Which Sound Module

[Guest]

Which sound module - the Ahlborn Archive 201s or the Viscount (Wicks) CM100 - has the most realistic pipe sound?

[arie v]

Re: Which Sound Module



Hi,</p>

I am familiar with both. The Archive 201s, does this mean special voicing or Silberman. The 201 has a sort of baroque flavour to it, more so than the A-G Chronicler organs. I quite liked it. However if it is the Silberman spec. I really liked that sample set. Basically a complete 20 stop baroque organ, which sounded more baroque than the basic 201. It is possible to get more audio channels out of the unit, as internally, each Division has a left and a right out, but externally it comes out as just a left and a right. With a full 6 channels and a good audio, it can sound very nice.</p>

The CM-100, has lots of very nice sounds, with you can choose from. I found some sounds not to be terribly authentic sounding. However there is lots to choose from. It is quite configurable, has 6 audio channels out (you don't have to use 6 though). This unit works really well as an add-on toa pipe organ that needs some filling out.</p>

As to the basic tone, which is more authentic, is hard to say. If it is the Silberman Archive, I would suggest that the Alhborn sounds more real. When it comes to ensemble, the CM-100 wins.</p>

I don't know where you would find an Ahlborn these days. They have not been made for awhile, and are no longer available from the US distributor.</p>

AV
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[Guest]

Re: Which Sound Module



I see that Ahlborn Galanti has dropped them. Kinda surprising as about 6 mo ago they quoted me a price of about $2500 for one. I took a pass on that price because the technology was at least 10 years old. The CM-100 runs around $4000 - at least thru Wicks. </p>

Every so often an Ahlborn module will come up on Ebay. A few months ago one came up for sale, I bid up to $1900 max and it still didn't meet the reserve the guy set. The guy (a dealer) thought he could get more, so he relisted it and I think it wound up selling for about $1700 ( I decided not to bid again). I find it kinda funny that he wound up losing $200 from the previous bid.</p>

The Ahlborn is a great module, but I just can't pay over $2 grand for technology that out of date.</p>

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Jeff
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[hybridlover]

Re: Which Sound Module



You might google the name "Gerry Cluff". He's out of the Portland area, and every now and then has one or more of the Ahlborn Archive units for sale. That said, I agree with Arie - ensemble on the Viscount/Wicks module is much better than the standard A/G box. I've used both, and while I liked some of the individual voices better on the A-G, the Viscount 'mix' can't be beat.</P>

[arie v]

Re: Which Sound Module



Hybridlover,</p>

I'm glad someone agrees with me. </p>

The Ahlborn Archives were great "in their day", meaning they were the best organ stop modules available from about 1996 to 2005. The competition was not huge though. Only Viscount had some organ stop expanders for awhile, but they were not really in the same league.</p>

The Ahlborn Archives were great as add ons, and that is how they were marketed. But I always thought that they were a little short on hardware, to be good stand alone units. Other than the Silberman spec. they were little more than a collection of stops. Although the same technology as the Chronicler series A-G, they did not have the same amount of tone generating hardware per stop, so hence the polyphony was limited to 8 notes per manual division, limited ensemble and some other compromises were made. The Ahlborn units were of the sample playback variety as far as tone generation went. I doubt that the Ahlborn Archives were made any more recent than about 4 years ago.</p>

The Viscount CM-100 is a much more recent unit. The tone generation is based on physical modelling. Very interesting unit with many capabilities. The strong point of the unit is the ensemble, and this is an area that the Viscount engineers worked on for a long time. And I think they succeeded nicely in this regard. As i said earlier, a number of the individual sounds are not that beautiful, but choosing 12 out of 180 sounds, you are almost guaranteed to find something you like. </p>

The Wicks version of the CM-100 is available from Wicks Organ Company or one of their dealers, or the regular one can be had from Classic MIDI Works.</p>

Basically, the Viscount unit is 10 years newer in technology, and in some ways it shows.</p>

AV
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.
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[jbird604]

Re: Which Sound Module



Too bad that products like this seem to be disappearing from the market. It's such a neat thing to be able to come out the MIDI port of a 1980'sconsole,go into a little shoe-box sized unit, and get digital organ stops that rival many of the currentpre-packaged organs.</P>


I knew one guy whobuiltan elaborate digital organ by putting MIDI on an old analog Allen console and using a separate Ahlborn module for each division of the organ. That was some organ.</P>


But they seemed a little pricey at $2500, at least for those of us on a shoe-string organ budget. And you'd have to add in the cost of MIDI on your console, plus any needed audio equipment, etc. Could run into some serious money before you knew it. If the Viscount unit costs $4000, it's out of most hobbyists' range already.</P>


The low-cost way to do it is with PC-driven organ emulation programs such as Miditzer, MyOrgan, jOrgan, and the Cadillac of emulators, Hauptwerk. Of course the drawback to these is that they run on the PC platform (typically Windows) which introduces a whole set of troubles. And I've not seen one yet that didn't have at least some delay, enough to annoy one when trying to execute a quick passage. Not to mention the polyphony limitations, unless you use a really topnotch PC.</P>


So I've settled on finding good used organs and playing 20-year-old technology, which wasn't all that bad in its day! But I do wish there was a way to have the latest sounds without the drawbacks of either modules or the PC.</P>


John</P>
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[arie v]

Re: Which Sound Module



John,</p>

I'm afraid the time for competition in the organ stop module is pretty much finished. What with organs now having multiple tonal suites, and even small digital organs having 32' stops and party horns, who but someone with a limited pipe organ or an older MIDI equipped digital organ would want to buy one. </p>

There is a small market for MIDI expanders which have some organ stops, but mostly orchestral and GS MIDI sounds, that work from patch commands from MIDI stop tabs or pistons. Rodgers has one, Allen has one and Johannus has a little one. Generally they sound like MIDI box add ons. Not terribly voicable either.</p>

As to PC driven virtual organs, Hauptwerk is indeed the best. If you haven't tried the latest, I think it is version 3.22, you may be surprised how well the new version runs. Even on a Mac Mini (which is about $1,000), on a medium sized organ there are no latency problems, no polyphony problems, and it rarely if ever crashes. All previous annoyances are gone. With the Windows PC environment, there are not many problems either. In any case, the results are scary good.</p>

John, the way things are going in the organ world, you probably won't have to wait too long, to get much more recent organ technology in a used organ for very little money. Then it will be easy to hook up something like Hauptwerk to make it even better, using the built-in MIDI in the organ to drive it.</p>

I'm not sure present day manufacturers want to know about this.............doesn't help them sell new instruments.</p>

AV
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[myorgan]

Re: Which Sound Module



Does anyone know where I could find an Ahlborn Archive 202 or Romantic? In a few months I will need to add a 32' pedal reed to one of my organs for a performance, and just missed a module on eBay. The fellow offering it had it closing after 1AM on a weekday. I might have paid him more for it, but I needed sleep more![|-)]</P>


Please either e-mail me or PM me if anyone knows where I could find either of these two items (or an Allen Ensemble). It's to add to an Allen ADC organ.</P>


Thanks in advance.</P>


Michael</P>

[toodles]

Re: Which Sound Module



I've got a 201 and a 202 that I plan to sell, but haven't gotten around to it. Be happy to sell one or the other, or both. Will send a PM.</P>


Toodles. </P>