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Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling

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  • Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling

    This is a pretty basic question, but I've been away from electronic organs since the 60's. Nowadays they use samplingto capture pipe organ sound, and I'm impressed withits realism. This sampling: is the duration of any given note finite (such as 10 seconds)? Seems to me they could record a sample of reasonable length, then arrange for the firmware to re-join the steady-state note in a circular manner, carefully blending the overlap, thus gaining an infinitely long note. Is that the way it works?

  • #2
    Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



    Don,</P>


    I think you have the concept down pretty well. Some early, inferior samples were less than a second in length, whereas high quality samples tend to run around 5 seconds or so before looping back to the beginning.</P>
    2008: Phoenix III/44

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



      Once the pipe speaks, the sustain portion of the sound doesn't change. So a sample of say 5 seconds captures the beginning of the note including any pitch variations and chiff. Once the sample becomes steady state in timbre, its looped back to a similar part of the sample usually just behind the beginning. </p>

      For example, a 5 second sample. The first second has all the note on info like pitch and chiff etc. Seconds 2 thru 5 are basically the same with little to no change. You can set the loop beginning at second 2 and the loop end to second 5. When the key is pressed, the full 5 seconds play s all the way through. Once it reaches the end of the 5th second, it loops back to the 2nd second and plays back to the end, where it loops back again until you release the key.</p>

      The difficult part is where the loop starts and stops. You must have a seamless looping point or you will hear the repeating loop. Much of this technique is learned over time and very time consuming. There are tools in software to help with this loop point. Crossfades so that the loop ending is fading out while the loop beginning is fading in and both are overlapped. There are linear and equal power fades. You just have to try each one until you find the one that works best. There are volume normalizing effects that help. Once a good loop is created, it sounds perfectly natural.</p>

      Actually, 5 seconds is a little long since the beginning artifacts of a note are well over within a second or less. I have actually done single cycle loops on Hammond samples just past the key click. Remember that today's samples are usually stereo so you have to find good loop points for both channels. Sampling is a little hard but can be very satisfying.</p>

      George
      </p>

      </p>

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



        [quote user="geoelectro"] Actually, 5 seconds is a little long since the beginning artifacts of a note are well over within a second or less. [/quote]</P>


        Hmmmm . . . 5 seconds would at the very least, tendto be thebare minimum! And while perhaps workablefor simple dry samples, such brevity ishardly even a remote considerationfor wetHauptwerk samples with a 7 second reverb time!</P>


        [quote user="geoelectro"]VRemember that today's samples are usually stereo so you have to find good loop points for both channels. Sampling is a little hard but can be very satisfying.[/quote]</P>


        While wet samples might be recorded in stereo, no useful purpose would be served by recording close-up dry samples in stereo.</P>
        2008: Phoenix III/44

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



          Yes. Recording the reverb requires longer samples. My experience in sampling is recording dry and adding effects like reverb later. I can see where a natural reverb in a large church would be desirable.</p>

          Stereo sampling dry or not can be helpful in recreating the stereo placement of pipes.</p>

          George
          </p>

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling

            [quote user="geoelectro"]

            Once the pipe speaks, the sustain portion of the sound doesn't change. So a sample of say 5 seconds captures the beginning of the note including any pitch variations and chiff. Once the sample becomes steady state in timbre, its looped back to a similar part of the sample usually just behind the beginning.</p>

            [/quote]</p>

            In practice, pipe organ sampling tends to be far more complex.  Some HW sample sets have loop lengths of 10-15 seconds, and even multiple long loops per pipe depending on the pipe/rank characteristics because the sound does indeed change over time.  There can also be multiple attack segments, and attack segments further complicated by the initial pipe speech being affected by midi key velocity.  Also multiple decay segments, which in a "wet" organ sample are critical -- there are normally at least 2 and more often 3 decay segments to capture differences in acoustic decay for staccato vs. portamento vs. long held notes, etc.</p>

            A straightforward short loop might be fine for sampling an analog generator, but not to capture what goes on in a wind blown pipe.</p>

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling

              [quote user="geoelectro"]

              Yes. Recording the reverb requires longer samples. My experience in sampling is recording dry and adding effects like reverb later. I can see where a natural reverb in a large church would be desirable.</p>

              Stereo sampling dry or not can be helpful in recreating the stereo placement of pipes.</p>

              George
              </p>

              [/quote]</p>

              AFAIK if you want to do a good job you can sample mono with a mike for dry and in the meanwhile you put two stereo mikes in far field to get church characteristics and placement of the single pipes sound.</p>

              To record a wet sample is competely wrong in concept -except- you are doing it for Hauptwerk. In that case you want to sample the church and not the organ only, and you want to sample all the imperfections of the organs, but that's another story. Anyway sampling wet is wrong already in principle: a reverberating system is a nonlinear non--stationary process, so it's wrong to sum it in a linear way... fortunately results may vary... [;)]</p>

              In any case sampling technique tends to be in practice a really complex game of look-up tables running back and forth for attacks, decays, sustains, loops, and in concept I find it a very inelegant technique for sound generation, though it works pretty well and has been suitable to the electronic tools available for the past two decades. What it doesn't take into account are legatos, ribattutos and the likes...</p>

              MB
              </p>

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



                [quote user="merrybench"] AFAIK if you want to do a good job you can sample mono with a mike for dry and in the meanwhile you put two stereo mikes in far field to get church characteristics and placement of the single pipes sound.[/quote]</P>


                Mono samples can conveniently be post-processed to take advantage of the individual installation. This is an exampleof how relative sound levelsfor single channel on my simple 4.1 home organ (Phoenix organ); with an inverse setup for the second channel. Ofcourse, with multiple channels, this system offers a tremendous amount of advantageous flexibility in installations where the organ is actually configured and voiced by a prowho knows what he is doing.</P>


                </P>
                <P mce_keep="true"></P>
                2008: Phoenix III/44

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



                  [quote user="Grant_Youngman"]In practice, pipe organ sampling tends to be far more complex. Some HW sample sets have loop lengths of 10-15 seconds, and even multiple long loops per pipe depending on the pipe/rank characteristics because the sound does indeed change over time.[/quote]</P>


                  Indeed! The sound does change over time; and recording these changes it the essence of what makes "good" digital organs sound so great! For instance, after invoking some of the lower end 32' samples on my digital instrument,it might take a full two or three secondsafter squawking open,that the sample even settles upon the final objective frequency. With less obvious examples, it is the provision and interaction ofthese continuing changes in sound that make a digital organ sound totally alive, in contrast toinferior 'efforts'.</P>
                  2008: Phoenix III/44

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



                    Clarion, I have nearly no experience with Phoenix voicings, would you please mind posting some more screenshot and functionalities from the PC software? I'm curious about it.</p>

                    BTW: anyone else who wants to post screenshots and tell us something about their digi organ editor software is welcome!</p>

                    (moderators: if too OT I'll open a topic for that)
                    </p>

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



                      I suppose that the first screen I posted, providing stop-by-stop, note-by-note volume levels for each channel, as well as and pitch adjustments, would be the one most used.The following screen provides adjustmentsthat would typically used by the builder, rather than the consumer.</P>


                      </P>
                      2008: Phoenix III/44

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



                        This screen is used to match functions to stop tabs. Functions forany given tab can be changed, for instance, Ihave nothing currently connectedto the midi tabs, so I added chimes from the sound card, to one of the midi tabs.</P>


                        </P>
                        2008: Phoenix III/44

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling

                          [:)][:)][quote user="merrybench"]

                          Clarion, I have nearly no experience with Phoenix voicings, would you please mind posting some more screenshot and functionalities from the PC software? I'm curious about it.</p>

                          BTW: anyone else who wants to post screenshots and tell us something about their digi organ editor software is welcome!</p>

                          (moderators: if too OT I'll open a topic for that)
                          </p>

                          [/quote]</p>

                          I've seen the Prestige editor, when our technician loaded new reeds and flutes for our organ, and did some voicing. Besides very cool graphics, it had some handy features like a clickable keyboard, several "brushes" for note pitch and levels, a load of windchest configurations, output routing plus every usual setting for an organ editor. That's what I recall. I'd like to put screenshots but I have none. What impressed me was the fast and precise control you had with that graphic interface, e.g. maybe the controls you have are the same as other editors, but with that interface you could prepare profiles for many players in a second, which makes it great when the organ has to be prepared for a players competition...</p>

                          Ah, the brushes: instead of dragging every single column for every note, you could use a freehand brush (like in Paint[:)]) or a linear tool (draw a line and you'll get columns underneath its profile) or an exponential function or a log function (if memory serves me still...) That proved to be quite effective.</p>

                          Dunno much about other brand's editors. Everyone's welcome to post more about theirs. :)</p>

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling

                            [quote user="nardofor"]Ah, the brushes: instead of dragging every single column for every note, you could use a freehand brush (like in Paint[:)]) or a linear tool (draw a line and you'll get columns underneath its profile) or an exponential function or a log function (if memory serves me still...) That proved to be quite effective. [/quote]


                            You can also do the "freehand brush" thing with Phoenix, along with a number other commonly used algorithms. You don't have to drag each note one at a time. Although, for the consumer, voicing will most often only involve a bit of ocassionalnote-by-note tweaking tweaking, rather than changing everything with one broad stroke of a "brush". </P>
                            2008: Phoenix III/44

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Reiteration in Electronic Organ Sampling



                              You can download a "lite" copy (no time restriction) of Viscount's Prestige voicing software from here:</p>

                              http://www.prestigeorgans.com/SITE_P...nload_Area.htm</p>

                              Just download the program called "EDITOR".
                              </p>
                              1971 Allen Organ TC-3S (#42904) w/sequential capture system.
                              Speakers: x1 Model 100 Gyro, x1 Model 105 & x3 Model 108.

                              Comment

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