The Quilcom Rank: A pipe organ synth

[Spogg]

I had a quick play with Hydra 7 and I felt a bit lost, sorry. It would help if you could make a brief overview/user guide then I could check it out properly.

I did notice the absence of an output clipper which is always a good idea to have. Also band 5 doesn’t have an output connection.

I also saw that you are using superseded prims for stream multiplication and addition, so they may not function so well as newer ones.

As with all your stuff, the GUI looks really good!

Cheers

Spogg

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

I had a quick play with Hydra 7 and I felt a bit lost, sorry. It would help if you could make a brief overview/user guide then I could check it out properly.

I did notice the absence of an output clipper which is always a good idea to have. Also band 5 doesn’t have an output connection.

I also saw that you are using superseded prims for stream multiplication and addition, so they may not function so well as newer ones.

As with all your stuff, the GUI looks really good!

Cheers

Spogg

Yeah, the limiter is actually built in. It's a broadcast leveling doubler. They've been used for years and I wanted to add a doubler to one. But I need to improve the exponential curve. The primitives You mentioned seem less weight than ASM optimized code. It's why I kept them. I guess the old mono stream primitives have their uses maybe. it would make sense that they "could" be faster.

Anyways, somehow I updated the GUI on an older sub-version. My bad. Love Yours though. The new one, tested its ability to make sound for four hours; It's solid, Made sure the keep alive is predominant but added a formant by percentile. But the broadcast leveling does not have a limiter knob which I'll add. The trick will be doing it so that it's altruistically leveling to the proper specified decibels. We'll see.

[tulamide]

Hey Spogg, as you know I'm easily baffled by wirings of other people. There's one little thing though that I spotted, and I would like to ask if that is on purpose (and if so, a short explanation would help me understanding what is going on there) or a slip-through.

In the Pipeverb, the upper module input is connected to the upper input of reverb 1 (labelled "Left") and the lower module input is connected to the lower input of reverb 1 (labelled "Right"). Following this logic I would have expected the same wiring for Reverb 2. But there it is the opposite. The upper one is connected to "Right", the lower one to "Left".

If this is on purpose, I really would love to hear the reason. Wouldn't there be some kind of phase issues, when chaining Reverb 1 and Reverb 2 with the crossed wiring?

[Spogg]

Hi tulamide

Yes what you see was intentional. Honestly.

I experimented with various configurations to find what I judged to be the “best” sound for a churchy space for the pipes. This includes the possibility to provide a little comb filtering of the reverb tail. From what I know of acoustics, and what I read on Colin Pykett’s website, this is a natural consequence of multiple reflections; some will cancel at certain frequencies and some will reinforce by adding. He makes the point that, when sampling in a real building, just moving the microphone a small amount will provide a different spectral graph. Somehow our brains compensate for this and we hear more or less the same timbre.

I did consider providing signal routing selectors etc. but decided to keep it simple and dedicated to one type of space, in the same design philosophy of the Rank (where I could have added loads of extra knobs).

No simulation will ever be as good as the real thing of course but, as Flowstoners, we have the luxury of being able to mess around with the innards as much as we want. So if you find a configuration which you feel is better I’d be very interested to know.

Cheers

Spogg

[tulamide]

Thanks Spogg!

I already assumed it was intentional, but over the years I always read "beware of phase issues", so I was irritated. It is interesting to see that these "phase issues" can become a sound sculpting tool. The richness of the Pipeverb and similarity to the real world thing really is convincing. So much, that I was expecting a lot more tricks and tweaks than what I finally found. I think it was well worth the try. Your explanations helped me understanding it better!

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

Hi Spogg. Just so you know I'd made a FDN Reverb as well. And it wasn't until I loaded a project up to the point of over 50% CPU that I came across a bug with My own FDN reverb based on Martin Vicanek's schematic crashing.

I solved that by replacing the MV optimized Troggludite non-interpolated (simple) delay with the MV simple delay. It was more stable as a result but used .5% more CPU. Maybe that's of use to You if anyone mentions it.

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

Confirmed after 45% CPU usage.

intel core 2, 3.33, 8gb Ram within FL Studio.
Crashes while loading within an already opened project

I was able to fix by removing Trog delay as I mentioned but also I replaced all instances of ASM optimized stereo pack. For the sum and features I hooked up a normal pack in the right configuration.

Tonight I'll try that and let You know if it needs anything else on My end.

[Spogg]

Richard Morgans, a real live church organist, contacted me recently. Churches are closed here in the UK so his vicar wanted to make a virtual Easter service for his parishioners. Richard was not allowed to go into the church to use the organ to make recordings, due to the lockdown.

He sent me an Easter Hymn he’d made with the Quilcom Rank, so I thought it would be nice to post it, it being Easter Sunday today:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ktcxrvevls37q ... 0.mp3?dl=0

And yes, I am kinda showing off!

A very Happy Easter to all my friends here.

Spogg

[k brown]

And show off you should! Absolutely unbelievable that that's not a sampled organ!

But, yikes! isn't that supposed to be 'Christ is Risen..' ?

[Spogg]

And show off you should! Absolutely unbelievable that that's not a sampled organ!
But, yikes! isn't that supposed to be 'Christ is Risen..' ?

Thanks Kevin!

That’s how Richard spelt Risen. I think he wanted to avoid God suing him for copyright infringement.

Cheers

Spogg