Speaker placement

[lomoth]

Hello!
I spent a lot of time reading through the archive to see if I could find an answer to my question. When I didn't see anything, I decided to post, My tech and I are rebuilding an old MOS 1 console using Artisan and Ahlborn modules. The building it's in is a circa 1886 Episcopal church (I have attached picture). We need 7 speakers for left and 7 for right and there is very little space for speakers. Aesthetics are important to the congregation. Do you think it would work to hang speakers on the other side (altar side) of the chancel arch? In theory, the sound would bounce off the front wall and be directed into the nave. Thank you.

[jbird604]

You should try it and see, but be prepared to be disappointed. May not be an ideal placement, even though the idea of reflecting the sound off the wall is a good one. Drawback will be the extreme high volume of sound that will be concentrated in the area of the altar vs. the lower levels you will get out in the pews. Depending on just how lively the room is, this might not be a problem. But you may find it less than perfect.

You don't say where the console is to be located, but keep in mind that the speakers don't need to be a great distance from the console. The organist needs to hear the organ quite directly, at least as well as other people in the room are hearing it. If the console is at the opposite end of the church, in the rear of the nave or even in a balcony, it may be hard to tell how loud the organ is from such a distance, and there could even be a detectable delay that the organist will find annoying.

If the console is in the other end, do you have any area available back there where speakers could be placed? Perhaps high on a wall or in the gallery, or even lying on their backs and facing up at the ceiling?

It's always a bit of a struggle to place organ speakers where they will work well without being visually intrusive. Even if the church folks are averse to speakers mounted where they will be visible, they might be less opposed to having organ speakers covered with tasteful grillework or enclosed in a decorative case so they can be placed where you need them for musical and sonic reasons.

It's always hard to advise people on organ speaker placement from afar. If I were to visit your church and even attend a service there and hear how the room reacts to sound, I might have a good suggestion. But you're going to have to decide how best to project the sound into the room so that everyone gets a good balance of all the stops and divisions, and so the organist hears the organ as other people hear it.

[lomoth]

Thanks. The console will be in a small alcove behind the choir pews on the left. Another issue is that it is a stone building'; you can't nail or screw in to the walls.

[jbird604]

In that case, the speaker location you suggest is probably good. It may still be very much louder in the altar area than out in the pews, but the stone structure will certainly help to disperse the sound. Other organs have had worse problems with setup.

[lomoth]

[myorgan]

There are several threads which deal with speaker placement:

• http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?30932
• http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?30930
• http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?26671
• http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?24936
• http://www.organforum.com/forums/showthread.php?24249
• https://organforum.com/forums/social...-owners/707966
• https://organforum.com/forums/forum/...ral-chat/24884

Of course, some of these threads devolved into other topics, or are older, so don't forget to check the beginnings of each thread.

I hope this information comes in handy.

Michael

[lomoth]

Thanks! I read through several, but I didn't see any that addressed my question of the efficacy of putting the speakers on the back side of the chancel arch, speaking toward the altar wall and reflecting in to the nave. (perhaps I missed it?). Thanks!

[John Vanderlee]

Are you using Allen cabinets?

[lomoth]

Thanks for your question. We haven't decided on speakers, yet. My tech wants to use small bookshelf type speakers, but I am not entirely sold on that. If we hung them on the back side of the arch, we probably could. We are trying to avoid mixing any of the channels, but if we combined two channels, we could probably get by with 4 Allen speakers on each side of the arch.

[davidecasteel]

I think placement of 14 speakers could be very problematical. Why so many? The photo of the Nave is pretty dark, but is that a sort of shelf along the sides above the windows? There appear to be some rectangular items up there--what are they? If they are shelves, could at least some of the speakers be situated on them?

I counted 10 sets of pews--assuming a 4-foot spacing that means about 40 feet devoted to seating, and that the Nave is maybe 70-80 feet long (not counting the Chancel). That distance is enough that placement of the organ speakers at the back is probably not a good option--too much sound delay to the Organist. There is no rear balcony, either, so there would be no way to situate the speakers forward of the rear wall. In a way, that's unfortunate, because the rear of the Nave is dark and has little "stuff" located there, and speakers would be fairly inconspicuous in that area.

It's a beautiful little church! I wish you well in your endeavor.

David

[lomoth]

Thanks for your input! The area above the windows is part of the framing of the ceiling. It is fill for the space above the stone walls to meet the roof beams. (Hope that makes sense) It is sort of unusual - but was used in a couple other churches in this diocese from the same time period. A couple members of the congregation would be very much against having the speakers there in a place where they would be visible. They are OK with having them on the rear wall, but architecture of the building has a traditional divided choir in the front. It doesn't really make sense to me to put the organ in the back.

[Leisesturm]

Agree with Mr. Casteel (David): seven pairs of speakers for this installation is way overkill. A stereo pair per division is pretty darn near as good as it gets. Great and Pedal can be considered a Division. I am assuming Great/Swell/Pedal? A subwoofer would be nice. Subwoofers are always nice things to do to organs. So 1. a PAIR of speakers for the entire organ (plus subwoofer) absolute minimum (2.1 in the vernacular); 2. a pair of speakers for Great/Pedal and another pair for Swell (plus subwoofer) (4.1) or if inclined to go crazy: 3. a pair of speakers for each Division, plus subwoofer (6.1) That last configuration is still just seven cabinets. I find it hard to imagine there has never been an organ in this Sanctuary prior to this planned for instrument? If it is/was a digital, where are/were its speakers located? If a pipe organ, are there pipe chambers?

[lomoth]

Thanks for your comment! The reason for the number of speakers is due to the outputs from each of the Ahlborn units we are using for sound production. The current instrument (before the one I am working on) is a digital piano. Before that, it was a Hammond. The first organ, according to an older member, was a pipe organ, but I suspect it was a reed organ with fake display pipes. The organ alcove is only 6'x6'. My tech wants to use small, bookshelf type speakers. I am wary of that, but the same problem remains - where to put the speakers. Thanks!

[lomoth]

There is a small space behind the choir pew on the left where the organ console would sit and a small speaker shelf with grill cloth is situated above it in the gable of the alcove. There are no pipe/ speaker chambers. That is what is causing the consternation about where to put the speakers. I will see if I can add the picture of the alcove.

[rjsilva]

I personally don't think 14 speakers is too much. My current organ room is very small, literally about twice as big as my console (it's like a mud room), and I have 8 channels with the 8th channel also driving a Walker B2 (very large subwoofer). There is no doubt it sounds noticeably better than if I were using 2 or 4 channels.

We all know that the more channels you use the more potential for realism in the sound, especially outside of a home environment. Of course there is the question of space in the OP's small chapel area.

Perhaps some or all of the speakers could be placed on the floor (in non-walking places) facing up?

[lomoth]

I appreciate your ideas!
"We all know that the more channels you use the more potential for realism in the sound..." This is what my tech (and I) are hoping for. The Ahlborns are set up with left and right outputs and we can chose "pipe configurations" that will hopefully make the illusion of space between pipes on a chest if we divide them on each side of the chancel. I've thought about putting them on the floor or some other similar sort of configuration, but I just can't come up with anything workable. Thanks again!

[lomoth]

[myorgan]

In searching for another thread regarding speaker placement, I came across a post where the owner installed the speakers in a suspended ceiling. I'm quite sure to rails needed to be reinforced, but it was a novel approach.

Michael

[Leisesturm]

The Rodgers Trillium at my church is essentially a stereo pair per Division.The speakers are stacked in two towers sidewise to the pews at the center of the Altar behind the screen the Cross is on. The left stack fires at the left wall, and the right stack fires at the right wall. I personally don't need any more realism than this. I doubt that the soundfonts in the Ahlborn and Artisan modules (or my Rodgers) are better than 3 samples per octave. I don't know ... I just don't see any way of making that quality of sound source compete with actual pipes. There isn't any point in spending time and money crafting a multi-channel reproduction system when the actual source is consumer grade. Sorry, I don't mean offense, but that is how I see it. Those modules aren't begging for more than a stereo pair each. The Rodgers Trillium, no matter how many channels of audio it eventually ends up working with is still at its core two channels per Division. The best and most practical way of increasing the 'realism' of consumer grade pipe organ sound sources is to bathe the samples liberally in convolution reverb.

Even if the Sanctuary is very live, a decent amount of reverb in the samples themselves will make them sound amazing. Someone once said that even a sneeze could sound nice in a reverberant space. It's true. The reverberation level set on the Rodgers at church is considerable. Quite possibly maxxed out. I didn't do it. I found it that way and the congregation loves it. I don't dare try to figure out how to dial it back. It works for them. A very lucky coincidence in that I love it too. The building naturally has about 2 sec. and I'm ballparking what is set in the Rodgers at 4+ sec. It wouldn't have been my assumption that people singing in a 2 second acoustic could blend well with an organ that is working in 4 seconds but I've lived with it for two years now. If it were really awful I would have done something about it by now.

A distinction also needs to be made between audio channels and discrete rank (sample) channels. Unless I way miss my guess the Ahlborn modules can't use any more audio channels than a stereo pair, and even if you attach more, you don't have more spatial realism because the sound engine itself cannot separate ranks into more discrete channels like the advanced version of Hauptwerk can. The Artisan Engine might allow for more channels than two but not many more. Certainly not 14. The default configuration for these systems is usually Home Theater 5.1 and the two extra channels are usually surround channels that do not carry unique information.

All this is bad enough, but we now get to the question of just how are these modules going to interface with the console? It will need one hell of a MIDI encoder/decoder to manage the routing between the console and more than one sound module. You will end up with tons of wasted sounds because the modules will have way more sounds than can be accessed easily by the console. An instrument like that is fine for a hobbyist working at home but for a Sanctuary instrument I think an organ should follow AGO specifications to some degree.

And last, Michael's point about the suspended ceiling ... well without going quite that far, I think the speakers mounted directly to the ceiling isn't a bad idea. Or standing on that 'shelf'. It looks pretty dark up there. But I think the cabinets need to be substantial. Fewer and more substantial. Finding amplifiers and wiring for seven pairs of speakers will get old really quickly and I just don't think they will be able to put out the amount of sound needed. You need a lot more than seven pairs if you are going to use bookshelf speakers. Mix, mix, mix away and use as few speakers as possible.

[lomoth]

Thanks for your well considered comments. I should clarify that the components I used to midi-fy the console are Artisan. I am not using an Artisan sound engine in this organ. Only the 7 Ahlborn modules are producing the sound. I wish I could associate a set of speakers with each rank; as you said, the Ahlborns are not set up that way.

As to how the modules interface with the console, the artisan components and programming are supposed to handle that. We haven't quite finished the midi-fication but are hoping that it all works the way we expect it to. The console has about 60 stops, the sounds being drawn from the 7 modules. Mixing it all down to fewer speakers is certainly still on the table.

[Leisesturm]

The area behind the cross is about 10' deep. The faces of the speakers come right to the edge of the screen behind the Cross. They are in two stacks. The bottom set are about 7' off the ground (about where the base of the Cross would be) and the top of the top set almost reaches the ceiling. This is almost a polar opposite installation to the one the o.p. has to work with but what I can say is that if the speakers are put on the back wall of the arch firing at the back wall a good level of sound could make it into the Sanctuary. It would make life interesting for those at the Altar during a robust Congregational hymn (ear plugs?) but the Choir at the church below are right in the line of fire of the left hand set of speakers. They seem to hold up ok.

[myorgan]

Leisesturm gave me a great idea for your situation. What is the possibility of sacrificing 2-feet of altar space to build an acoustically-transparent screen in the shape of the altar area? You could mount the speakers on the wall behind the screen (up high), and the cross could be moved forward so no one could ever tell.

Just a thought.

Michael

[lomoth]

Michael - it is a good idea! I've had it myself! We could build a half wall to the top of the paneling/window sills and put the speakers near the top of the wall speaking toward the ceiling. Unfortunately, the altar was pulled away from the wall (like most were) but it now sits at the edge of the platform it is on. If a false wall was built, I don't think there would be enough room behind the altar to walk/stand. Great idea, though! Thanks!

[davidecasteel]

How deep is the Chancel? From the photo it is not obvious. From the placement of the choir pews I'd guess maybe 20'-30' deep? How wide is the back side of the arch? I have a very hard time imagining placement of 7 Allen-size speakers in such a space--will your speakers be smaller? Regarding the Altar and the possibility of a transparent wall behind it--could the platform the Altar is on be extended forward enough to permit the wall? (Possible interference with the choir pews.)

The triangular space above the Altar is pretty dark. Could similarly-colored speakers be suspended near the dark wall facing out? If matched in color (including the grill cloth) they might not be conspicuous. Possibly a false wall could be built up high there to disguise the speakers.

David

[lomoth]

Thank you David for the suggestions. I have put up another picture showing how shallow the altar area is. I'm not good at judging distance, but I think the whole choir/altar depth is about 20 feet. The altar comes right up to the platform it is on to provide a couple feet behind it for the priest to stand. You can see in the picture that there isn't really any spare room in front of the altar, either. I have thought about putting speakers in the triangular part of the beams, but am afraid the sound will just kind of stay up there, as the chancel arch is below that triangular area, unless they speak downward. but there is a lot of carpet on the floor that would absorb the sound. Maybe I should revisit that, though. We haven't decided for sure on speakers/speaker sizes. I appreciate everyone's ideas and suggestions! It is a difficult place to hide speakers and yet situate them for good sound projection.

[davidecasteel]

Of course, one possible option would be to remove the carpet. The Chancel area in my UMC is hard wood and the floor of the choir loft is poured concrete. The pipes of the organ are above and behind the choir, and the hard surfaces assist in projecting the tones of the choir and the organ into the worship space (Nave).

Your pictures show an alcove for the organ and a piano on the left side of the Chancel (looking at the Altar). Is there a similar alcove on the opposite side? If so, would it be possible to revise it to permit putting the majority of the speakers in it? If they could be put there, I'd place them along the wall nearest the Altar and angled out through the arch. A couple of speakers could also possibly be placed on the front arch wall in the corners with the floor (in white color if possibe, or matching the wood of the Altar rail. Those would have to carry a mixed set of channels, I think.

It is really difficult to make suggestions without actually seeing the worship space (Chancel and Nave) and also the speakers to be positioned.

You have said that there are a few parishioners who would object to the speakers being placed where they can be seen by the seated congregation. What makes them so special? A lot of churches have speakers that are visible, but not conspicuous (colored so as to blend in). Are these dissenters the major financiers of the church? Visible speakers can have icons or flowers set atop them, making them look like little tables. There are lots of things that can be done to make them less attention-getting.

David

[lomoth]

I agree about the carpet 110%! It not attractive, dated and needs to go. I think it is from the 80's. Hopefully, that will be done in the not too distant future. Also, the paneling was put behind the altar at the same time the carpet was put in. That needs to go, too. Yes, the resistors are forever members who keep things going financially. Unfortunately, there is not a matching alcove on the right side. Your suggestions are great. Due to the limitations of the space, I am thinking it might be worthwhile to try putting the speakers on the back side of the chancel arch. Thanks!