Topic: Hymn voicing

I record my children playing their practice MIDI organ at home for when they cannot play at our Church. I take those 3 midi files, swell, great and pedalboard and use those recordings to playback at our church. I have tried and failed to get a good registration on Organteq 2 to suit our church acoustic and our bass heavy PA system tends to give a muddy playback.

Our best solution is to lean towards a flute based registration. The great is always playing broken chords to keep the choir in time.

Organteq has so many options that I can spend days chasing a registration that I think works but at our church does not. We are a Catholic Church in Perth Western Australia playing traditional and more modern Catholic approved hymns.

Does anyone have experience in using Organteq for hymns? Is someone able to assist with some suggested registrations please.

I face the uncomfortable reality of explaining to my wife, who is also our choir leader, that the investment we made in Organteq may not have been the sure fire answer I thought it would be.

Thank you for listening to me.

Re: Hymn voicing

dpse wrote:

I record my children playing their practice MIDI organ at home for when they cannot play at our Church. I take those 3 midi files, swell, great and pedalboard and use those recordings to playback at our church. I have tried and failed to get a good registration on Organteq 2 to suit our church acoustic and our bass heavy PA system tends to give a muddy playback.

Our best solution is to lean towards a flute based registration. The great is always playing broken chords to keep the choir in time.

Organteq has so many options that I can spend days chasing a registration that I think works but at our church does not. We are a Catholic Church in Perth Western Australia playing traditional and more modern Catholic approved hymns.

Does anyone have experience in using Organteq for hymns? Is someone able to assist with some suggested registrations please.

I face the uncomfortable reality of explaining to my wife, who is also our choir leader, that the investment we made in Organteq may not have been the sure fire answer I thought it would be.

Thank you for listening to me.


Hello dpse and welcome to this Organteq forum

I have no problems playing hymns. here an example of registration. Melody in bas. I am looking for more examples later this evening. Have to search among 760 recordings...Have work now.
Do you use couplers? They give many possibilities to create more sound from all3 manuals together.

https://youtu.be/hXq6Fkzv2LU


Best wishes,

Stig

Re: Hymn voicing

That was beautiful.
I haven't explored couplers yet but I could see from that one recording they give a fuller sound without overpowering the tune.

On the eve of Good Friday I don't have a lot of spare time to experiment but I will as soon as my duties at Church are over for this Easter.

If you do have more examples that would be lovely.

Thank you for your kindness. I shall study your registration tonight.

Re: Hymn voicing

dpse wrote:

That was beautiful.
I haven't explored couplers yet but I could see from that one recording they give a fuller sound without overpowering the tune.

On the eve of Good Friday I don't have a lot of spare time to experiment but I will as soon as my duties at Church are over for this Easter.

If you do have more examples that would be lovely.

Thank you for your kindness. I shall study your registration tonight.


Here some more music
I suggest you visit my YouTube channel and search by word Organteq for example  or just scroll some hours....(Have 789 recordings Ptq/Orgtq and growing...)
You could upload some music on the other side Recordings featuring Ptq Orgtq.... so I could listen to your "problem"......

Edit.    I have no pedalboard yet, so I play the bas from manual on separat track 2 as a new recording and then playback both together. Using daw in Mac mini.

Couplers and some tremolo give a fuller sound


Playing Organteq and exploring sounds, stops, is a never-ending, lifelong, enjoyable hobby 

https://forum.modartt.com/viewtopic.php?id=12789

https://forum.modartt.com/viewtopic.php?id=12252

Best wishes,

Stig

Last edited by Pianoteqenthusiast (02-04-2026 05:37)

Re: Hymn voicing

Stig's advice is always excellent.

I'd also add that OTQ is quite muddy by default for use within a church as the reverb gets quite intense.  Depending on the size of the space, you may wish to significantly dial down the reverb of any of the default organs (most of the OTQ organs appear to be designed to match an audience listening position--so the reverb includes the resonance of the organ loft, the early reflections/area around the case, and then the long tail of the rest of the space--all you need is enough resonance for the organ loft and maybe just a little extra if the church you're in is on the smaller side).

There are also ways to increase "clarity" and "presence" by altering EQ parameters, the stereo positioning and other settings of each division, and individual stop settings like brightness.

It's a little tricky to guess what exactly the space needs without hearing it or knowing more specifics of your system/setup (e.g. speaker placement/design and room size).

I wonder if Modartt will release presets that are better designed for better out-of-the-box use in medium to large churches--or maybe even microphone placement presets that work independently of the stock presets like in PTQ--or something similar that would allow easy swapping between the stoplists of different organs while maintaining more consistent general settings.  This seems to come up more and more regularly.

I also find that changing registration throughout a hymn does more for OTQ realism than "parking" on a single stop set for the duration; that does more than which stops are being used in my experience.  Either using the crescendo shoe or the combination system does wonders...

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Pianoteq Studio & Organteq
Casio GP300 & Custom organ console

Re: Hymn voicing

Just taking a break between masses to catch up here. Thank you both. I'm exploring couplers now and finding I get get a fuller sound without the muddiness that I was getting.

Given the reverb in our church I turn off reverb completely in the recordings voiced with Organteq. We had some changes to space a few months ago which added air conditioning. That has shifted the acoustic significantly so when I'm choosing voicings at home I have to be very careful not to add too much wetness to the final output.

On a related note I wanted to share a couple of my recordings with Stig but I can't work out how to record Reaper's screen with audio on macOS. His recordings from his YouTube channel are ideal as I can see the approach to take and I wanted to put at least one recording up to be critiqued.

I have Rogue Amoeba Loopback and Quicktime Player but can't fathom how to use them.

Open to suggestions to share my work.

Re: Hymn voicing

dpse wrote:

Just taking a break between masses to catch up here. Thank you both. I'm exploring couplers now and finding I get get a fuller sound without the muddiness that I was getting.

Given the reverb in our church I turn off reverb completely in the recordings voiced with Organteq. We had some changes to space a few months ago which added air conditioning. That has shifted the acoustic significantly so when I'm choosing voicings at home I have to be very careful not to add too much wetness to the final output.

On a related note I wanted to share a couple of my recordings with Stig but I can't work out how to record Reaper's screen with audio on macOS. His recordings from his YouTube channel are ideal as I can see the approach to take and I wanted to put at least one recording up to be critiqued.

I have Rogue Amoeba Loopback and Quicktime Player but can't fathom how to use them.

Open to suggestions to share my work.


          "Open to suggestions to share my work"

1) If you have a piece as an mp.3.  upload it to Shared files and copy it from there and put it in as a new post in Recordings featuring Pianoteq and Organteq.Easy!

2) You have a Mac so download the free daw Garageband and record your pieces there and export them as mp.3 (or wave) I'm using wave when I drag my piece into iMovie when making a video. I always use Garageband when I record my music and if you have a very difficult piece , beginner, you can record one hand on track 1 and other hand on track two, in slow tempo,  and then playback in normal tempo both and export to mp.3.

When getting used to Garageband, everything goes very fast. GB is the little brother to Logic Pro for more professional use. As they say: "GarageBand is designed to be easy to use by someone with no recording experience. Click, tap, drag, boom... you have a song. Then you can output that song (or individual tracks) to different formats depending on what you want to do with it".

If you are going to record much with Organteq/Pianoteq I recommend Garageband. There are other recording tools too, people should go with what they like.

Good Luck!

Best wishes,

Stig

Last edited by Pianoteqenthusiast (04-04-2026 14:41)

Re: Hymn voicing

Stig, I've added two videos for you to listen to.

The first used the original voicing I selected which now I can hear lacks warmth and depth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wUL0sgWaq8

The second is my first attempt at using couplers to improve the sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUg-9NIs2zU

I'm keen to know your suggestions. I can live with the coupler version and more importantly my choir leader, also known as my wife, approves. If this can be improved further I'd love to know how.

I should add that both pieces have been transposed down by -4 semitones. This is to better fit the range of our principal singer.

Last edited by dpse (Yesterday 08:45)

Re: Hymn voicing

dpse wrote:

Stig, I've added two videos for you to listen to.

The first used the original voicing I selected which now I can hear lacks warmth and depth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wUL0sgWaq8

The second is my first attempt at using couplers to improve the sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUg-9NIs2zU

I'm keen to know your suggestions. I can live with the coupler version and more importantly my choir leader, also known as my wife, approves. If this can be improved further I'd love to know how.

I should add that both pieces have been transposed down by -4 semitones. This is to better fit the range of our principal singer.



Dear David,

It sounds like something is missing, thin sound, both examples. I wonder which preset you have based on when you chose stops? There are Baroque different types Romantic different types of presets and so on + 18 historical organs.

My suggestions:
1) try my choice Baroque Church - Crescendo
2) Choose like me One keyboard simple.
3) Choose the same stops in all manuals as I have.
4) choose like me couplers Pos/G.O. and Rec/G.O.
5) as you can see I have the same preset Baroque Crescendo for the pedal, check which stops.
in the second verse that sounds stronger I have more stops.
6) in the second verse I have added a "soundcrown" to make it more festive, Positif stop switch #9 Zimbel 3f.

https://youtu.be/2qd6dc8kolo


This hymn is sung in Swedish schools in Finland and in Sweden when the summer holidays begin. The last verse is played a little louder, as you can hear.
I have been a teacher and sometimes had to play the chorales in the school service. Worship service.

As you can see  when pedal plays I have chosen One keyboard split when playing bas on separate track I GB.
Btw, did you use GB or did you find an other way to make the videos…?

Try to play your own pieces with my registrations - did it help to get fuller warmer sound?
And as you can see I use number 3 Pos. Tremulant, it make a little vibrato which make sound fuller and softer.
Go to Settings, up to right, choose tremulant - switch on or off and with rate and amp you can get more intensive or less vibrato, often useful when using a little and careful…..

I've been very busy today but managed to make this suggestion. Once you've tested it, you're welcome to ask more questions, which I'm always happy to answer (if I can). You're never done with Organteq. A lifelong, enjoyable journey
I’m playing bas on second track after playing melody.
And tell me how it turned out….

Best wishes,

Stig

I’m swedish talking from Finland. And you….

Last edited by Pianoteqenthusiast (Yesterday 17:40)