and it makes the organ far more enjoyable. I don't think it bothers anyone that the voices die out a little sooner than the organ at the end of a hymn. I just feel like the organ is so much better with reverb, though digital reverb obviously isn't as good as the real thing.</P>


John</P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>

[buzzyreed]

hmmm.. ok can someone translate that for me? I think I'm spoiled with American English.</p>

</p>

</p>

[arie v]

John,</p>

Isn't this situation you describe an admission that electronic organs need help in order to sound good. Electronic organ tone (from most manufacturers) is somewhat flat and without resonance compared to a good pipe organ. Add to the fact that most audio systems hooked up to digi organs is marginal, and you have a sound that just is lifeless and insufficient. Hence the need for acoustic enhancements.</p>

What also I think is done wrong, is when artificial reverb is employed, it is most of the time re-cycled through the main speakers. Besides the fact that you end up with strange phase shifts, and added distortion, it is not the natural way sound bounces off of sufaces in a room. To be remotely correct, the reverb speakers should be separate, and spread intelligently around the room.</p>

Just my thoughts.........</p>

AV
</p>

[robmcw]

In the analog/digital audio world, a phrase pops up often when dealing with the overall sound of a specific instrument, "Your sound is only as good as its processing".

[robmcw]

As an example of 'processing'. the pipe organ recorded here demonstrates a unique microphone technique as part of the processed sound. I was shocked at the detail between the divisions of stops captured in this recording of the Tyska kyrkan Stockholm organ.

http://www.freewebs.com/eriksikkema/aboutulsi.htm

[radagast]

John,</P>


Isn't this situation you describe an admission that electronic organs need help in order to sound good. </P>


AV
</P>


</P>


I assume that was a question. The answer is no, it's not. It has been said that the most important stop on an organ is the room it's in. Well a good pipe organ might sound a bit dry in the wrong room and sound fantastic in a great room. I have been told more than once that if you put a Cavaille-Coll organ in a dry room it would sound terrible. Put it in St. Denis or St. Sulpice and it sounds fantastic. No difference with a digital organ.</P>


Bill</P>

[arie v]

Bill,</p>

I don't disagree with you that the room where the instrument is located has a bearing on how it sounds. But it must be said, that with analog organs, and even most digi organs today, electronic organs do not have the roundness and richness of tone that a good well installed pipe organ has. Shoving 60 stops or whatever through 6 or 8 audio channels is just not the same. Also, most sampled organs do not have near enough high frequency content in the tone, generally attributible to not high enough sampling rate, not enough samples, anti-aliasing filters, and amps. and speakers that don't have a high enough bandwidth. Because of that, digi organs sound somewhat lifeless, and so artificial sound fields are promoted. </p>

I have heard some rather nice sounding residence pipe organs and they sounded just fine without artificial reverb. I have yet to come across a residence digi organ that sound as good, with or without artificial reverb added.</p>

Arie V.</p>

P.S. Of the digi organs I have heard and or played, Walker and M &amp; O to my ears have the most pipelike tone. They are also the companies that do not recommend just adding a little digi reverb on the back to make it sound better. In fact they prefer no added reverb..........period.</p>

</p>

</p>

</p>

</p>

</p>

[Menschenstimme]

<P mce_keep="true">My apologies, false alarm! Post edited to delete all of the previous text . . .</P>
<P mce_keep="true">[:$]</P>

[jbird604]

Arie and Bill,</P>


I don't know exactly where I stand on this question. Yes, any electronic benefits from artificial reverb if the room it is in is too dead. And pipes seem less likely to sound lifeless in a dead room, due in part to the omni-directional radiation pattern. I'd guess that an electronic playing through a truly wonderful totally omni-directional speaker(360 degrees and spherical too) would also sound better in a dead room than the typical electronic playing through run-of-the-mill box speakers.</P>


So it's at least partly the undesirable "beaming" effect of ordinaryspeakers that gives an electronic an inferior sound in a less-than-ideal room.</P>


In my church there are some factors which greatly ameliorate (sp??) the disadvantages of our electronic organ. First of all, our sanctuary is not dead by any means. It's just not as lively as I'd like for it to be, not as lively as it ought to be for optimum organ enjoyment. So, I supplement the natural "sustain" time of the room (which is probablyless than1 second) with a bit of artificial reverb -- which is more appropriately described as artificial sustain, since the sound comes out of the main organ speakers, which is as you say not the wayreal reverb works, but it lengthens the organ tones and produces a pleasant effect.</P>


Also, I've designed and placed these speakers so that you really cannot tell where they are with your eyes closed. The sound seems to come from all around the chancel area, so the artificial reverb (or sustain) is very effective, much more than it would be if you could pinpoint the source easily.</P>


Finally, our organ happens to be analog (Rodgers 890, built 1984). I'm not a contrarian who thinks that analog was/is better than digital, but there are actually certain things that analog was and is better at. The inherent limitations of sampling, anti-aliasing filters, etc., do not apply to analog. I believe that our old analog actually has richer and prettier highs than most digitals I hear today, though that could also be due in part to the particularly wide-range speakers than I employed in this installation.</P>


Anyway, got to get some rest. Perhaps we revisit this issue tomorrow.</P>


John</P>
<P mce_keep="true"></P>

[MarkS]

I'm with Arie and John on this one.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I played a nice pipe organ for seven years.* It was buried in chambers in a dead room, but it still sounded like a good pipe organ.</DIV>

[Choirmaster]

Can someone tell me if this Allen Acoustic Portrait system or any reverb system on a classical digital organ only comes from the organ speakers (etiher internal or external)? Surely a good reverb system would be one where speakers are placed around the room or church and perhaps also mean including the voices singing, if in a church?</P>