Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site hound.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!hound!rfg From: rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) Newsgroups: net.audio Subject: Re: Random stuff...actually, are pipe organs loud? Message-ID: <1346@hound.UUCP> Date: Thu, 5-Sep-85 23:23:08 EDT Article-I.D.: hound.1346 Posted: Thu Sep 5 23:23:08 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Sep-85 04:06:19 EDT References: <253@decwrl.UUCP> <1238@teddy.UUCP> <1343@hound.UUCP> <1256@teddy.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 33 [] Thank you, Mr. Pierce for correcting me about mutation stops. Everything else stands. I will not argue what is or is not good taste in organs. I am something of a disciple of ...Harrison, myself. But the point is you made one of your usual flat statements - organs are not loud - backed up by actual data (wow! real spl readings). You now acknowledge that some organs are quite capable of much more than that. Swell. The fellow that asked the question in the first place now has the correct information - mostly from you. By the way, the Riverside organ I was referring to was part of the older one. They always apologized for the organ because much of it was out of action during conversion. I never heard the new improved version as I moved out of Manhattan in early 1954. Fox was a consumate artist. I did not care much for his idiosyncratic rendering of the classics, but live, he was a real entertainer. On tour he always wore his black cape with the scarlet lining which he knew how to swoosh most dramatically. Every large cathedral to have a stop like the state trumpet at St. John the Divine. I su pose most of them don't, but they should. The regular organ there, at least the one they had in the early '50's, always sounded lost, but the state trumpet was marvelous anywhere in the building. As a final small point, large classic pipe organs distribute their sound source over quite a large area. A good diapason chorus with, perhaps several mixtures as well as ranks at 16,8 and 4 ft pitches (at least) produces not only fairly high sound intensities but those over a large area - after all, that was the original point of the instrument in the large churches. Thus the total amount of power can be quite large. I have read that a couple of acoustic watts is not unusual. -- "It's the thought, if any, that counts!" Dick Grantges hound!rfg