The Quilcom Rank: A pipe organ synth

[Spogg]

Hi all

Hugh Banton first got me interested in pipe organs and their simulation. Turns out there’s far more to it than you might think, as I found out when I started to read Colin Pykett’s remarkable website http://www.pykett.org.uk/
This guy covers so much on the subject, from physics, acoustics, history and emulation to construction methods, tuning and so much more.
So I simply had to have a go at making my own FlowStone version. The resulting Quilcom Rank is a synthesiser tailored exclusively for simulating the sounds of ranks (sets) of organ pipes. It uses no samples or cycles taken from real pipes but relies on additive and physical modelling methods.

I made a video to demo and explain the functions:
https://youtu.be/Lze_9slJYXQ

The download includes a detailed User Guide, the schematic, VSTi, presets and the Quilcom Pipeverb for church/cathedral space simulation. In addition I’ve provided some MIDI files and Reaper project files for organ music. The MP3s created from these can be played from this location on Dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/159d332uwpw3 ... ig2Ka?dl=0

Here’s the synth etc:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1cerrcg9ztb6 ... b.zip?dl=0
[EDIT] changed to version 1.017

I must give special thanks to Martin Vicanek for all his work which I make great use of, especially his amazing FDN reverb used in this synth and the Pipeverb.

Cheers

Spogg

[tulamide]

I already commented on YT. I'm blown away by the reverberation of the intro and outro. It nails the specific sound perfectly! It is very hard to tell if it is a synthetic or real organ. If this one is played (and set up) by an organist, I doubt anyone will notice a difference!

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

This is very exciting. thanks Spogg I'll be making many songs with this for years to come with your organ .

Cheers, thanks again. And in regards to the FDN reverb by Martin Vicanek; I agree it's one of the best without a doubt.

[Phil Thalasso]

Hello Spogg,

this is truly amazing. The first use I'll make of it is Rick Wakeman's Excelsior Song from the Lisztomania movie.
What a wonderful X-mas present!
Thank you for all that hard work!

Regards
Phil

[Spogg]

Hey thanks guys!

If any of you do make use of it I'd love to hear what you do.

Have a great 2019!

Spogg

[Spogg]

Guys

I noticed a couple of issues when I replayed the YouTube video back after uploading.
1) 2 foot tuning was a semitone off
2) LED switches below the harmonics sliders did not reload from preset changes correctly.

I’ve fixed this and the new version 1.107 is linked below and in the first post. This is a complete zip with all the other stuff included:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1cerrcg9ztb6 ... b.zip?dl=0

Also I saw that the video transitions didn’t render correctly and some clips had fade-ins. These were not present in the video project file (NCH Videopad). So that’s annoying, sorry.

Cheers

Spogg

[Phil Thalasso]

Hello you all,
with Spogg's kind permission I did dare to re-skin the Quilcom Rank.
It doesn't look much like an organ and isn't what you'd take to church with you,
but I like it's sci-fi looks:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/polhcqpacvgea ... o.zip?dl=0

Regards
Phil

[Halon]

Great stuff Spogg. Thanks!

[Logado]

Stuck for a few hours while combining harmonics
Greate stuff!

[wlangfor@uoguelph.ca]

Hey Spogg,

I was testing Your rank Organ. It works very well. I like the colour BTW, it's choice; And Your coding seems efficient. I was pleased by both predictability and stability in its functioning.

Maybe try it with the product I've recently worked on Called Hydra 7:
http://flowstone.co.uk/support/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14127

I used it in unison with Your Rank product and its level of realism was greatly enhanced. I used an originally crafted AGC device so that peaks are smoothed over a bit and furthermore the volume is the product of an exponential envelope.
An envelope, however unconventional in means due to the fact that it uses atypical formats of attack and release which are only increased and carefully attenuated by two sources of de-zipper (which can be set to high levels) and interestingly the slide primitive.

These de-zippers, and timed attack/release lead to the (absolute) control of gain and what it results in (where I was going with this) in that, it is like a formant; In other words, like a creation of air. you might even argue that it sounds as if coming from a pipe organ?
I thought the peas and carrots duality of the two products was a delight.

I made it originally with the convention of bass being faster than treble; And I still aim for that, but for now it still sounds "good". Anyways, I just wanted to say that Your organ is My favorite and My new 5 channel doubler seems to work well with it.

However, albeit; within Rank - I think there is a trigger limiter leading to a redraw event? The exact locale of them can affect the way that knobs react after (fast) motions. I noticed without alacrity, Your (custom) knobs work great. if it's an issue I guess I could personally open the .fsm file and provide instructions but I can't do that until tomorrow; I've come across the same problem.