High esteem for the pipe organ?

[Nick Baty]

The flaw in Nick's argument about electronics is that he thinks the sound is identical. Actually it isn't.

SC, for many of us the two are indistinguishable. However, your point about having to replace digital every 20 years or so is a good one.

[alan29]

My apologies to Peter and to the Mods. I'm afraid I did rather go off on one.

[Hare]

The flaw in Nick's argument about electronics is that he thinks the sound is identical. Actually it isn't.

SC, for many of us the two are indistinguishable. However, your point about having to replace digital every 20 years or so is a good one.

Although most decent digitals nowadays seem to have the capability to have their software upgraded rather than complete replacement.

[quaeritor]

I'm a bit bemused by Hare's post - one thing I do know about about software is it doesn't "wear out". If a digital organ is deteriorating presumably it must be the electronics - ?

Q

[keitha]

SC makes a lot of good points. Having spent a lot of time surveying pipe and digital organs over the last few years, I have no doubt that (assuming that it has been well-voiced and designed) a pipe organ produces a far superior sound/atmosphere than anything that even the very best digitals can produce and it is mainly to do with the movement of air, natural irregularities of wind and the variety of pipes sounding together in differing combinations. Indeed, some directors of producers of the very best digital instruments have told me that there is no doubt that a good pipe organ is better than their own products - but that they are not seeking to compete with the best pipe organs. They are focusing on cost, usage and being measured against poor pipe organs.

With digitals that utilise sound sampling, there is huge variation in quality, depending upon the way in which the sampling has been done. A long note played from a short sample simply means that the same very short sound sample is continuously repeated in a single loop, so the natural wind pressure variations from a long-held piped note are missing and the sound is too 'clinically perfect'. Similarly, a sound sample may be taken from one note in a rank of, say, 60 pipes and then applied by software at the other 59 pitches, which, again, produces a different sound that one would hear with a whole rank of pipes (or samples from a whole rank of pipes).

In my view, the best sounds come from the most up-to-date instruments that use 'real time synthesis', rather than sampling, because the software engineers have much more ability to introduce other sound wave variations that will enable a better imitation of true pipe organ sound to be introduced (including, for example, the 'sympathetic' vibrations that come from the interaction of the vibrations and air movement from pipes that are speaking with those on the same soundboard that are not actively being sounded). I would be very happy to have one in my parish church (even though a good pipe organ would sound much better).

In order for the best digitals to sound at their best, much depends upon the computing power and the numbers of amplification sound channels being used together with the quality and set-up of the speakers and whether or not the instrument has then been properly voiced in the building in which it is being installed (assuming it is capable of being properly so voiced). This then has a real impact upon cost. For example, we have been looking at installing either a good digital or a relatively new redundant pipe organ. The cost of the pipe organ (c£50,000) was around the same as the better makes (but not the best/most expensive) of digitals. A new pipe organ of comparable size/style would have come in at c£250,000. We finally concluded that we could not afford any of them.

The problem of lifespan for digitals does not come from the software, which nowadays is pretty reliable. Most good builders also offer software updates at modest (or sometimes no) cost. Some even enable the upgrades to be installed via the internet. The longevity generally arise from failings in relays, chips and circuit boards, microprocessors, wiring and switching, and other equipment failures as the instruments get older. It may be that the better, more modern instruments, will have a greater lifespan than has been the case in the past - but the evidence does not support it, and many builders still use quite old technology.

[contrabordun]

A thorough technical discussion, easily the best on this topic that I have seen, is available at http://www.pykett.org.uk/EndOfPipeOrgan.htm#Technical. It's a lot more specific about the underlying reasons for the inferiority of digital sound than any amount of handwaving about 'amount of air moved', which is a very common but in fact somewhat misleading trope.

[Southern Comfort]

A thorough technical discussion, easily the best on this topic that I have seen, is available at http://www.pykett.org.uk/EndOfPipeOrgan.htm#Technical. It's a lot more specific about the underlying reasons for the inferiority of digital sound than any amount of handwaving about 'amount of air moved', which is a very common but in fact somewhat misleading trope.

Thank you very much for this excellent article, which I had not previously seen. I do not agree that the amount-of-air-moved argument is handwaving — indeed, it is no more than common sense. Taken in conjunction with the points made in the article, the truth is undeniable: a digital instrument can never sound exactly like a pipe organ; it can only sound like itself.

As the author of the article says, that does not mean that churches should never have electronics. On financial grounds it may well be the only option. But let's stop pretending that no one can tell the difference between electronics and pipes.

[Nick Baty]

But let's stop pretending that no one can tell the difference between electronics and pipes.

There are plenty of us who can't. At college I was in the top set for keyboard skills but had to have remedial aural training. And I spend my 21st birthday resitting my Acoustics exam for the third time!

[Peter Jones]

But let's stop pretending that no one can tell the difference between electronics and pipes.

let readers try for themselves (allowing for recording quality and YouTube reproduction). (I'm an admirer of the Viscount Physis technoloogy, by the way, and we used it for the Papal Mass at Cofton Park.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=DqTXkQTg8qk

[contrabordun]

I do not agree that the amount-of-air-moved argument is handwaving — indeed, it is no more than common sense.

Depends on whether you're talking about amount-of-air-moved in the sense that ultimately you need a large resonant cavity somewhere to get decently developed bass notes, or in the sense of 'lots of pipes contain lots of air and all this air is moving whereas the alternative has a handful of speaker cones each one moving jiggling a few millimeters each way'.

The former is not a like-for-like comparison: since you can construct as large a bass bin as you need (Copeman Hart's go up to 16' long), it's as illogical to compare a small speaker installation with a large pipe organ as it would be to compare the Cofton Park set up with a 3-stop sit up and beg.

The latter is the one I do consider handwaving; ultimately, the air is moving because it is being vibrated, and what you hear is the vibrations of the air inside your ear. Both types of instrument end up moving every air molecule in the room - a much larger volume than that enclosed by the pipes - and by the time those vibrations reach your ears their source is irrelevant. What matters are the differences in waveform at the moment they reach the eardrums, and that is where Dr Pykett's article comes in.

[keitha]

Dr Pykett is, of course, dead right, but in his article he is only dealing with distortion and signal mixing. He is not, in that article, dealing with the difference between different types of sampled sound, synthesis and voicing issues (although he has done this in other excellent articles).

I am aware of attempts made in the USA in particular to deal with distortion and signal mixing by using many channels and ultra-high quality speakers. Marshall & Ogletree, for example, have, doing this, produced some superb instruments (c80 channels) - but even their standardised models (for those on a lower budget) start at $200,000! Even so, they have not yet fully overcome these problems and there are many more electrical units that can fail.

The Physis in the extract from YouTube is the same instrument that was used at Cofton Park. That instrument uses 'real time synthesis'. The sound system at Cofton was a million times better than anything you would see in a church, in terms of the number of channels used, the number and quality of the speakers and the very sophisticated software controlling them all. Recently I listened to the most recent iteration of the Physis software (Viscount) and it was superb. It was in the same church (All Saints, Leamington Spa) that was used for the YouTube demo. However, even with a huge array of speakers, the sound was not comparable with a pipe organ of similar size and high quality (mainly the pedal sound). In terms of cost, however, we are looking at c£60,000 against the £850,000 that a similar-sized new pipe organ would cost, and I would be very happy indeed to have one in my parish church. It may not be as good as a new 56 stop Kenneth Tickell, but it beats a poor unit extension pipe organ hands down!

[mcb]

The flaw in Nick's argument about electronics is that he thinks the sound is identical. Actually it isn't.

Sorry SC, but I think this is completely fanciful. A good digital organ sounds like a good pipe organ, to all but a miniscule proportion of self-styled connoisseurs. But I think they're kidding themselves. And in practice the argument is completely specious: what actually matters is that a good digital organ produces a sound of appropriate beauty, dignity and so forth to accompany the liturgy in the manner it deserves. End of story. Any further argument by the purists is extravagant self-indulgence, using other people's money. [Different argument: a pipe organ with heritage significance is a an asset to be protected and cherished. I'm talking about whether it's justified to buy a new pipe organ on the basis of quasi-mystical views about whether digital sound is inferior to the sound of pipes, even if they (as near as dammit) sound the same.]

A few loudspeakers, or even a battery of them as Copeman Hart used to use, can still not reproduce what happens physically with pipes. ... There is no way that the electronic can begin to move as much air as the pipe organ

What does move as much air mean? I don't know what you mean by this in physical terms. Sound waves move through the air, they don't move it (except backwards and forwards in tiny vibrations). All the air around the organ 'moves', in that sense, regardless of whether the organ has pipes or speakers. If you want to move more air, get a bigger church.

The fact is that many electronic instruments have inadequate loudspeakers ... That, of course, increases the price more than somewhat.

Yes yes, and many pipe organs are out of tune and suffer from leaky blowers... That's a red herring. Let's compare a good quality, properly functioning digital instrument with a ditto pipe instrument.

Apart from the acoustic arguments, there are the financial ones. Yes, restoring a sizeable pipe organ for £200,000 is expensive. A new digital equivalent will cost the parish £30-35,000 — every fifteen to twenty years if not rather more frequently

I'm curious as to where this bizarre factoid comes from. My church has a ten-year-old digital instrument. Are you telling me we'll have to buy a new one in another ten years? Also, what are the timescale and costs for regular restoration of a pipe organ, and how do they compare?

Finally, there is an ecclesial argument. In 1938 the Congregation for Rites was asked to approve for liturgical use artificial tone generation instruments (Hammond organs). It declined to give approval, pending further investigation, and then along came World War II which put paid to that. As far as I am aware, that refusal to approve has not yet been superseded.

Oh for goodness sake.

[Peter Jones]

The flaw in Nick's argument about electronics is that he thinks the sound is identical. Actually it isn't.

Sorry SC, but I think this is completely fanciful. A good digital organ sounds like a good pipe organ, to all but a miniscule proportion of self-styled connoisseurs.

It is difficult to make a like for like comparison and the YouTube link I posted is probably misleading in that the Physis instrument is not voiced to produce the same sound as the 1879 Hill (later 1925 HN&B) with which it is in duet. The timbre of each instrument is distinct and, on reflection, I'm not quite sure what Viscount are trying to demonstrate in this promotional video.

The important word, I think, that mcb uses above is good. Perhaps a way forward might be to begin to abandon the comparative route and assess each type of instrument simply on its own merits?

[HallamPhil]

Perhaps a way forward might be to begin to abandon the comparative route and assess each type of instrument simply on its own merits?

Perhaps it may but assessing the instrument in the context of the particular building in which it finds itself would also be a consideration.

[Peter Jones]

Perhaps it may but assessing the instrument in the context of the particular building in which it finds itself would also be a consideration.

Agreed, and I do wonder why, in the standard ranges of digital organs designed for church use (not home or classroom) there are so few small instruments. I suppose market research has indicated there's no demand. Yet might not, say, twelve carefully chosen ranks coming out of six sound channels be better than twenty-four (or even thirty-five) coming out of three sound channels in some buildings?