*EasterHegg 18 preroll music*
Benjamin: Yeah, my name is Benjamin Wand and I wanted to talk about organ building.
Why do I do that? First of all I like musical instruments in general, and
then I noticed that it is actually a cool nerd topic
because it connects two things that, or it has two things that
always are present with nerd-things, first of all making things available,
that is, musical instrument making still gets passed on from master
to disciple and it is not so greatly publicly documented and is
just cool to reverse-engineer things. And the other thing is that with
nerd-things one always likes to absurdly optimize, and that is in any case
given as well for musical instrument making, they are very, they work
very precisely and have very exact ideas about what they do
so to speak musical instrument making is all in all a perfect
nerd-topic. Yes, everyone has seen an organ, they look like that, and what
you see here only the facade, there are many more
organ pipes inside, one takes just a bunch that one finds pretty and
attaches them in the front, such an interior designer person does that. And
behind that, that thing is called positive when there are organ pipes in the middle
of the gallery, behind that is the console, that is so to speak the
user interface. But I thought I'd first say some general things, well
*laughter* somewhere data has to get in, one
pushes buttons and stuff and then somewhere comes air. A big church organ
runs at something like 0.1 bar but it is a lot of volume, that is why there are those
bellows. Organ builders indeed still put stones on their bellows for the weight
nowadays. Somehow data has to get from A to B, therefore many organ builders have
thought out many things, mostly they have to do with mechanical transmission
or with pneumatic transmission and of course nowadays also electronic.
And then we have organized air, that is what actually happens with
wind instruments, it goes to the pipes and tones come out. Like I said, there are
very many kinds of organ pipes, they all sound a bit differently.
Those are common models that someone has kindly
drawn for the Wikipedia, and then it is like that that of every kind of pipe
which is present there is one keyboard full of pipes available,
very small to very big, and they are called something with foot and that is the
length of the lowest tone, when for instance a row of organ pipes is called '8 foot'
that means that the longest pipe is eight foot long, 2.40 meters
This one could call the cockpit of a romantic organ. Organs were, ...
there is a big period in the Baroque Music and a big period in the
Romantic Music. There are the keyboards, at organs they are called
manual and then down there there is a foot-keyboard, called pedal, then it has
stuff to set dynamics here, down there are things to operate by foot,
a lever can be operated like that there are also some to roll
there are here on the side, and there are displays for the status
And then there are all those toggle switches, they are the
stop tabs, they make whether a row of organ pipes is on
one can imagine it like that, given you have these kinds of pipes, they
stick to a keyboard, there is always a set of organ pipes per keyboard
this is only one octave but virtually in every box would be a pipe
of every kind one, of every size one, four and a half octaves for
one keyboard and two and a half for the pedal. And they stand in a
toe board, it is not necessarily rectangular but they mill-cut around the
corner if that fits better and when one chooses pipes
now those both rows, so to say they are on, and then pushes
one tone, the yellow sketched in pipes receive air and it toots.
Yes? That is how it works. Ok, and what now? Like I said I like musical instruments
and last summer I had an internship at an organ maker and
unfortunately I found it terrible, but for me the result was that I wanted to try to
build an organ with real dynamics like on a piano. Now I'm
one too far but that doesn't matter. Like that, that is a recording that I
... electronically ... doesn't sound well, but just that you see
what I mean by dynamics, because there aren't always only musicians.
It still has to work. *electic piano*
That is so to say 'piano', if you push hard
loud and soft tones come. *electric piano*
If you do that with an organ it doesn't work, no matter how hard you push, ok?
*Hammond organ*
Not hard to see. *Hammond organ*
That is an old thing, trying to teach dynamics to keyboard instruments,
the piano emerged that way, regarding the harpsichord people complained
that it sounds like 8-bit music and people wanted more resolution.
*laughter* Exactly. And for the organ it still
doesn't really work. There are several reasons for that. First of all,
keyboard instrument in general have a focus on music theory. If you
imagine a band, the dude at the keyboard is the nerd. Not always but that's a thing.
And that a tone on a keyboard instrument, that it is one state,
a digital state, buys polyphony. One can play many tones at once
and do complex things on the piano and that is possible
because one tone is always one thing, otherwise it would be crazy. There are
those seaboards where you can slide the finger, but I haven't seen
decent music for it, at least no polyphonic one. That is the classic
that keyboard instruments are connected with music theory and polyphony
Then this is the case with organs: they are expensive and very
conservative people pay for it, churches and alike, they don't like
experiments. And if an inventor builds something, he builds a prototype
with three tones, and then a musician makes *sung: doo doo doo doo doo doo*
'What is this? I can not do anything with it'
And then, there are two types of organ pipes that were on the picture,
labial pipes and lingual pipes, and those are labial pipes. They look like
a recorder and work like it, and are limited in their ability to
perform dynamics because the pitch changes, like that
*labial pipe* Do you hear that? It goes a bit higher and lower
and that makes many things in music
complicated. Not impossible but it is a disadvantage
Like shown in the picture of the cockpit, there were attempts to get
dynamics on the organ. The first one was the swell box, there is a set
of organ pipes in a box and it has doors in he front that
can be closed and opened and depending how open they are
the louder or softer it is. And then, in the Romantic Organ one invented
a thing called crescendo pedal, there you can't only switch on
and off organ stops with a toggle switch
but thee are presets where you can choose loudness and it works
on its own, switches stops on and off
depending how 'loud' you make it. But then it still doesn't influence how
much you push on each key, right? The volume adjustment ist always for
the entire keyboard. And then in Romantic Music some organs
had the feature that when you depress a button only half way
the pipe only gets half air. Thats nice, and you saw with the pipe
it is a bit complicated but possible.
This technology had the problem that
when you depressed a key you always had to lift each valve
that belonged to all the used pipes, meaning that if you used
many stops you had to push very hard with your fingers, that's why
it was hard for musicians. And now one can
replicate that with electronics, one measures
how deeply the key is depressed, with a hall sensor, and then one moves
the valve on the other side, like the input was.
There is this yummy talk, they explain it thoroughly how this company Heuss does it,
that is one of their employees, they programmed it.
The problem though is, and that is why I don't consider it a solution:
one can't play with half depressed keys. Imagine writing code and some shortcuts
are on half depressed keys.
*laughter*
Nice thing, I call it 'expressive play',
it is still not dynamics but expressive play.
Not bad, actually quite cool, but still not dynamics.
What have I done until now?
First of all I looked into this problem that pipes have this property
to change the pitch with the air pressure. Or rather
I didn't do it but 25 years ago someone invented a new type or organ pipe.
I have to go to FreeCAD. This is a reed of a harmonica
or any other free reed instrument,
the thin sheet is fixed on the thick sheet with a rivet, and if you
blow on it from above a tone comes, approximately like that.
*harmonica-tone* And the interesting thing he invented,
his name was Ernst Zacharias,
is that if you put such a thing the wrong way around
into a tube, it shouldn't work but it does.
And that is a not so good pipe
but I made one myself. Like I said, it has the lovely property
that you can change the volume a bit
without changing the pitch. *Zacharias-pipe*
Though one can see in the spectrogram that the partials change a bit.
*Zacharias-pipe*
When one blows more there are more overtones, it isn't entirely
free of side effects but that is quite cool.
Then, I 3d-printed many organ pipes and brought some.
Those, there is a list how to do it,
how to do the proportions if you have different sizes of organ pipes.
I've made a standard set with different diameters of tube.
The reason for the tubes is: organ pipes
are large, they don't fit into the 3d printer, I didn't want to do wood working,
led isn't that good in the kitchen. *laughter*
Organ metal is a great material but not so accessible for private people.
Those are pipes that should belong together, that are made according to
standard measurements.
*labial pipe* Maybe we should go back to
the spectrogram, that is interesting as well. And the meaning of the matter
is supposed to be that the overtone-stuff looks somewhat similar.
*labial pipe*
I'd say that is alright, for other pipes it looks very differently,
that is a flute. *labial pipe*
See it, right? *inaudible question from the audience*
Yes, maybe I should talk a bit about this.
The lowest tone is the one you hear, for example that one, and then it is the
case that in a resonator not only the basic frequency vibrates
but also multiples of it, and depending what shape the pipe has, like
how big this hole is in relation to the length and diameter
these proportions influence the sound
and that is how there are different kinds of organ pipes.
*inaudible question from the audience* 'How many partials do I want'
was the question, I should repeat the questions. That is ...
I'd love to have such recordings from normal organ pipes but I don't have them.
*inaudible question from the audience* Printing those things once
in different sizes was the goal here, to see whether if the
proportions are similar, do they sound similar enough to be called one organ stop.
What one can see with them is that they
sound funny in the beginning,
always when I start to blow, instantly really, I get the tone you saw.
*labial pipe*
But when I blow little you see a funny effect.
*labial pipe* Great (not). But here in the beginning one could see it.
*labial pipe* Before it had a little swerve.
That means, I wouldn't print a whole set of them, as they are now, for
an organ with dynamics, that would be rubbish.
I'll talk about the file now. These FreeCAD files can be found on GitHub,
and when one look at one, one first has to go to the spreadsheet,
put in values for the thickness of the tube, outside and inside, how wide
and high do I want that opening. And the block chamfer, honestly
I don't know what it is good for but it exists in recorders,
it is this edge here, one can switch it on and off in the FreeCAD file.
And this is such an organ pipe. I've always slices them at a 45° angle,
like that, with the goal to not have
to remove support structure from inside, one always tries to get the labium smooth,
and also this tube where you blow through
if you have support structure inside it is not so nice to get out.
So, I always printed them on 45°,
and then I had the idea to rotate the interesting part 45°
and designed those. I've tried printing but it didn't work.
There is a 3d printer in the hackcenter but it is clogged.
I'm very curious how it'll sound, whether this is useful.
I've also made other experimental things like traverse flutes
and funny things where you can stick a tube in on both sides.
One can design the wildest things in 3d.
*inaudible question from the audience* I do't understand the question.
Wait, there is a microphone for you. Audience: The result is,
if it sounds at all it should sound with a wide spectrum, with a washed-out tone,
right? Benjamin: I'm curious.
I've made fun things, for instance files with
a curved labium. I'm interested in this because it limits the effect
that the pitch changes, it is less in those.
*labial pipe* It is there but very small, much less
then with those. I don't know why. And curved labium is also new, I haven't
seen musical instruments with that feature,
because if you build from wood it would be complicated but with 3d printing -
no problem. *laughter*
I'm curious how it sounds, I have no idea, none at all.
But if it would work that would be cool.
*inaudible question from the audience* Yes, when I'm home I can do this
but if someone could print it now that would be cool, sure, then we can try
it here at EasterHegg.
Another thing I've changed is the thing is the thing at the bottom, for the case
to stick a tube inside because I thought a good next step would be
a small instrument with pneumatic action
and no or almost no electronics
in order to test pipes on a keybord
because so far I can only blow inside,
would be cooler to play on a keyboard. That is an image of a pipe I've played
so that you can imagine it better.
So far I've just fixed it with tape.
That is another folder, also on GitHub,
it has those inverted free reed pipes.
A thing that I find particularly interesting with those pipes is
playing Shepherd tones. Like that, imagine that the red tones are 'f's,
one would play 'f's of all octaves at once,
in the middle louder than outside. That is a popular toy in film music,
one can do fun psychoacoustic tricks with it and this would be the first time
to play Shepherd tones on an acoustic instrument.
It would be either possible to build a stop of Shepherd tones,
which would be plausible as well because one needs eight octaves, which is
more than a normal organ has, or one does it with proportional air supply,
that the pipes that play the Shepherd tones can be used as normal tones.
Thoughts about keyboard expression.
I had mentioned before that there are those Romantic organs that measure what
gets replicated as electronic, how deeply the key is depressed. That isn't the
only possibility how to do that. If one builds an electric piano,
the speed, in which the keys get
depressed, gets measured, that is
another input, and a third way is the pressure on the key, that is when one buys
a keyboard with polyphonic aftertouch, it measured the pressure
on the depressed keys. And in the long run I'd prefer that, becauee
then one can change the volume of an already pressed key, other than when
measuring the speed. On the other hand
you don't have the problem of not being able to play with half depressed keys.
How ever, it will be a new instrument and I'm assuming that it'll take a pianist
two or three months to get used to it, to
this new way, that the pressure gets measured. Most pianists can't play
on the clavichord. At the clavichord the pressure gets measured and
influences the pitch. Usually it sounds terrible at first but
some pianists can already do it, one can learn it.
How ever. There is one thing I need and not having it keeps me from
progressing with the project, and I'm hoping for a miracle in the form of
a person, and the problem is the actuator. An organ with electric direct action
would use an actuator that looks like this
there are two magnets and this thing here
can be moved up and down, proportionally how deeply the key is depressed.
The problem is that this is fairly expensive and I'd like to have one for
each pipe, I'd like to get rid of the matrix, also for example
for performing Shepherd tones.
If each pipe gets their own actuator, that is a point where I can't continue
at the moment, why I would build
a small thing with pneumatic action because that is easier.
If someone had an idea about fluid dynamics, that would be cool
to figure out why the pipes with
the curved labium change the pitch less than the others.
That would be cool. And i've told the thing with the
actuator to many people, and then they reply 'use a servo'. But that won't work
because they are either too slow or too noisy. You've probably seen
on YouTube someone play the Super Mario theme on
stepper motors. They are really noisy! Or they are expensive.
Less noisy servos exist but somewhere in this triangle it is not getting better.
Pneumatics, same problem, also expensive.
*inaudible question from the audience* Question: what does the actuator do?
The actuator does that a thing can move between two points, and also in-between.
And I'd say that the illusion of it being
continuous would be at at least 20 steps.
*inaudible question from the audience* Exactly, I need a proportional valve.
Like I said, at the moment I'm planning
to build a small instrument with pneumatic action in order to continue working
on my pipes. The whole stuff in on GitHub if you're curious, and I'm looking
to hear from other builders of musical instruments.
Are there more questions? There is a microphone, than the questions will
be on the stream, that would be cool. There is one.
Audience: Hi, I'm Max and I play organ. Hello Martin. And I work at a university
that has measurement technology, and we do a course,
so far I'm officially responsible, for the Cultural Studies, what
was it called? Digital Sound-synthesis. There we have some measuring devices and
the university does have an organ. You've said
you'd like to do acoustic measurements of some stops,
Possibly you can be helped.
Benjamin: Oh yes, that sounds great, we should do it. The files
are called '0 - something', and that is very undetermined,
I thought I'd go '1' once I've figured out how I want to do it with the toe board.
So to speak what is there on the right,
organ pipes have certain diameters that have to fit, one can exchange
the pipes, and I haven#t figured out how I'd do it because I always used to
blow in with the mouth and I thought I'll call it '1-something' after deciding
how the lower side should look like,
the interface to the outside. Yes, I'd have to do that in order to
put the 3d printed pipes into a toe board, right? You don't know either.
*inaudible question from the audience*
That would be cool, because it is badly documented until now, I rarely
find spectrograms like this.
*inaudible question from the audience* Yes, we'll talk afterwards, looking forwards.
There, another question. Audience: In Stuttgart at ...
Benjamin: ... Fraunhofer ... Audience: ... am Fraunhofer Institut,
okay, you know them. Benjamin: I've tried to contact them
but nothing happened.
Audience: Ok, that is unfortunate because coincidentally
I know that they have a tool for parametric design of organ pipes, where
one can choose partials and they also do
fluid dynamics and stuff.
But I don't know either how happily they give it to people but they
certainly have cool things. Benjamin: Ja, that was what I found as
well, but like I said, they didn't want to talk to me. Good, there is
another question next to you. Audience: I can make contact,
my cousin is professional organ builder,
who usually does restoration and new construction of classical pipe organs,
but I could imagine to make contact and one could visit his workshop
that should be easy.
Benjamin: Where is it?
Audience: Siegen. Benjamin: Mh, like I said, I did an
internship at an organ workshop, that wasn't delightful.
Audience: That wasn't my cousin.
Benjamin: Yeah ... *laughter*
Benjamin: But sure, I don't think that my 3d printed organ pipes are that supreme,
right? Rather it is a toy for prototyping
and trying things out, like
curved labium, that would be a lot more effort with wood, and metal would
but someone would have to pay for it.
I don't know what exactly metal pipes cost but more than this.
Audience: At a restauration sometimes
some pipes are left over.
Benjamin: Yes, cool, thanks.
Are there more questions? You can also try all of them, for instance this
where one sticks it in the middle, oh, ask your question.
Audience: What do you want to determine
with your proportional valve, the pressure or the volume of air?
Benjamin: The volume. The pressure is even per stop, different stops can have
different pressure but the pressure
is even within one stop, and then the
actuator moves right-left back and forth,
to move the valve.
*inaudible question from the audience*
That is really a bit odd.
This looks like a recorder, right?
And in a recorder, German: Blockflöte, there is the block inside. But here
nothing alike is inside. I found it funny that that works and thought apparently
the labium doesn't need to be at the end of the pipe, it isn't
necessary, and then I made one ... or several ... where one can plug in a
tube on both ends. But I can't make sense
of the pitch that comes out. *labial pipe, several pitches*
*laughter* Interesting, but I don't have an explanation.
What? Ok. *labial pipe, several pitches*
*inaudible question from the audience* Yes, that is plausible but why so high,
the length if the pipe doesn't match the pitch.
Yeah. *inaudible question from the audience*
What do I do when I cover what? Oh yes, let's try.
*labial pipe, changing pitch* *laughter*
*music* There are several ways to tune
organ pipes, this is one of them. There is a piece of sheet metal attached on top
and you can bend it onto and away from the pipe. I've also tried 3d printing items
for tuning organ pipes but that was all rubbish, the only thing that worked
was t stick another tube onto it, or a lid
in case of a stopped pipe, and to move it up and down, things with
folding din't work in 3d printing.
Weird. There, a question in the back. *inaudible question from the audience*
Audience: Oh, once again with mike. If you do the finger on it, you're
making a half stopped pipe, which means the tube gets longer.
Benjamin: Yes. Audience: It makes sense that
is gets lower. Benjamin: What exactly make sense, that?
No. That? *labial pipe, different pitch*
But why is it a fifth? For a stopped pipe it should be an octave.
*laughter*
Audience: They have different length.
Benjamin: Yes, should we, do I have two of identical length? Yes, If I take this
and add that. So, same length now, ok?
*labial pipe, different pitch* It wants to overblow, that doesn't fit.
I don't gat the basic frequency. *labial pipe, different pitch*
That tends to happen when a tube is too thin relative to the length. If one
wants to have a sound with lots of partials, one makes a thinner pipe but
when one overdoes it one doesn't get the basic frequency anymore.
*inaudible question from the audience* Yes, brass instruments.
*laughter* *inaudible question from the audience*
Exactly. *inaudible question from the audience*
*laughter* Ok, then not, don't know. There is a limit
to how much I can recommend blowing into them because I was very sick last week.
*laughter* But apart from that you are invited to
try them all. They all look a bit differently. I've also made
traverse flutes.
*traverse flute* I just wanted to try it.
Makes a tone. Cool, thanks.
*applause*
*postroll music*
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