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    Frederik Magle
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    Krummhorn
    Co-Administrator

physis organs website

tegshee

New member
Hello everyone,
seems like the official physis webpage is finally online showing the product line, organs specifications and a few mp3 samples...
I must admit the graphics are quite catchy... well, the organs seems too... :)
Did anybody have the occasion to play on some demo prototypes?
I think they're going to have a demo tour in the Netherlands soon... is there anybody from the Netherlands on this forum? Must be quite irritating for Johannus to have contenders playing under their nose!
I think it's really cool to have a physical modeling technology for our organs too, after it's been applied for years to create virtual trumpets and wobbly guitars... And now what's going to happen in the organs market??? What do you think?

BTW: the link: http://www.physisorgans.com/
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
It's always amazing to me to discover more and more builders of digital organs. Who would have known 36 years after the commercially available first digital organ (Allen) was built that this industry would have blossomed the way it did.

I still have the same complaint with digitals ... the chorus reeds are usually too thin and very "electronic" sounding ... one can duplicate flues endlessly, but no speaker or amplifier can duplicate that real reed pipe vibrating and coupling with the building in which it resides.

It will be interesting to see how the technology in this digital age moves forward through the years ... but it will never ever replace the true wind blown pipe organ.
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Aloha GrandMaster Krummhorn,

I have been meaning to ask your opinion of Hauptwerk systems. Personally, I am surprised at the quality of the sound-samples. A friend had just *installed* a couple of *Hauptwerk Organ Sets* on his three high-end MAC computers.

He has an array of Electrostatic speakers and a battery of Subwoofers which output so much glorious sound when he plays the extended version of the Cavaille-Coll at Metz and the Theatre Organ samples. Its is mind-boggling how far the tech has come. What is your take?

Cheerio,

CD :tiphat::tiphat::tiphat:
 

musicalis

Member
Hello Corno

nice organs. i have played on viscount organ many years ago, but never on Physis.
Are they expensives ?
i am buying my two manual organ (midii keyboard) with a small pedalboard 13 keys. I'll send photos soon.
J-paul
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Aloha J.P.

I really know nothing about Physis Organs, sorry about that. Congratulations that you'll be acquiring a two-manual organ.

Cheerio,

CD :):):)
 

tegshee

New member
By the way...
if anyone's able to speak dutch, could you be so kind to translate this video: http://www.domusorgels.nl/informatie.php?categorie=shows

It's from the dutch importer for Unico organs, it's a video about the tour in Netherlands for promoting Viscount's physis organs.

I've been able to listen to CM100 multiple times, and once I could year (during an engineer talk in Rome) an interesting demonstration of their technology: the speaker had a laptop with the physical modeling engine running: he could really do whatever he wanted to the pipe: put a hand on top, cut the pipe at the end (of course that was done setting some parameters) and it sounded really like he was doing that on a real pipe!!
Of course for what concerns Unico, which is an organ everything else must be good: from the selection of pipe sounds created, to the voicing, etc... and evaluating that is also a matter of taste and the repertoire you're used to play, anyway I believe the sound generation core is as good as we can expect from a digital organ.
Let's hope for more demo tours locally in our nearest store (wherever we live in).

Cheerio
 
It's always amazing to me to discover more and more builders of digital organs. Who would have known 36 years after the commercially available first digital organ (Allen) was built that this industry would have blossomed the way it did.

I still have the same complaint with digitals ... the chorus reeds are usually too thin and very "electronic" sounding ... one can duplicate flues endlessly, but no speaker or amplifier can duplicate that real reed pipe vibrating and coupling with the building in which it resides.

It will be interesting to see how the technology in this digital age moves forward through the years ... but it will never ever replace the true wind blown pipe organ.

I Cannot Agree more with you. Digital organs will never get close to a real pipe organ. In fact we should not even compare them with real organs.
When in a real organ you hit a key two times, never will the sound be the same each time you do. That physicality cannot be reproduced by any digital organ, neither can the complex harmonics of mixtures or reed combination. Remember that when you play a real organ, you don just play the Console, you play the entire room.
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
You're absolutely right, Nick :up:, and thank you :tiphat:

The pipe organ I play at the church does not have one single nicked pipe whatsoever. This translates into a very natural sound along with all the characteristics of the air entering the pipe, which is never quite the same for each key suppression. There are lots of "mechanical" sounds ... it's a very chiffy organ ... and I love it for that quality.

In defense of the digitals though, they are improving every year ... still for some the only alternative due to space constrictions and/or budget concerns. I would rather see a "normal" digital installed in a church as opposed to a simple portable keyboard.

My main complaint on the demos for the digitals is their incessant use of extraordinarily long reverb times. Relatively few churches (at least here in the US) have reverberant buildings - many, like mine, are completely devoid of any acoustics ... the sound stops before I lift my hands of the keyboard in my church :lol:.
 

Ghekorg7 (Ret)

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret)
Hi to all !
Yoy're right "Admiral" and Nick.
It's the same as the diferences between a real piano and the sampled digital one. The secret lies in the harmonics (string vibration/resonnance) and the way of playing - hiting the clavier then transported to the mechanical action of the hammers. I started playin' piano at the age of 5 1/2 and no device 'till now came up with the same results.

But I as said elsewere here, digital technology helps us in another level of makin' music, either composing (to witch helps the most) either practice to perform elsewere, or to fantasize we're inside York Mister playin' for hours...(convolution)

I saw Physis organs. I just want one.... but nowadays I can't afford it...

I worried at first with the name Physis because this is the name of my own group - band : "PHYSIS ORCHESTRA" ! With this orchestra I recorded and performed my compositions from 1981 'till today. I'll post here (on the right post) some music from us.
Cheers
Panos
 
You're absolutely right, Nick :up:, and thank you :tiphat:

The pipe organ I play at the church does not have one single nicked pipe whatsoever. This translates into a very natural sound along with all the characteristics of the air entering the pipe, which is never quite the same for each key suppression. There are lots of "mechanical" sounds ... it's a very chiffy organ ... and I love it for that quality.

In defense of the digitals though, they are improving every year ... still for some the only alternative due to space constrictions and/or budget concerns. I would rather see a "normal" digital installed in a church as opposed to a simple portable keyboard.

My main complaint on the demos for the digitals is their incessant use of extraordinarily long reverb times. Relatively few churches (at least here in the US) have reverberant buildings - many, like mine, are completely devoid of any acoustics ... the sound stops before I lift my hands of the keyboard in my church :lol:.

You are welcome !

Sure there are countless parameters that are involved until you get what comes to your ear...

Sure, it is better to have a digital than not having an organ at all!
Of course, in my opinion, digital organs are great for practice and furthermore a lot more affordable, but still under no circumstances can they replace a real organ by any means. Thats why i am against ultra expensive digital organs (see Allen, Rodgers, Marchall and Ogletree, Walker etc) since with the same ammount of money that you would give for one of the, you could afford getting a smaller but real pipe organ.

In my opinion the future of digital organs is actually something like Hauptwerk.
I believe its one of the tonally excellent ways of reproducing a real organ. There are some sample sets -Inspired acoustics- (like lets say the Palace of Arts organ in Budapest) that have multiple 40 second (!) samples for each note for every single stop. It is said that it took them 2 years to sample the entire instrument!

The extended edition of that organ costs 999$ and Hauptwerk costs 450$.
Of course you will need quite a PC to run it (and also a good Speaker system), but still, i dont believe that most Digital organ companies that have organs of more than 20K can beat the quality of these samples!

The organ I have (a Content Mondri 5800) is a great instrument -of course the quality of its samples is inferior to the ones that many hauptwerk instruments have) but still it manages to sound realistic and nice. But what i like most in it (of course thats a personal opinion) is the fact that it FEELS, Functions and looks like a pipe organ (wooden moving drawstop, wooden console, wooden keyboards and generally high quality materials). For me at least that is an imprortant factor (as well as to my practice). For no reason would i ever want to replace it, but since time goes by quickly and its technology will eventually become obsolete, an upgrade that i will sometime do for it, is to convert it to a hauptwerk instrument. (with the advanced version of hauptwerk you can take advantage and use all the buttons presets drawknobs and stuff of a digital organ) - really dislike Tab organs and plastic stuff, even when it comes to real organs. I am a lot in favor of the Mechanical action functions-

As for Physis organ, having said the above, i am not that sure HOW better it is, especially when compared to something a lot more natural and unproccessed like the samples of Hautwerk lets say... The fact that everything is synthesized in a way, really puts me in doubts about how much that instrument can stay and sound physical when various combination of stops are used. Furthermore, dont trust the recordings made digitally or generally the image of an organ presented on the internet since the real deal may vary a lot... Usually the samples given online are full of digital reverb that cover the real quality of the stop itself. Have in mind also that a Unico 500 (which uses the Physis system) costs 27.000 euros and has 56 stops. (Convert that to dollars and it will be more that 35,000...) I recall that when i visited the Content organ factory in the Netherlands, one thing that amazed me was HOW different their organs sounded from upclose than they did in their recordings !!! I would NEVER buy an instrument, whatever that might be, without PLAYING it first.

I became strictly against digital reverb, when i played at at a Cathedral with natural reverb (the Muller organ in St.Bavokerk in the Netherlands) of about 12 seconds... First of all, what the organist hears has nothing to do with what is heard in the Church -you also have to adjust your playing- and not only that but hearing a Bombarde 32 "Bouncing" arround the walls of the Cathedral after I had finished playing a piece with a nice chord, can not be reproduced in any way. So, adding reverb is something really relative.
You add reverb as if you were at the console of an organ, or as if you were in the other side of the church?


To Panos,

Well yes, i started playing the piano at 6 and since there has not been a digital one that could in anyway reproduce it (I was never even interested to play a digital piano for any reason)
But in the organ its another story. Harmonics can become even more complex, and other than that there are the individual stops and their countless combinations that each of them produces a variety of harmonics that are unique and cannot be reproduced.

As for the Physis organs, I would reccommend that if you want a cheaper solution (sometime) you can buy just a digital organ console (google "Hauptwerk Consoles") ,buy an over the top hauptwerk sample set, and a pair or more, of good speakers, and there goes your organ.

P.S: The reason why i bought a digital organ is because of the lack of organs and time to go to practice to the existing ones (if they are even available). But at least I tried to keep the organ I bought as Organ-y as i could.

Phew, that was a long message :p


Best Regards,
Nicholas
 

Ghekorg7 (Ret)

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret)
Hi Nick !!
I've seen three months now the consoles dedicated to Hauptwerk, allready fell inlove with one...Having a family with many other obligations, this can withdraw someone from spending extra...
For playin' a real organ in Athens go please in review section here and see what I posted about and say your experience too and if you like, hear me playin'...digital with the new Grand Orgue v,2 softwere. I would like to hear your opinion.
your friend
Panos
 
Hi Nick !!
I've seen three months now the consoles dedicated to Hauptwerk, allready fell inlove with one...Having a family with many other obligations, this can withdraw someone from spending extra...
For playin' a real organ in Athens go please in review section here and see what I posted about and say your experience too and if you like, hear me playin'...digital with the new Grand Orgue v,2 softwere. I would like to hear your opinion.
your friend
Panos

Of course i understand. I just suggested that, because of what you said about the Physis organs.
 

Ghekorg7 (Ret)

Rear Admiral Appassionata (Ret)
Yes Nick, of course I agree with you, in all of your ...big post above.
Its different to seat on the console than to the rear/center ect of the church.
In my long professional career I played a lot of pianos/organs and keyboards.
Before digital pianos we had (when playin' with groups) many problems mixing right an acoustic grand piano on stage, and of course I had everytime to adjiust my technique due to different piano in every concert.
When digital came in, I purchased the Korg SG-1D sampling grand piano in 1988, about 880.000 drachma (state of the art) and for all of us players around the world it was a hit, cause we had no more to tune, put mikes, get people to transport, raise the volume in need, adjiustng EQ depending on the concert hall and of course we had the same keybord feel in every session practice, rehearse, live or studio. This is the assistance of digital technology not the replacement of any instrument.
I believe nowadays we can have both to fit every need. It 's just a case of how much money one's gonna spent.
cheers
your friend
Panos
 
Yes Nick, of course I agree with you, in all of your ...big post above.
Its different to seat on the console than to the rear/center ect of the church.
In my long professional career I played a lot of pianos/organs and keyboards.
Before digital pianos we had (when playin' with groups) many problems mixing right an acoustic grand piano on stage, and of course I had everytime to adjiust my technique due to different piano in every concert.
When digital came in, I purchased the Korg SG-1D sampling grand piano in 1988, about 880.000 drachma (state of the art) and for all of us players around the world it was a hit, cause we had no more to tune, put mikes, get people to transport, raise the volume in need, adjiustng EQ depending on the concert hall and of course we had the same keybord feel in every session practice, rehearse, live or studio. This is the assistance of digital technology not the replacement of any instrument.
I believe nowadays we can have both to fit every need. It 's just a case of how much money one's gonna spent.
cheers
your friend
Panos

Yes, and i believe hat even professional organists some time dont take that as seriously into account as they should. And since you are playing the entire building when you play the organ thats a big factor to concern.

Yes, of course we can combine both digitals and real ones, depending on the situation and the use they are intended for. (as well as our budget)

Καλή ανάσταση again,
Nicholas
 

Organ Matters

New member
I still have the same complaint with digitals ... the chorus reeds are usually too thin and very "electronic" sounding ... one can duplicate flues endlessly, but no speaker or amplifier can duplicate that real reed pipe vibrating and coupling with the building in which it resides.

Hi!

Well actually I can do that and demonstrated how to the EOCS http://www.eocs.org.uk last Saturday

I have a Tuba that sounds fat and fog-hornish just like a Harrison and Harrison and French reeds which bite as they should . . .

Needless to say, such techniques should not be widely available to the commercial manufacturers but I am happy to advise appropriate projects confidentially.

Best wishes

David P
 

Bruce

New member
You're absolutely right, Nick :up:, and thank you :tiphat:

The pipe organ I play at the church does not have one single nicked pipe whatsoever. This translates into a very natural sound along with all the characteristics of the air entering the pipe, which is never quite the same for each key suppression. There are lots of "mechanical" sounds ... it's a very chiffy organ ... and I love it for that quality.

In defense of the digitals though, they are improving every year ... still for some the only alternative due to space constrictions and/or budget concerns. I would rather see a "normal" digital installed in a church as opposed to a simple portable keyboard.

My main complaint on the demos for the digitals is their incessant use of extraordinarily long reverb times. Relatively few churches (at least here in the US) have reverberant buildings - many, like mine, are completely devoid of any acoustics ... the sound stops before I lift my hands of the keyboard in my church :lol:.

Just a point of interest. On the Content digital organs, this reverberation is fully adjustable to the organist's taste, and is probably on other makes. As my Father says, 'the main stop of the organ is the building'. This feature is very useful for acoustically 'dead' buildings.
 
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