# Project Organ



## Nils Neumann (Mar 17, 2017)

Hey guys!

2 months ago I sampled a acoustic guitar, and I loved the result and the process of sampling, editing, scripting to create a VI. I learned so much about VI that I decided to go bigger this time:
I'm gonna sample a church organ ... with almost no experience.
I got the permission form a local church to use the organ for a day.
This is all the information I have about the organ:
( https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienkirche_(Owen) )
*
I Hauptwerk* C–g3
1. Principal 16′
2. Principal 8′
3. Gamba 8′
4. Bourdon 8′
5. Octave 4′
6. Flöte 4′
7. Quinte 22/3′
8. Octave 2′
9. Cornet V 8′
10. Mixtur V 2′
11. Trompete 8′
*II Schwellwerk* C–g3
12. Holzgedackt 8′
13. Salicional 8′
14. Voix célèste 8′
15. Principal 4′
16. Rohrflöte 4′
17. Principal 2′
18. Nazard 22/3′
19. Terz 13/5′
20. Quinte 11/3′
21. Mixtur IV 11/3′
22. Cromorne 8′
_Tremulant_
*Pedal* C–f1
23. Holzprincipal 16′
24. Subbass 16′
25. Principal 8′
26. Cello 8′
27. Octave 4′
28. Mixtur 22/3′
29. Posaune 16′
30. Trompete 8′

I have a recording engineer on my hand, but he mainly records bands, never did anything in a church before.

My questions:
How long should I record every sample, is 10sec enough to get a "realistic sounding" loop?
I'm thinking about 3RR per sample, is that enough?
Do you have any recommendations for mic set up?
Any tips or warnings in general?

Scripting is not the problem right now, this will concern the future me. My main focus is to get high quality samples.

Thanks in advanced!
and have a great day


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## EvilDragon (Mar 17, 2017)

I'd say go with 30 seconds to get a really nice, long, sample. 3 RR should be plenty.


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## Dietz (Mar 17, 2017)

Some caveats I remember from the days of my recording and editing sessions for Vienna Konzerthaus Organ:

From a purely pragmatical POV, the length of your samples will depend a lot on the time you have available for recording. Don't forget that you will have to make a setup first and evaluate it before the actual recording sessions starts. Environmental noises will most likely disturb your recordings, too, from time to time, so better take that into account from the very beginning.

Especially the largest pipes may need up to a second until they unfold their full power. The releases from one and the same pipe might vary a lot, due to this behaviour.

Expect to do quite some denoising. Some of the higher stops are very quiet and will get buried under the environmental and microphone/preamp noise. Unlike in Real Life, noise will multiply with samples as soon as you play chords or add stops.

Depending on the organ's state of preservation, individual flutes might be incredibly out-of-tune or even dysfunctional.

Tremulants are almost impossible to sample. 

_... in jedem Fall: Gutes Gelingen!_


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## Levitanus (Mar 17, 2017)

Nils Neumann said:


> My questions:
> How long should I record every sample, is 10sec enough to get a "realistic sounding" loop?
> I'm thinking about 3RR per sample, is that enough?
> Do you have any recommendations for mic set up?
> Any tips or warnings in general?


Organ is living instrument, so yep, as EvilDragon said, 30 sec is better, howewer, i afraid of taking too much time for such registration.
As organist, touched failed Spitfire Chapelle i should say to you that organ has various reaction on velocity, so you should make at least 3 various attack groups, as well as sample them. Touch the keys by yourself and find the proper gradations.
I'll reccomend to sample releases with different velocity as well as attacks, but i'm still thinking about triggering of them properly.

Also You can noticed that there's tremulant on the 2nd manual. It mean that every register on the 2nd manual should be sampled with and without it. Then at the editing stage tremulant samples have to be aligned and stretched to each other... And still there will be conflict of summing of the tremulant noise... Probably there's shweller pedal on the 2nd manual (it's like expression) You should think hard what to do with it. Maybe sample, maybe simulate. But definetely, you have to have reference samples with it and without. Sheet, i still afraid of organ sampling, even have one with unlimited access)))

do not look at various pedals (couples, creschendo (different from the shweller), combinations), they do what you can realize on the scripting stage.

What about microphones: There's not much you can do in the church. Don't put them close (put obly if you have many-many mics on the high-high stage), better to find the sweet spot at the hall, and then may be add some closer and further pairs.
Good luck, if You need help - write PM)

P.S. Make the calculations. Divide the session duration to the amount of samples, You should take the average sample duration.


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## Kardon (Mar 19, 2017)

The Hauptwerk.com site has a forum category called "*Creating sample sets / recording organs*" which might provide some good information from some serious pipe organ folks. The forum is at http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewforum.php?f=2


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## Joe_D (Mar 20, 2017)

Here's what I would do....

Equipment: Since noise is your enemy, use the best quiet solid-state preamps and best condenser microphones you can (rent or borrow them if necessary). Route the signal directly from the preamps to the ADC (don't use a mixing board or processing gear of any kind). A good pair of true omni small diaphragm condensers would be my first choice, because they both capture a sense of space incredibly well and have the best bass extension of any pattern (for bass extension they have to be true pressure omnis, though, not a multipattern LDC switched to omni). Bring a very tall stand (and sandbags to weight down the base) if possible. If you have multiple preamps, SDC's and enough ADC channels, use a second pair (maybe cardioid mics in ORTF or NOS), or even add a third pair. Since you only get one shot at this, it would be better to record several pairs and give yourself flexibility in post-production. Record to 24 bit (your choice of SR), and calibrate your preamp levels so that notes from the loudest rank hit -14 to -18 db. You won't gain any fidelity or increase in dynamic range or noise level improvements by trying to peak any higher than that, so leave generous headroom as I suggest.

Placement: Leave plenty of time to experiment with placement. High placement is often used with pipe organs. You'll have to bring excellent closed-back headphones and trust them to guide your microphone placement (open-back headphones will confuse you, since you'll be hearing he loud stops both through the air and through the phones). Keep in mind, though, that as compared to speakers, headphones tend to exaggerate the amount of detail, both good and bad. So consider moving your mics a little closer than your ears are suggesting; when you listen back on speakers, it will probably sound more distant and less detailed than you thought from headphone monitoring. Go over to the _Remote Possibilities in Acoustic Music & Location Recording_ forum at GearSlutz, and listen to lots of professional organ recordings there. You will often be able to see how they placed their mics, as well as what equipment they used.

Deciding what to sample and the duration of each sample: Do the math, and remember that the church will have reverb for a few seconds, so if you want 10 second samples, you should probably count that as 14 seconds (which will also give you the option of using release samples; a really great thing if you are willing to put that much work into it). Leave a lot of time for re-doing samples ruined by noise. I think a few round-robins and 10 seconds will be very good for a one-day project. I would record every individual rank by itself if possible (rather than combinations). Every note would be best of course, but if you have to do whole steps or minor thirds, that's up to you. Math will be a problem, and some compromises are inevitable.

[Dietz and Levitanus are right that short notes and long notes have very different releases, but I can't imagine you'll have time to record both short and long notes in one day (so just do longs, IMO). Likewise, tracker organs do respond to touch as Levitanus said, but you won't have time to consider sampling that (IMO) in one day.]

Swell: I would record everything with the swell box open. Then, record just three notes (high, medium, low) of every swell box rank with the swell box closed (this won't take very long). That way, later, you can compare the "open" and "closed" samples for those notes/ranks, analyze the EQ/dynamic changes (you could use a match EQ to show you how to transform the "open" timbre into something close to the "closed" timbre), and with some work, simulate the closed swell box. You could program/script the swell pedal behavior by automating EQ bands, etc. You should definitely record the sound of the swell box opening and closing with no notes playing, and at several speeds (that will only take a minute). You might decide to add that sound while the virtual swell pedal is moving for realism.

Also record some "room tone" (that will probably get recorded between other things naturally), which can help you to de-noise the wind chest sound from your softer samples later. It can also be used if you like as a "filler" when no notes are playing on the quieter ranks on your Kontakt instrument.

Tremulant: I would record everything with the tremulant off. Then, record a few notes only of several stops with the tremulant on. That way, you can compare the "off" and "on" samples for those notes/stops, and can, if you decide to put the time into it, simulate the pitch/EQ/dynamics of the tremulant using Kontakt's engine and scripting. That's probably a lot of work, though.

Crescendo: I wouldn't record it in general, but maybe record a few notes with a slow crescendo and decrescendo, so that you can listen back and approximate the order in which ranks are added/subtracted if you decide to simulate it. Perhaps ask the main organist at the church if they have written documentation on it (if the organ builder/technician wrote it up, that would save you time and make authenticity easier to achieve).

I would leave only a little time at the end for the swell/tremulant/crescendo stuff, and if you have the time, do the swell first (most benefit from your recording time, and it is feasible). But, one day will go quickly.


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## Nils Neumann (Mar 21, 2017)

Guys, you are amazing!
Thank you so much for those long texts! Invaluable information in there for me.
I thought that sampling an organ is not that difficult^^ 
I will post the progress/result in this thread, maybe it will become a usable freebie


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## Levitanus (Mar 28, 2017)

Joe_D said:


> Likewise, tracker organs do respond to touch as Levitanus said, but you won't have time to consider sampling that (IMO) in one day


very important note about tracker organs. I've not played much at the romantic pneumatic organs, and haven't remembered they reaction))
But I'm sure, several attack types can't take too much time. For example, I've spent 20 minutes per dynamic layer for sampling of strings's sustains, and just 2 minutes for 5RR staccatos. In case of attacks we, generally, should not think even about acoustics. Just because it will be crossfaded sample. And i suppose, that it's better way to have 10RR per attacks and 1 RR per sustain, than 3 RR with just sustain. The best way, I think - 5RR for attacks and 2 RR for sustains if time doesn't mean)))


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## Nils Neumann (Apr 9, 2017)

We did the sampling a few days ago, man thats a lot of noise...
Right now I'm spending my days with denoising and naming samples, it's almost a meditative process, but if you have any tipps to speed up the process, please tell me^^

We had 7 hours in the church, getting all the equipment into the church and setting up the mics and realizing how this organ thing works took us about 3 hours (at this point we were only 2 guys), time was the biggest problem, so we decided to only sample the "cool" sounding combinations.

The scripting stage will be the most challenging part for me, but I already managed to write a round robin script. So I'm still optimistic^^


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## Tod (Apr 9, 2017)

Nils Neumann said:


> Right now I'm spending my days with denoising and naming samples, it's almost a meditative process, but if you have any tipps to speed up the process, please tell me^^



To offer a little tip: I'm working with Reaper and I do a lot of sample editing. With Reaper you can customize in such a way as to turn days into hours, weeks into days, and months into weeks. With sample editing, nearly every situation can be different and I often make custom actions as I go, although I do have toolbars setup for the basic editing chores.

It can take a little time setting up the custom actions, but it still usually saves time, and more importantly, it takes the mundane out of it and lowers the risk for error to nearly non existent.


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## Nils Neumann (Apr 11, 2017)

Tod said:


> To offer a little tip: I'm working with Reaper and I do a lot of sample editing. With Reaper you can customize in such a way as to turn days into hours, weeks into days, and months into weeks. With sample editing, nearly every situation can be different and I often make custom actions as I go, although I do have toolbars setup for the basic editing chores.
> 
> It can take a little time setting up the custom actions, but it still usually saves time, and more importantly, it takes the mundane out of it and lowers the risk for error to nearly non existent.



Unfortunately I do all the sample editing in Pro Tools:/


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## Nils Neumann (Apr 11, 2017)

The interface is making progress, took only 1 week too make it work...^^


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## Levitanus (Apr 14, 2017)

Nils Neumann said:


> Unfortunately I do all the sample editing in Pro Tools:/


60$ for Reaper will be much cheaper solution, if you are giving attention to time 
Reaper is 10x faster for any sample editing than any other host, even samplerobot.


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## kurtvanzo (Apr 15, 2017)

Nils Neumann said:


> The interface is making progress, took only 1 week too make it work...^^


Looks great. Let us know here and in the commercial section if you decide to sell it. Looking forward to the walkthrough video  Congrats


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## Nils Neumann (Apr 15, 2017)

kurtvanzo said:


> Looks great. Let us know here and in the commercial section if you decide to sell it. Looking forward to the walkthrough video  Congrats


This will be a freebie, 1-2 week's and I should be ready to go


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## Nils Neumann (May 11, 2017)

kurtvanzo said:


> Looks great. Let us know here and in the commercial section if you decide to sell it. Looking forward to the walkthrough video  Congrats



I finally finished the project, have fun with it:
http://vi-control.net/community/threads/project-organ-church-organ-freebie.61994/#post-4087679


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