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I'd like to brag, if you all will let me, about a nice upgrade we just completed. A church where the organ was not doing the job now has a much more serviceable instrument and a new appreciation for the KOI.
About 10 or 12 years ago one of the larger Baptist churches in this area built a new sanctuary which seats about 1700. Not a fully traditional facility, it has more or less fan-shaped seating with a large balcony in stadium style. But at least it has pews, a real choir loft, a towering ceiling, and pretty good acoustics for a modern building. A new organ was purchased when the sanctuary was built, a Rodgers Trillium 967 (largest 3m stock model at the time). At that time, Rodgers was represented here by a one-man firm, a nice guy who was actually an audio-visual expert but not an organist. For some reason, the church was sold this organ with only the bare minimum speaker set -- six FR1.7 boxes and two subs (7.5) -- for the main speaker array..... for a 1700-seat room.... I don't know what they were thinking!
Oddly, there was a HUGE antiphonal -- twenty FR1.7 speakers placed into alcoves all around the back wall of the church, some on the main floor, some in the balcony. A stack of five S-200 amps drove these twenty antiphonal speakers. The antiphonal was of course just a two-channel signal, so all the speakers carried all the divisions whenever the antiphonal was engaged. The antiphonal proved so unsatisfactory that the amp rack powering it was unplugged. Folks sitting near the back of the church just couldn't stand it. No wonder because many of the speakers were not much above ear level to the folks on the back rows.
Several months ago we began discussing with the organist and music minister the possibility of re-vamping this unfortunate installation. We finally got the go ahead in March. There were some unexpected obstacles and our plan had to be altered before it was over, but we have now completed the main phase of this new setup and the results have been pretty spectacular.
The new setup begins with double amplification of the main channels. Eight S-200 amps (16 total channels) comprise the main amp rack. The plan we had was to put two speakers on each amp, thus quadrupling the speaker array. Because the chambers are widely separated it seemed best to duplicate the entire organ in each one rather than separating the divisions. (The original setup had the great and choir on one side and the swell on the other, but from the console it was hard to even hear the swell. Thus the decision to have a fully duplicated arrangement.)
The Pedal system needed to be greatly expanded. You can imagine how puny a single pair of SW7.5 subs sounded in a 1700 seat room with a 50 or 60 foot ceiling. We had some old Rodgers P-32 cabinets in storage, so we put brand new 15" rubber-surround woofers into them and put one of these on each of the four pedal channels. (Actually, we were short one P-32, so we put new speakers into the existing SW-7.5's and used both of them on one channel in place of a P-32.) So now, instead of just two (2!) 15" speakers trying to make some bass in that room, we now have EIGHT of them pumping in unison. No shortage of bass power now!
We doubled up great and choir speakers on each amp, so now instead of two speakers for the entire great division there are EIGHT, and eight for the choir as well. We ran short of speakers though, because they thought they could get all the FR1.7 speakers out of the rear walls but found that some of them could not be pulled out due to structural issues. We came up with a unique solution for the Swell speakers.
I know this will raise eyebrows, but the church could not afford to purchase eight new FR1.7's for the swell, so we went in with four old Rodgers M-10 speaker panels for the swell -- one per amp -- and created an awesome swell organ sound! Yes, we've often dismissed these old car speaker panels as lo-fi and unworthy of a fine organ, but in careful listening tests we became convinced that these humble units actually sounded every bit as good as the FR1.7 boxes, at least in this setting. A single M-10 also puts out a few decibels more sound than a pair of FR1.7's due to their higher sensitivity. The fact that they radiate sound from both front and rear (bi-polar) had an unexpected benefit. The organ chambers are enormous rooms -- each one is perhaps 16' x 36' with about a 12' ceiling and hard smooth surfaces all around. These bi-polar M-10 speakers throw their rear output back into these large cavities and the sound is incredibly sweetened by the liveness and multiple reflections. We actually wondered if the organ might not have turned out even better if we'd had M-10's for all the manual channels.
After getting it all hooked up, we connected the laptop runing GC-10 software and began voicing. It was necessary to lower the overall volume of the swell division by several decibels to compensate for the hotter speakers on it. Then we began, with the highly accomplished organist advising us, adjusting the levels of individual stops. The swell reeds had always screamed so we mellowed them out somewhat. The huge Festival Trumpet and Tuba Major we left big, so there is a big reed sound when she needs it. We didn't spend days, but we did listen to each stop and made sure the levels were appropriate to the room and correctly balanced among themselves. We only found it necessary to boost a few individual notes on a pedal stop or two to smooth out the pedal sound. It's amazing how much difference it makes just taking a little time to listen to the stops!
How does it sound? Pretty awesome. Some of the church people had believed that the analog Rodgers left behind in their old church was a better organ than this Trillium, and I would have agreed before we made this upgrade. Now they have a fine digital, one of the largest in this area in terms of audio, and I'm confident there will be a new excitement about the role of that organ in their worship services.
Now they've decided to try having an antiphonal again. Soon we'll go back and wire up just a few of the speakers left in the rear wall, and only the ones that are up high, and my plan is to configure it so that only one division can be sent to the antiphonal, probably the swell. I suspect this will be much more acceptable to the people who sit in the balcony and will be the icing on the cake for this organ!
It was really nice to get do an organ right. Plenty of power, plenty of speakers, huge chambers, nice acoustics, careful voicing ... Why can't every organ get installed with this kind of care?
About 10 or 12 years ago one of the larger Baptist churches in this area built a new sanctuary which seats about 1700. Not a fully traditional facility, it has more or less fan-shaped seating with a large balcony in stadium style. But at least it has pews, a real choir loft, a towering ceiling, and pretty good acoustics for a modern building. A new organ was purchased when the sanctuary was built, a Rodgers Trillium 967 (largest 3m stock model at the time). At that time, Rodgers was represented here by a one-man firm, a nice guy who was actually an audio-visual expert but not an organist. For some reason, the church was sold this organ with only the bare minimum speaker set -- six FR1.7 boxes and two subs (7.5) -- for the main speaker array..... for a 1700-seat room.... I don't know what they were thinking!
Oddly, there was a HUGE antiphonal -- twenty FR1.7 speakers placed into alcoves all around the back wall of the church, some on the main floor, some in the balcony. A stack of five S-200 amps drove these twenty antiphonal speakers. The antiphonal was of course just a two-channel signal, so all the speakers carried all the divisions whenever the antiphonal was engaged. The antiphonal proved so unsatisfactory that the amp rack powering it was unplugged. Folks sitting near the back of the church just couldn't stand it. No wonder because many of the speakers were not much above ear level to the folks on the back rows.
Several months ago we began discussing with the organist and music minister the possibility of re-vamping this unfortunate installation. We finally got the go ahead in March. There were some unexpected obstacles and our plan had to be altered before it was over, but we have now completed the main phase of this new setup and the results have been pretty spectacular.
The new setup begins with double amplification of the main channels. Eight S-200 amps (16 total channels) comprise the main amp rack. The plan we had was to put two speakers on each amp, thus quadrupling the speaker array. Because the chambers are widely separated it seemed best to duplicate the entire organ in each one rather than separating the divisions. (The original setup had the great and choir on one side and the swell on the other, but from the console it was hard to even hear the swell. Thus the decision to have a fully duplicated arrangement.)
The Pedal system needed to be greatly expanded. You can imagine how puny a single pair of SW7.5 subs sounded in a 1700 seat room with a 50 or 60 foot ceiling. We had some old Rodgers P-32 cabinets in storage, so we put brand new 15" rubber-surround woofers into them and put one of these on each of the four pedal channels. (Actually, we were short one P-32, so we put new speakers into the existing SW-7.5's and used both of them on one channel in place of a P-32.) So now, instead of just two (2!) 15" speakers trying to make some bass in that room, we now have EIGHT of them pumping in unison. No shortage of bass power now!
We doubled up great and choir speakers on each amp, so now instead of two speakers for the entire great division there are EIGHT, and eight for the choir as well. We ran short of speakers though, because they thought they could get all the FR1.7 speakers out of the rear walls but found that some of them could not be pulled out due to structural issues. We came up with a unique solution for the Swell speakers.
I know this will raise eyebrows, but the church could not afford to purchase eight new FR1.7's for the swell, so we went in with four old Rodgers M-10 speaker panels for the swell -- one per amp -- and created an awesome swell organ sound! Yes, we've often dismissed these old car speaker panels as lo-fi and unworthy of a fine organ, but in careful listening tests we became convinced that these humble units actually sounded every bit as good as the FR1.7 boxes, at least in this setting. A single M-10 also puts out a few decibels more sound than a pair of FR1.7's due to their higher sensitivity. The fact that they radiate sound from both front and rear (bi-polar) had an unexpected benefit. The organ chambers are enormous rooms -- each one is perhaps 16' x 36' with about a 12' ceiling and hard smooth surfaces all around. These bi-polar M-10 speakers throw their rear output back into these large cavities and the sound is incredibly sweetened by the liveness and multiple reflections. We actually wondered if the organ might not have turned out even better if we'd had M-10's for all the manual channels.
After getting it all hooked up, we connected the laptop runing GC-10 software and began voicing. It was necessary to lower the overall volume of the swell division by several decibels to compensate for the hotter speakers on it. Then we began, with the highly accomplished organist advising us, adjusting the levels of individual stops. The swell reeds had always screamed so we mellowed them out somewhat. The huge Festival Trumpet and Tuba Major we left big, so there is a big reed sound when she needs it. We didn't spend days, but we did listen to each stop and made sure the levels were appropriate to the room and correctly balanced among themselves. We only found it necessary to boost a few individual notes on a pedal stop or two to smooth out the pedal sound. It's amazing how much difference it makes just taking a little time to listen to the stops!
How does it sound? Pretty awesome. Some of the church people had believed that the analog Rodgers left behind in their old church was a better organ than this Trillium, and I would have agreed before we made this upgrade. Now they have a fine digital, one of the largest in this area in terms of audio, and I'm confident there will be a new excitement about the role of that organ in their worship services.
Now they've decided to try having an antiphonal again. Soon we'll go back and wire up just a few of the speakers left in the rear wall, and only the ones that are up high, and my plan is to configure it so that only one division can be sent to the antiphonal, probably the swell. I suspect this will be much more acceptable to the people who sit in the balcony and will be the icing on the cake for this organ!
It was really nice to get do an organ right. Plenty of power, plenty of speakers, huge chambers, nice acoustics, careful voicing ... Why can't every organ get installed with this kind of care?
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