Allen Quantum - console controller

[smp]

Hi

I've read Jbird's post on here about adjusting stop volumes on the console controller but I've also read (either on here or on another site) that the sample-swapping can be done on the console controller also. Is this true?

Regardless of the answer to the above, I want to seek further information about this sample-swapping business. For example, take the Q345 model. Under the standard "American" suite, there are a few stops which are borrowed from the swell department. Am I correct to assume then that this sample-swapping would provide alternative samples of every stop so that instead of a flute borrowed from the swell one could have an independent flute sample? Also, can a 32' violone be swapped for a bourdon?

Thanks for any responses in advance!

[toodles]

I do not know specifically, but I doubt you can swap samples just with the console controller--more likely you need the Dove software, since the sample would have to be uploaded to the organ. But my dealer did tell me that you can you can replace voices with appropriate voices--i.e., the Contra Bourdon instead of the Contra Violone.

[smp]

Thanks for your valuable input here, Toddles. I'm grateful!

[jbird604]

My guess is that whoever told you about "swapping samples" via the Console Controller was actually talking about "changing suites" via the CC, which is in fact how you do that. But replacing complete samples for any stop will require a computer running DOVE, along with the Sound Matrix collection on CD or other media.

And I'm fairly certain that the borrowing schemes are hard-wired into a given model, and you cannot use a separate sample for stops that were designed to simply borrow or unify off another stop. This is because the tone generator system has a certain finite number of "slots" in the memory, and the stop list must be built using only those resources. Obviously, it can't give you any ranks that aren't stored in one of the memory slots.

Though Quantum models are newer and have certain new features, they are still just a refinement of the Renaissance technology introduced in the late 90's. Most of my experience is with the "REN-II" models which go up through the 320, though I have serviced a few of the large cage models. The REN-II models use the "small cage" but I assume the "large cage" also has defined limits on the number of slots.

The REN-II cage has exactly 32 slots, and that is the hard limit on the number of independent stops. So, in an instrument such as the 3-manual R-320 (AKA "Diane Bish-50"), which has "50 stops" according to the brochure, there must be some borrowing. In most Ren models, this borrowing consists of using the same Flute rank for all the flute stops in a given division above 8' pitch. Also, there will be some great and swell stops used as pedal stops, and in the pedals the 32' and 16' stop will often be unified, perhaps even the higher pitches.

So, I don't know exactly what borrowing is present in your organ, but whatever is designed into cannot be changed. You may find though, once you swap out a sample with DOVE, that you'll like the way borrowing sounds with some samples more than others.

And you may want to swap some samples for other reasons. On my R-230 at home, I chose to replace the swell Viola and the great 8' flute with different samples I found on the Matrix. I like my choices better because I thought the default samples were rather lifeless and dull.

[michaelhoddy]

On my much-missed R270, which was a 32-slot RenII cage living way beyond its means in a nearly 50-stop spec, there was a good bit of borrowing, especially Great to Pedal (the diapason and flute stops at 8' & 4' pitch in the pedal were borrows from the Great) and some Swell to Great, but there was no unification that I can remember, with the possible exception of the 16' Swell flute extension (can't remember on this one). The two 32' stops were straight- independent from their 16' counterparts, probably for the sake of being able to balance and voice them separately.

[jbird604]

On my R-230, I see on the voicing chart that 4 of the ranks are used for more than one stop. A total of 10 stops are built from these four ranks.

A single diapason rank serves for the 16' pedal, 8' pedal, and mixture in the pedal. A single flute rank serves as the LG 16 in the pedal, the LG 16 and Gedeckt 8 in the swell. Yet another flute rank is used for both the 8' flute of the great and of the pedal. And the same 4' Octave stop appears in both the great and pedal. Otherwise, all the stops are straight and independent.

If you think about these, you can see that they are very well-chosen compromises. The stoplist of the R-230 isn't all that big, thus the minimal borrowing. But it is the smallest organ built with the REN-II cage.

The R-320 (AKA the DB-50), OTOH, is the largest model built from a single REN-II cage, and there is a LOT of borrowing and unification, as you'd expect, with 50 speaking stops plus 13 second voices, all drawn from a 32-slot tone generator.

In that model, the 32', 16', and 8' members of the pedal flute chorus are all from the same rank. The 16', 8', and mixture stops of the pedal diapason are from the same rank. FOUR of the five pedal reeds are from the same rank, and the fifth one is borrowed from the swell! Another pedal stop is borrowed from the great, and another from the swell. So the pedal division is pretty short on actual resources.

In the swell, the 16 and 8 flutes are from the same rank. The 4' flute is independent, but the rest of the flutes -- 2', 2-2/3, and 1-3/5 -- all use the same rank! Similar amounts of cheating are to be found in the rest of the organ.

So you can see that Allen really managed to squeeze a LOT of stops out of 32 ranks. That same strategy is apparent in many other models, though perhaps not to the same extent as on this obviously over-knobbed model! That said, if you've ever played an R-320 or DB-50, you know that it is a satisfying little organ, and it is nice to have three manuals and a very complete stop list. Much of the borrowing can be overlooked by most players, such as the serious unification of pedal and swell flutes, because that has been common practice in both the pipe and electronic organ field for a long time.

Why didn't Allen just use more resources and avoid all this? Not sure, but I'd guess that the costs of the cages and the specialized chips in the tone generation system were a factor. After all, these are not mass-produced consumer products.

There was of course no unification or borrowing in MOS organs, and many people probably expected Allen to maintain the same integrity in subsequent digital technologies. But you gotta remember that MOS was a totally different way of doing it, and each stop added to the MOS board was nothing but a few bytes of data in a ROM chip. They cost nothing. But in a Renaissance, adding a full rank to the system meant adding a considerable amount of memory plus the processing power required to use that data, and they had to build a limit into the software that drove the cages.

[michaelhoddy]

John, one clarifying question, since it's been a few years since I've been in the guts of a RenII: I seem to remember that some of the pedal voices were somehow grouped into groups of two per Ren voice slot, which in terms of notes roughly makes sense (32 notes for pedal voices versus 61 for manuals, so roughly half). I ask because my R-270 had similar groupings, but I do not think, for instance, that the Pedal mixture was unified from the 16' Diapason- that would create as many problems as it might solve. I think instead that one voice took half the slot, and the other voice took the other half. In terms of levels and tonality, they would address together, but they were in fact separate sample sets. I went through the R-270 with a fine-toothed comb, and besides the borrowing, I did not notice any unification whatsoever with the possible exception of the Swell 16'/8' flute- I just can't remember one way or the other.

That's what makes the 32-slot math work for the 45-stop R-270.

Don't know if you have any insight?

[jbird604]

Aha! Well, that makes a lot of sense to me. I too thought it puzzling that there was a mixture being built off the same rank as the 16' principal in the pedal. You're probably correct that they used the upper half of the slot for that.

I guess one could tell by firing up DOVE and inspecting that rank.

I do know that in the R-320/DB-50, the 32', 16', and 8' flutes in the pedal are unified off the same rank. In voicing one of those, I found it highly frustrating because I didn't want all three of them to be the same level, pitch for pitch. I was just going back over what the installer had done, not voicing from scratch though. So if I'd been doing it from scratch I might have "tapered" that rank in some way to give me what I wanted from each of the stops drawn from it.

The unification of the flutes from 2-2/3 on up is also very obvious in that model, and equally frustrating. When I voice, I want the mutations to be quite a bit softer than the octave pitches, and that is impossible to do when they are unified like this. Not to mention the tuning problems inherent in using a unison rank for mutations.

Regardless of the shortcuts taken, Allen made some amazingly good organs with the REN-II cage.

[smp]

Guys

Thanks so much for the extremely informative responses. Just for your information, my Allen is based on the Q345. From the brochure (if I remember correctly), 3 of the 58 stops are borrowed.

This forum sure is an amazing source of knowledge and information!