Pipe Organ recording...A-B or Jecklin ?

[sonare]

The 4090s are ideal for this-- the polar pattern is nearly perfectly omni, and the slightly increased noise is masked by the inevitable wind noise from a pipe organ. You've got a great rig for organ!

Rich

[studer58]

Thanks everyone, so far it's become a very interesting thread and I'm looking forward to the recording, but don't stop your contributions please ! We'll have an hour or two for placement experimentation, so a 66cm - 1 metre or widerAB omni pair plus perhaps an 'insurance/alternative' MS setup might prove good starting points indeed.

Regarding wind blower noise, mechanical clanks etc...are these to be included as part of the total instrument "package", or cut out in post production, or avoided with screening somehow ?

[Petrus]

Originally Posted by studer58

Regarding wind blower noise, mechanical clanks etc...are these to be included as part of the total instrument "package", or cut out in post production, or avoided with screening somehow ?

It used to be that blower noise could not be filtered out, but now there are some "intelligent" noise reduction systems and plugins which actually can be used for that without getting noticed. Mic placement also influences the noise, but for me the organ sound and image comes first, blower noise is then given.

What comes to mechanical noises there are two kinds: the keyboard & tracker action noise you can not do much anything about (I have not tested the finest noise reduction systems on those, though), and the registration change noises which you can do something about when doing an actual "real" recording, not a live concert.

Sometimes there are large registration changes, or just one big stop like pedal 32' is turned on or off, which gives a noticable thump if the music is quiet. It is quite ok in a concert, but gets annoying on disk. So do two takes, one before the thump with long clean reverb, one after the change and edit these together.

[sonare]

Originally Posted by studer58

Thanks everyone, so far it's become a very interesting thread and I'm looking forward to the recording, but don't stop your contributions please ! We'll have an hour or two for placement experimentation, so a 66cm - 1 metre or widerAB omni pair plus perhaps an 'insurance/alternative' MS setup might prove good starting points indeed.

Regarding wind blower noise, mechanical clanks etc...are these to be included as part of the total instrument "package", or cut out in post production, or avoided with screening somehow ?

I would try something else besides M-S-- the rolloff that results pretty much kills any sense of weight. Try putting up a "hall" pair-- or just put another pair of a different flavor up. The comparison is always educational. I did one organ disc with a pair of 4003s and Schoeps CMC62S and let the client (the organbuilder) decide.

Blower noise and the tracker noise IS part of the organ-- and in some choral preludes the noises are really like a rhythm section. it's like the question with letting a harpsichord sound die away vs hearing the plectrum noise.

Unfortunately-- there is no free lunch. I have and use Izotope RX and Algorithmix Noisefree. If either is heavily used so that a difference is heard-- you can also hear that the overtones and attack transients are not quite the same. Choose your poison.

Loud combination action noise is another thing-- and some consoles sound as if they were struck with a large salami when actuated. I cannot imagine a good argument for leaving that stuff in.

One thing that can drive you crazy when editing is if the organist is not 100% consistent with swellbox moves. I have ended up "altering" some moves to make the edit work.

Have fun with this-- there is a good reason the organ is known as "the king of instruments"-- it wins on sound alone!

Rich

[JonesH]

Originally Posted by sonare

Have fun with this-- there is a good reason the organ is known as "the king of instruments"-- it wins on sound alone!

Rich

My organist fiancée always calls it the "Queen of Instruments" but YMMV

[Plush]

Certainly it is true that more queens play the organ than do kings.

[sonare]

Originally Posted by Plush

Certainly it is true that more queens play the organ than do kings.

Touché! (or douché)

[hughesmr]

Originally Posted by Plush

Certainly it is true that more queens play the organ than do kings.

My, truer words were never spoken...

I confer with the simpler is better approach to organ recording. I don't think I've ever used anything other than spaced omnis, save for the two disappointing attempts with a Jecklin. This has served me well in dead rooms, live rooms, and cathedral spaces with rolling seconds of verb. The key is always placement, placement, placement. A couple of times I threw up a pr of cards way out in the room, but at least in those limited cases I never really felt that they added much beyond just a well placed main pr. In fact, my wife's new organ recording was just released on MSR Classics (I recorded and Rich mastered it ... it got Sept Recording of the Month from MusicWeb International!). This was of a 1920 Romantic Austin in a really live space with about 5 seconds. I recorded with a single pair of MK2S, even though the organ has an Echo division over 100' away. Of course the acoustic helped in that regard, but for the purpose, a single pair worked out great.

All that said, I heard two examples of an AWESOME capture of organ (one was the Schoenstein at St Paul's K Strret in DC this past summer) by Ed Kelly using a Schneider disk mounted with DPA 4041-SP. Only heard the capture through Beyer cans, but it was smashing sound.

(Rich -- I've gotta borrow that 'salami' analogy sometime!)

[sonare]

Originally Posted by hughesmr

I heard two examples of an AWESOME capture of organ (one was the Schoenstein at St Paul's K Strret in DC this past summer) by Ed Kelly using a Schneider disk mounted with DPA 4041-SP. Only heard the capture through Beyer cans, but it was smashing sound.

If I had been told ahead of time that someone was recording a Schoenstein with 4041s (VERY bright) with a Schneider I would laugh out loud. Just goes to show that we must listen with our ears and not pre-judge with eyes.

And your wife's CD proves that sometimes great music played by a superb musician on an appropriate instrument in a great room captured by good gear DOES end up being super!

Rich

[hughesmr]

Originally Posted by sonare

If I had been told ahead of time that someone was recording a Schoenstein with 4041s (VERY bright) with a Schneider I would laugh out loud. Just goes to show that we must listen with our ears and not pre-judge with eyes.

I will say that Ed mounted his DPAs pointing straight up at the ceiling on the Schneider. Not sure what the difference would be with everything on-axis with that mic on an SD, but the off-axis pickup was tasty.