Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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Kirbstone
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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Speaking of which, Yesterday evening I as given a ticket, 22 years after my return to Ireland, to the Carol Service at Maynooth College Chapel. This magnificent Pugin-designed edifice has 454 carved oak tiered pews facing each other across the aisle and is the largest chapel of that type on the Planet. Tickets to their Christmas bunfight are like hens' teeth and I got mine from a Math Prof. there. Extra seating narrowed the aisle and I suppose they got about 700 people in.

Four choirs, a brass ensemble, serious percussion and their mega-organ saw to it that the punters present were adequately entertained. Live Liturgical Christmas music at its definitive best. All traditional stuff from the mainstream composers and all the better for it. I had to park about half a mile away and I felt I was walking on air on my way back to my car. Mind-blowing, it was!

Tom
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john62
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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Are humans the only creatures that creates music? Perhaps not.

John
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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john62 wrote:Are humans the only creatures that creates music? Perhaps not.
Note that I suffixed that comment with "as we know it". Other species may, but we do not yet know.
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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crfriend wrote:It's worth noting that no matter how good the original recording, or how precise the playback mechanism, recorded music is only reminiscent of a live performance.
The point I was trying to make is that this is not always true. An acoustic recording is only a representation, but a reproducing organ gives the identical performance, exact in every detail. The impulses which the organist sends to the action are recorded while he/she plays; later those impulses are sent to the action again by the reproducing mechanism and it produces exactly the same performance, complete with every nuance.
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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pelmut wrote:
crfriend wrote:It's worth noting that no matter how good the original recording, or how precise the playback mechanism, recorded music is only reminiscent of a live performance.
The point I was trying to make is that this is not always true. An acoustic recording is only a representation, but a reproducing organ gives the identical performance, exact in every detail.
This, however, requires the presence of the "reproducing organ" and most organs tend to be "installation pieces" that are intimately tied to their halls or spaces (at least the big ones). Small organs do exist, and for those the ability to play from a roll would be useful; however, for the larger ones -- especially if they've been relocated -- I suspect not so much so.

When one does an electronic/acoustic (i.e. using microphones) one is recording the hall as much as one is recording the organ. This is why most YouTube recording of organs sound horrid. I've never tried to record one in situ, but imagine that it would require several microphones and a subsequent mix-down from the master tape. A pure binaural tactic might work if the "sweet spot" in the venue could be located, but those are best listened to using headphones not speakers in a room.
The impulses which the organist sends to the action are recorded while he/she plays; later those impulses are sent to the action again by the reproducing mechanism and it produces exactly the same performance, complete with every nuance.
Indeed, since organs are primarily on/off devices that works well.

Out of curiosity, do player-pianos reproduce key velocity properly to allow for the various volumes and tonality that produces, or are they "on/off" as well? I'd suspect it'd be possible by varying the size of the holes in the roll, but as I've never encountered one "in the flesh" can't really say...
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Gregg1100
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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At least this time I got a discussion going. Normally I kill one stone dead, lol.
john62
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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I know the feeling.

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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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crfriend wrote:
pelmut wrote:
crfriend wrote:It's worth noting that no matter how good the original recording, or how precise the playback mechanism, recorded music is only reminiscent of a live performance.
The point I was trying to make is that this is not always true. An acoustic recording is only a representation, but a reproducing organ gives the identical performance, exact in every detail.
This, however, requires the presence of the "reproducing organ"
Well yes - if you want to play back a recording, you need the right playback device.
crfriend wrote:When one does an electronic/acoustic (i.e. using microphones) one is recording the hall as much as one is recording the organ. This is why most YouTube recording of organs sound horrid.
The recordings on YouTube all suffer from the digital compression system and some of them also suffer from analogue compression, bad mic placement, bad acoustics and digital manipulation artefacts. Add to that the weird and wonderful loudspeaker arrangements in portable computer devices and it is amazing the sound is still recognisable.
crfriend wrote:I've never tried to record one in situ, but imagine that it would require several microphones and a subsequent mix-down from the master tape. A pure binaural tactic might work if the "sweet spot" in the venue could be located, but those are best listened to using headphones not speakers in a room.
A multi-mic mix is only needed if the organ is divided into several sections or if the venue acoustics and the organ cannot be picked up at a single place in the right proportions, otherwise a single stereo mic works best. I prefer to use a 'Blumlein pair' of crossed ribbons as these give the best stereo imaging on loudspeakers.

On one occasion I was engaged to record a reproducing organ for an overseas record company, the job was very prestigious and they wanted the organ tuned immediately before we recorded it. The night before the recording session I set up all the kit and we recorded some tests with a live organist (the paper rolls were too valuable to risk on a test session); the following morning we played the recordings through loudspeakers standing each side of the swell shades and the results sounded very realistic.

The organist warned me that the organ tuner was a very keen hi-fi buff and would probably want to tell me all about his equipment, so we arranged a little test: when we saw the organ tuner arriving, we played the recording and the organist mimed at the console. The tuner didn't appear to spot the subterfuge, so the organist walked away from the console and went to make some tea. Still the organ tuner didn't react, so I said to him "I see we didn't fool you, you knew the organ was playing from a roll didn't you?" He nodded and smiled - so I lifted the lid of the roll-playing mechanism and revealed it was empty.

We never heard anything about the wonders of his hi-fi setup.
crfriend wrote:
pelmut wrote:The impulses which the organist sends to the action are recorded while he/she plays; later those impulses are sent to the action again by the reproducing mechanism and it produces exactly the same performance, complete with every nuance.
Indeed, since organs are primarily on/off devices that works well.

Out of curiosity, do player-pianos reproduce key velocity properly to allow for the various volumes and tonality that produces, or are they "on/off" as well? I'd suspect it'd be possible by varying the size of the holes in the roll, but as I've never encountered one "in the flesh" can't really say...
Player pianos don't have that sort of information recorded on the rolls, but most of them have a lever that the 'interpreter' (the person who pedals the thing) can use to vary the volume. The best types of reproducing pianos have a separate set of holes to control the 'attack' of each hand individually, these use a binary code to give a wide range of control with the minimum number of tracks. As you would imagine, reproducing piano and organ rolls are much wider than their 'player' equivalents because of all the extra information they carry.
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

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I learnt with some delight today that the original "Marble Machine" now resides in a museum (of mechanical music-making devices) in Utrecht in the Netherlands. Here's the announcement.

It's designer made no bones about the device being not only cantankerous, but also flawed, which he's designing and building "MMX". It looked like a Rube Goldberg contraption, and it seems that it was. It only performed that one piece of music because of all the difficulties in setting it up and the finicky nature of the release-mechanisms for the ball-bearings.

It is only partially functional in the museum. A video of the rebuild, and a probable inspiration.
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beachlion
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Re: Wintergaten Marble Music Machine

Post by beachlion »

I lived in the neighborhood of Utrecht and was for years a sponsor of the museum. If you are intersted in mechanical music, this museum is a must see when you visit the Netherlands. You can find a lot of musical examples of the collection on YouTube.
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