Having worked in the Pipe Organ industry all of my life may I point out that what you have is not a Pipe Organ at all - it is an electronic simulation of one.A true Pipe Organ has pipes which are wind blown.Picky, picky I know. What you have does sound quite good for an imitation however.

What they actually are, are digital samples of real pipes that were at the time of recording wind blown... not to be pedantic, of course.Were I to record live a live performance on the Casavant Fr

thanks for some good music. Unfortunately, my lame-o computer speakers aren't quite up to the task. My wife and I enjoy going through churches when we travel. My wife is more into religious art, but I really enjoy checking out some of the great organs. What amazes me is when I see some modest church with a humongous organ in it.scott s..

Just a side note: I spent the final 12 years of my career working for Casavant - here in the states. I have no doubt that what you say is true regarding asomeone listening to "recordings" in one form or another but nothing yet has been able to capture the true sound and feeling of a "live" performance, be it a Pipe Organ or orchestra etc.

This used to be a flight sim site, right? I can relate to manuals, pistons, pedals, registrations, even a piston combination or two... But when you start talking about upper manuals and lower manuals, the only thing I can relate to is keeping one manual between the roof of the plane and the pilot's visor and one under his seat (my personal favorite location).

Well, it is the Hanger Chat lounge, where pretty much anything legal is fair game, right? :( Keep your manuals straight, you never know when they might be needed quickly... :(

Just a side note: I spent the final 12 years of my career working for Casavant - here in the states. I have no doubt that what you say is true regarding asomeone listening to "recordings" in one form or another but nothing yet has been able to capture the true sound and feeling of a "live" performance, be it a Pipe Organ or orchestra etc.

Now that is interesting to know. I'm very impressed with the few Casavants on which I've been priveleged to noodle...On that we can agree fully! The one thing missing is the actual ambience of the venue, and no amount of digital juggling can replace that. It can come close, but how can one account for the affect of a number of bodies in the audience who's very presence alters the ambience? While on tour with the Corpus Christi Cathedral Chorale back in the mid-eighties, I had the experience of playing quite a few of the instruments around Rome... One in particular at Santa Maria Maggiore was really impressive, until the time of the concert. With the basillica standing room only, the ambience was a flat as flat could be. How disappointing!I have yet to find a plugin for VST that will simulate the affect of warm bodies... :(

Yeah-the few times I've done it with organ they all freaked. Have to do it all from figured bass I guess.Heifetz is the greatest there ever will be imho-and that recording has never been equaled.

I doubt anyone will equal Heifetz. Having said that I do love Hilary Hahn's Bach, but not the chaconne. I managed to find Heifetz's complete early mono recordings in the UK last year, in a package mastered by Naxos. His Sibelius was exquisite.

I doubt anyone will equal Heifetz. Having said that I do love Hilary Hahn's Bach, but not the chaconne. I managed to find Heifetz's complete early mono recordings in the UK last year, in a package mastered by Naxos. His Sibelius was exquisite.

I agree-Hilary for me is one of the tops of the current generation-which however in general does not match up to the "golden years" of Milstein, Heifetz, Elman etc.

I agree-Hilary for me is one of the tops of the current generation-which however in general does not match up to the "golden years" of Milstein, Heifetz, Elman etc.

That is a fact! I struggle to find any wrong notes from Heifetz or Milstein. There is something to be said about the Russian school (Auer) of bowing. Heifetz doesn't even use a shoulder rest.I do have most of the recordings from the current crop, but almost always go back to the golden period, until I heard Hahn's Bach, which I think rates as one of the best Bach recordings ever (a faster tempo instead of the slower recordings from, e.g. Menuhin). Her "early years" (she's still mid 20s!) Mendelsohn and Brahms weren't too impressive but she has really matured with the Paganini, Sibelius, and Bach concertos. Perhaps this also has something to do with the fact that DG produced those recordings instead of Sony. :( Having said that Perlman (though not strictly current generation) can probably hold his own against any of them.

pontiouspilotus,I looked at your travel photos on Flickr. The one I like best is the one you have as the top-level thumbnail -- the one with the high cliffs at the water's edge. For me personally the runner up is your Tivoli Gardens shot.Nice work.

pontiouspilotus,I looked at your travel photos on Flickr. The one I like best is the one you have as the top-level thumbnail -- the one with the high cliffs at the water's edge. For me personally the runner up is your Tivoli Gardens shot.Nice work.

Thanks, Mike. I am slowly uploading some of my pics. I do have a ton of slides (mostly Velvia) from my "chrome" period which I have scanned but which I still need to "touch" up due to noise/dirt mostly. It's a pain in the &@($* to do, though. That cliff you saw is actually not very far from Normandy, and faces the English channel. Van Gogh used to paint there before he cut off his ear, I think (or was it after?). Checked myself into a nice little hotel above a restaurant and stayed there for a week swimming, taking pictures, and blowing money on expensive French food. :( Yes, Tivoli was a favourite haunt of mine when I was living and working in Copenhagen. I had never seen so many supermodels in an area the size of four football fields. There is something to be said about healthy, liberated Danish women. :(

... I am slowly uploading some of my pics. I do have a ton of slides (mostly Velvia) from my "chrome" period ...

What was your "chrome" period? And will you post some examples here or at Flickr?Slides ... Ah, the memories. Way back when I shot everything with one of the first OM-1s, loaded with the then-new original Fuji slide film. (I preferred Kodachrome 100 but couldn't afford it.) I developed everything in the kitchen sink using a ... I don't remember the term but it was a canister that I put inside a lightproof bag that had elastic sleeves ... ahem, bad grammar, reboot ...I developed everything in the kitchen sink and got excellent results even though our water was hard as the dickens. What I did was a final rinse using a double bath of deionized water.I loved that camera like no other before or since. Regrettably, it was stolen out of my daughter/son-in-law's hotel room while they were on their honeymoon. I didn't press them to buy me another (they had other stuff stolen that they could ill afford to replace) but I'm sorry now that I didn't buy a used one myself immediately. (As I recall it was out of production by then.)Today I shoot everything with a decrepit 5MP Panasonic Lumix II pocket digicam. For when I grow up I've promised myself a Nikon D90 with addon lenses. Either that or the Olympus equivalent.However, as you so ably demonstrate in your photos, photography is all about the eye of the photographer, not the equipment. Choice of material is somewhat important but composition is king.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxYo n4gix, At least we're talking about right brain stuff. However, and regrettably, pop music is my thing. In the immortal words of Chuck Berry,Roll over Beethoven,Tell Chaikowsky the news. <--- Yes, today we use v, not w, and we pronounce accordingly.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxyo Gavin, w po Polski = v po Angliski, da?

What was your "chrome" period? And will you post some examples here or at Flickr?Slides ... Ah, the memories. Way back when I shot everything with one of the first OM-1s, loaded with the then-new original Fuji slide film. .....I loved that camera like no other before or since. Regrettably, it was stolen out of my daughter/son-in-law's hotel room while they were on their honeymoon. I didn't press them to buy me another (they had other stuff stolen that they could ill afford to replace) but I'm sorry now that I didn't buy a used one myself immediately. (As I recall it was out of production by then.).....Today I shoot everything with a decrepit 5MP Panasonic Lumix II pocket digicam. For when I grow up I've promised myself a Nikon D90 with addon lenses. Either that or the Olympus equivalent.However, as you so ably demonstrate in your photos, photography is all about the eye of the photographer, not the equipment. Choice of material is somewhat important but composition is king.

That "chrome" period was merely an obsession with Kodachrome 64 that dates back to the mid Seventies. My late father gave me a Yashica rangefinder when I was 10, and I shot using the Sunny 16 rule for about twenty years after that. In these days of Auto everything, people tend to forget that most meters tend to work on the basis of an 18% gray card. I remember the OM1 you mentioned; it was revolutionary during its heyday, probably one of the best compact SLRs ever manufactured. I lusted after it for a couple of years but the Nikon FM2T came shortly after and I got myself one to replace my then ageing FE. It was an all mechanical construction as well, with a small cell required to work the light meter, if you so desired. That body combined with the 35mm prime was all I needed to make some great images (well, great to me, at least). And having a camera body that didn't rely on batteries was awesome! I think Olympus lost direction for a while at the start of the digital era but I was at a photo store two days and was suitably impressed with their latest SLR models. I agree, composition is King. And so was Cartier-Bresson. But I bought his scrapbook recently (published my Magnum, if I'm not mistaken) and he's as guilty as the next guy when it comes to composition. The "decisive moment" wasn't that decisive, especially if you blow off a roll or two just taking pictures of the same subject at various angles and distances. You should get that D90, it has fantastic low light (high ISO) performance.

The "decisive moment" wasn't that decisive, especially if you blow off a roll or two just taking pictures of the same subject at various angles and distances.

Guilty as charged, but only since digicams. In the old days I composed once and usually shot once. (I might have bracketed the odd shot but I didn't make a habit of it.)Unfortunately there is now no penalty for blowing off a roll or two as you put it, so I've lost all discipline. Heck, now that I'm liberated from the 35mm frame, and from the cost of film, and from the nuisance of development, and from the fact of slides, I do much of my composing via a digital darkroom cropping tool. (And I white balance on the computer, going by my calibrated Mark I eyeball.)A good example is my signature photo of tonight -- the behind-the-VFD shot. To take it I simply moved around till I liked the perspective. The original image is MUCH larger than what you see. I composed in the center of the field with a cropping plan in mind when I took the shot. To me that's a very liberating kind of progress.The only things I miss are simultaneous control over shutter speed and lens aperture. (We don' want no stinkin' ISO control, though we'll use it if it's there. :) )

Somebody asked for the Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria" so here it is, along with a bonus from J.L. KrebsBach-Gounod Ave MariaJust to show I'm truly Cosmopolitan, the English have been known to have some good composers too!J.L. Krebs "Sleepers Awake!"

n4gix,This from yesterday's Denver Post ...http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12515123