How were our organ sounds chosen?
Recently we announced to the parish that WE ARE GETTING AN ORGAN FOR OUR CHURCH!!!! In the next few weeks we will feature short articles to help us understand the breadth and depth of this great blessing!
Organ Talk, Week 7
Once we realized that our best option would be a Virtual Pipe Organ, then began the long -but enjoyable- process of listening to lots of sample sets. Each sample set is a high fidelity recording of an actual historic organ. Every pipe and every stop is played and recorded with multiple microphones from various angles and distances.
As with church architecture, there are many schools of organ builders, with varying styles and traditions: Baroque, French Romantic, English, American Classic, to name a few. We wanted samples that would give us flexibility, a wide palette of sound options, and be compatible with our nave's acoustics.
We narrowed down the list of prospective sample sets by listening to dozens of online recordings. But this process was limited, in that it could not give us an actual experience of the interaction between the organ and the particular acoustics of our nave.
Then we had the idea of playing the demo recordings of sample sets over our nave's existing speakers. This facilitated greater confidence about selecting some sample sets, and ruling out others that seemed good on paper. The winning pipe organs that will be represented by our selected sample sets are...
