Topic by mprimrose

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  • mprimrose
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  • Registered: 08-02-2021
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Topic: Configuring "en chamade" reeds

Following on from a previous topic, with discussed the similar sound and timbre of T8' stops, when placed on different manuals, and the suggestion that the differing sounds could be achieved by the virtual spatial modelling of the organ architecture, and its various divisions, I was wondering whether it would be possible to virtually rotate a number of ranks of pipes horizontally, and have them "en chamade".

The Cavaillé-Coll organ, at the Church of Saint Sernin, Toulouse, France, has a "Trompette en chamade 8" and a "Clairon en chamade 4" as stops on the Grand Orgue. As I am neither limited by the constraints of space or gravity, within my digital audio environment, it would also be possible to rotate the other reed rank and have a "Bombarde en chamade 16" as an additional stop on my Grand Orgue manual simply for my personal enjoyment and amusement.

Now, unless I am missing something blindingly obvious, and admittedly I have only been using Organteq for a few months, it is only possible to alter the volume of a particular stop or to detune it. However, neither of these parameters is going to achieve the effect of an "en chamade" by themselves. With the Output and Reverb settings one could model the attack, crispness and clarity one wants with a "en chamade" battery and the spacial separation required for battery to answer to battery.

However, since the Settings apply to the entire instance of the modelled organ, applying these Output and Reverb values would probably achieve the aural equivalent of being a bat, roosting directly above the organ pipes, in the rafters of a church. Whist this might provide an interesting perspective on the music. what one is hoping for is the that the majority of pipes point vertically and three ranks point horizontally and that one has a seat in the congregation rather than a precarious and draughty perch in the rafters.

What one would have to have running is a normal instance of Organteq (vertical pipes) for the majority of the stops and manuals and a second instance of Organteq (horizontal pipes) with three stops "en chamade" on a single manual. The second instance would have the Output and Reverb settings tuned to achieve the aural sense of multiple batteries of reeds pointing down the length of the aisle and they would only be played as required.

Now, whilst I can run two standalone instances of Organteq at the same time on my DAW, my soundcard can't cope with it, and, short of installing a second soundcard, i haven't, as yet, thought of a solution for this. However, I can run multiple instances of Organteq either on Reaper, or on Carla, and to get the multiple instances to sound together. If, for instance, I have the various voices of Bach Chorale set to different midi channels, then I can set up the same number of tracks in Reaper with each track mapping to its own midi channel. With the Organteq VST loaded, as an instrument, on each track, you can midi-map each track, within Organteq, to a single simple keyboard for either the Récit, Grand Orgue, Positif or Pédale and adjust the stops for each manual as you desire. Thus, when the midi file is loaded and played you will hear each voice being played on a different manuals as specified.

Using this method, one could load an instance of Organteq onto a track and alter its Output and Reverb settings so that the three requisite stops sound “en chamade”. The midi file could then be altered so that only the trumpet voices appear in their own distinct midi channel, which could then be mapped to the “en chamade” track in Reaper. Thus, when you play the midi file, the trumpet voice in the music will sound “en chamade” and the rest of the piece will be played on normal vertical pipes. One can also add additional effects to the track such as equalisers, reverbs, spatial room modellers and others to further refine the sound you want to achieve.

Obviously, this is still a work in progress, and I have endless hours of fiddling under the bonnet and tweaking the settings to obtain the sound I want, but I think it will be an interesting project to fill the approaching winter’s nights.  I have a number of Stanley Organ Voluntaries I want to play, so there will be plenty of incentive to find the optimum combination of settings.

This is just a broad-brush overview of how the “en chamade” effect could be obtained, but I think that the  concept is sound overall. The devil will be in the details, of course, but then again, that is were all the fun always is. If anyone else has been working on similar lines, or can point me to my obvious blunders, I would appreciate it.

Michael

Pianoteq 8 Studio plus all Instrument packs; Organteq 2; Debian; Reaper; Carla

Reply by mprimrose

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Re: Configuring "en chamade" reeds

The “reeds en chamade” preset test-bed was constructed from a totally depopulated console cabinet to which were added the various reed stops on each of the Récit, Grand Orgue, Positif and Pédale manuals. This allows the reeds to be played as solo voices on different manuals, to simulate the battery talking to battery effect and as combinations of stops on various manuals to add more depth.  This is not really designed to be a standalone performance organ, though, of course, it could be used that way, but rather as a particular soundscape to be added for effect on a Reaper track for instance and used in combination along with other Organteq instruments (VSTs) for the various voice tracks of the midi file being played.

In order to achieve the brilliance and immediacy of sound one associates with the “en chamade” rank, the parameters in the Settings have been altered and will thus apply to every stop on this preset. These changes to the parameters are very much personal audio preferences and could be tweaked accordingly by anyone user setting up this effect.

As the rank of reeds “en chamade” is aligned horizontally, pointing at the audience, the “Stereo Width” is set to maximum to emulate the spread of the pipes in the rank. The “C/C# Separation” is also set to maximum (1.0), which also appears to increase the aural spread of the pipes, though I possibly need better headphones to pick up the spatial distinction more clearly.   

In the Reverb Section, I have set the Mix to +30 bB to provide for a fuller sound and the Tone is set to +1 to achieve maximum brightness, although a parameter setting of +0.5 will take a bit of the edge off of the timbre. The Duration has been set to a high value of 4.0 secs as the sound from the pipes is being directed straight down the long axis of the space and bouncing off the back wall, rather than from the ceiling and side walls. The Pre-Delay is set to a value of 0, as the “en chamade” sound will be heard straight away, without waiting for any delay caused by the sound bouncing off the surrounding walls and ceiling.

The Room Dimension is, I suppose, rather arbitrary, but I have been using 37 m, which seems to give a pleasant sense of depth to the sound coming off the back wall. The Tail / Early Reflections are set at 10 dB, for much the same reason, in order to give some depth to the reflections off the back wall.  As stated above, these parameter settings are not absolute, but are rather my personal preferences at this point in time, and are there to provide a guide for other users to tweak.

One of the unexpected things I came across during my experimenting was the weakness of the upper register of the T8, when used as a solo reed “en chamade”. Just when you would expect that a Baroque Trumpet shall sound incorruptible, the timbre is very anaemic, more of a tentative request, rather than a strident summons to wake the dead. As this is just an experiment in constructing a particular soundscape, rather than a proper organ, one is not necessarily limited to what ranks one can put “en chamade”.  The Cornet “CV” stop appears to resolve this issue and produces one of the Baroque Trumpet sounds I was aiming for; very much a martial battery in full voice.  I suppose one would not put a Mixture stop “en chamade”, if one was building a physical organ, but as this instrument exists purely in virtual reality, as a soundscape. anything is presumably possible and allowable. The Principal 16 and 8 together in this preset would rattle your socks and the lower notes of the solo P16 have that haunting quality of ship lost deep in fog.

Hopefully this gives other users something to play around with and adds to the general enjoyment. There is a useful article, by Charles Hoffman, on “How to create realistic room sounds using reverb” that may be worth reading

https://www.waves.com/how-to-create-rea...ing-reverb

Michael

Pianoteq 8 Studio plus all Instrument packs; Organteq 2; Debian; Reaper; Carla

Reply by mprimrose

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Re: Configuring "en chamade" reeds

Whilst reading the “Presets data comparison” topic in the Pianoteq Users Forum, I was intrigued by point made by Qexl:

“Currently, if you load one preset in A (click the A/B icon to select these), then load a different one into the B slot, then if you right-click the A/B button, you see a readout of all parameters which are different.”

The Organteq manual briefly mentions this functionality, admittedly in a different context, but I was now struck by the realization that the only way that the parameter differences between the A and B presets could be shown with a right click, was that the parameters of both of the presets had to be concurrently held in memory, and more importantly, what this implied. Normally, when you load a new FXP file into Organteq, there is a delay of a few seconds whilst all of the new parameters are loaded, the new stops and their associations with a particular divisions are configured and the various values in the Settings are changed. This is not an instantaneous process and could not, therefore, be used to swap between organs e.g. between the A. Cavaillé-Coll (Saint Denis - 1841) and the Guy Joly - Pierre Cauchois (St Etienne - Bourges – 1664) organs, during a particular piece, nor would you probably wish to, I suppose, from a performance point of view, as the delay would be annoying.

However, if the FXP file for the A. Cavaillé-Coll (Saint Denis – 1841) organ is loaded onto the A preset and the Guy Joly-Pierre Cauchois (St Etienne - Bourges – 1664) is loaded onto the B preset, then by pressing on the keyboard shortcut key “C” you can swap back and forwards between the two presets. On my computer, the swap between the presets takes less than a second to accomplish. If you look at the table Help – Keyboard Shortcuts, you will notice that there is a “+” next to each of the shortcut values, which allows you to assign a new key-mapping to the shortcut by pressing the desired key. If you were playing Organteq from a real organ console you could, therefore, assign this shortcut to one of the underused buttons on the console or perhaps to a separate midi controller and thus activate the change with a click, without having to access your computer keyboard and managing to accurately strike the “C” each time.

In practice, this would allow you to quickly change from one preset organ to another and back again (A-B-A) during the performance of one piece. This functionality could be utilised to accentuate a particular passage in the piece with a totally different tonal quality, or perhaps to emphasise a particular instrument in the piece, say, for example, a Trumpet.

This brings us fortuitously, if by a somewhat convoluted path, back to the topic of this thread, and the use of the “reeds en chamade” preset in performance. This is not an ideal solution, but it is a reasonable work-around to achieve the “en chamade” sound whilst playing live.

If you load your normal performance organ on the “A” preset and the “reeds en chamade” preset onto the “B” preset, then you can quickly swap between the usual sound of your organ and the sound of a horizontal, front facing set of reeds, mixtures and flues, and back again, with a couple of key, or button clicks.  It is the difference in the room soundscape between your normal organ and the “reeds en chamade” preset that is most noticeable and enjoyable. Suddenly the battery of trumpets is sounding in a totally different orientation to the rest of the organ and is reacting and reverberating in the performance area in a brighter and more martial way. Then you click back to you normal organ settings and continue playing as usual, until you require the next flourish of trumpets to lift the hairs on the back of your neck.

It would be nice to virtually place the “en chamade” pipes at the back of the performance space, or on either side of the space, so that battery can challenge battery, but that is going to require a bit more tweaking, I think. Hopefully, this will give other users some useful ideas to experiment with.

Michael

Pianoteq 8 Studio plus all Instrument packs; Organteq 2; Debian; Reaper; Carla