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[Stephen Swaffer]

With the livestreaming going on, one thing we are missing is organ in the mix.  It is simple enough to mic the speakers (it is an electronic organ-not a keyboard)-but I am thinking a DI into the board might be better which begs the question, since the actual organ speakers are old and in rough shape and really were never designed into this room, do I lose much running through our mains instead?  They are K12's and I do have a sub.

Not set on the idea-just curious what your thoughts are?

[Ed Hall]

With the livestreaming going on, one thing we are missing is organ in the mix.  It is simple enough to mic the speakers (it is an electronic organ-not a keyboard)-but I am thinking a DI into the board might be better which begs the question, since the actual organ speakers are old and in rough shape and really were never designed into this room, do I lose much running through our mains instead?  They are K12's and I do have a sub.

Not set on the idea-just curious what your thoughts are?

We had a similar discussion this week at my church. Our organ is its owns system as well. it was designed for our room and sounds good in the room. We have no need to amplify it. That being said, our Nexo system would not be able to do it justice. Would your system be able to handle the lows?

Right now we have an AKG C414 sitting about 10 feet from the organ speakers for the live stream feed. It picks up the organ very well. It also picks up everything else really well.  We are going to try going directly into the live stream console but high pass it at about 120 Hz. this because I don't think computer speakers or iPads can reproduce much below that anyway. 
I'm hoping this will stop the bleed from other sound sources and the comb filtering and delay its creating.

[Tim Weaver]

With the livestreaming going on, one thing we are missing is organ in the mix.  It is simple enough to mic the speakers (it is an electronic organ-not a keyboard)-but I am thinking a DI into the board might be better which begs the question, since the actual organ speakers are old and in rough shape and really were never designed into this room, do I lose much running through our mains instead?  They are K12's and I do have a sub.

Not set on the idea-just curious what your thoughts are?

If the Organ wasn't designed for this room, AND the speakers are rotten, you really don't have anything to lose by going through the PA. One thing you might not realize though is how much the organ's amp and speaker system is a part of it's sound. You may have to experiment with EQ and maybe running it through an Amp Sim to get the sound you are looking for.

Another option is to do both. DI into the board and a mic on the best sounding organ speakers and blend those two together for the livestream. You may or may not use the DI for the house.


In the end it may be better stewardship to purchase a Nord, or a midi controller and use a laptop for the voices. Old organs are old, and the guys that repair them are even older. I know the guy that repairs our Hammond is a dying breed for sure. He's one of two dudes in the greater Houston area that does this work. The other guy is an A-hole, so I really hope my guy lives forever! lol

[Bill Meeks]

Check your organ for a headphone output. We have a somewhat new Allen hybrid organ (meaning it is both electronic synthesizer and conventional pipes). At my request, the organ installation guy rewired the headphone jack on the organ console so that it no longer cuts off the speaker output when something is plugged into the jack. So I bought a Radial two-channel Dante DI box and feed it the stereo signal from that headphone jack. Then I use the pair of Dante outputs into a linked pair of channels (left and right) on my LS9-32 board (it also has the Dante card). I get a great sound from the organ's digital section. For the pipes, since they are behind our choir anyway, I use the pair of Audix choir mics in front of the choir to also pick up any pipes output. I blend those two sources (Dante feed and pipes from the choir mics) together in the LS9 all for the livestream broadcast only. I put nothing in the room as the organ has its own 10-speaker sound system.

Many electronic organs have a headphone output so the organist can practice somewhat "silently" if desired. Usually plugging in the headphones will mute the output amplifiers and speakers. But that is easily bypassed if you have a little electronics skill.

[Rick Earl]

With the livestreaming going on, one thing we are missing is organ in the mix.  It is simple enough to mic the speakers (it is an electronic organ-not a keyboard)-but I am thinking a DI into the board might be better which begs the question, since the actual organ speakers are old and in rough shape and really were never designed into this room, do I lose much running through our mains instead?  They are K12's and I do have a sub.

Not set on the idea-just curious what your thoughts are?

A lot depends on how your organ is set-up.    You can pull the input to the amps and easily run it into a DI and take it right into your console for a mix - no need to run it through the PA.  BUT Some use different speakers for different "pipes" to emulate the pipe organ sound, so there are multiple outputs.  SOMETIMES, depending on how it is set-up, there is a summed output for the organist's monitor.  I built a small passive mixer to sum the outputs and bring them into the system via DI.  That organ is now gone and I mic the Pipe Organ and bring audio where I need it on campus via Dante. We also have remote consoles to be able to play the organ from across campus.   That being said, the pipe organ sounds good in all of our venues, with different loudspeakers and different configurations. With a little time and patience, you should be able to get decent sound out of most anything. I just finished recordings for our virtual graduation ceremonies, I didn't roll of the lows, it sounds killer in the studio, but also sounds fine on my phone (speaker), ear buds, laptop speakers and on my television.

[Caleb Dueck]

In the end it may be better stewardship to purchase a Nord, or a midi controller and use a laptop for the voices. Old organs are old, and the guys that repair them are even older.

As mentioned earlier, the sound of a pipe organ is the sum total of direct sound from the organ, plus the speakers, plus the room.  I don't know about the amplifiers, as one organ maker said he uses Lab.Gruppen to keep them from coloring the sound.  In any case, simply using the direct electrical signal is not capturing the sound of a pipe organ. 

If the overall "pipe organ" isn't working or falling apart or such - the only option is a quality keyboard and excellent sound patches.  I haven't looked for a bank of floor pedals with MIDI output, but that is also needed to get the full effect. 

If the organ does work and it's high quality, well maintained, properly designed, etc - the only accurate way to capture it is to mic the room, as the room is an integral part of the sound.  With great mics and mic placement, this isn't too hard - if the room is empty. 

I haven't heard many organs that are great, that I would go through the headache of trying to mic. 

DI with lots of added reverb FX?  Maybe, in a pinch, but be ready to invest a lot of time and a Waves Rack for plug-ins to recreate the speakers/room.  The Kemper Profiler would probably work here.

New keyboard, pedal bank, sound patches, along with Waves and Kemper?  This is the route I'd prefer.  It's still only a tiny fraction of the cost of a real pipe organ, portable, sounds great, and allows for tweaking of all parameters.  And is powerful and flexible enough to really grow into over the months and years. 

[Stephen Swaffer]

To clarify-this is an Allen electronic organ.  No pipes (FWIW it pained me when we took out the old pipe organ circa 1915 I believe and scrapped it for lack of buyer interest-it simply became to much of a maintenance issue).  All of its sound is synthesized and fed to amps from a pair of RCA jacks.  The speakers look like just good quality (though old and worn) 3 ways-surprisingly they appear identical and have no markings as to which goes where.  They have simply been placed on the floor far stage left and right which makes me think using the mains is an option the current setup you do not hear a true blend at least not from direct sound.

[Lance Rectanus]

To clarify-this is an Allen electronic organ.  . . .

My church has an Allen organ from the early '70s. It has 7 Allen amplifiers feeding an unknown number of speakers.

I tried to record the organ "direct". I got some RCA piggy-back splitters and split the input to the amps and to my mixer. Recorded these signals and I was truly disappointed.

Apparently, when properly designed and installed, the speakers are just as important to the overall sound as the organist behind the keyboard.

[Rick Earl]

To clarify-this is an Allen electronic organ.  No pipes (FWIW it pained me when we took out the old pipe organ circa 1915 I believe and scrapped it for lack of buyer interest-it simply became to much of a maintenance issue).  All of its sound is synthesized and fed to amps from a pair of RCA jacks.  The speakers look like just good quality (though old and worn) 3 ways-surprisingly they appear identical and have no markings as to which goes where.  They have simply been placed on the floor far stage left and right which makes me think using the mains is an option the current setup you do not hear a true blend at least not from direct sound.

I would go for it and see how it sounds.  Not much to lose except time.

[Bill Meeks]

To clarify-this is an Allen electronic organ.  No pipes (FWIW it pained me when we took out the old pipe organ circa 1915 I believe and scrapped it for lack of buyer interest-it simply became to much of a maintenance issue).  All of its sound is synthesized and fed to amps from a pair of RCA jacks.  The speakers look like just good quality (though old and worn) 3 ways-surprisingly they appear identical and have no markings as to which goes where.  They have simply been placed on the floor far stage left and right which makes me think using the mains is an option the current setup you do not hear a true blend at least not from direct sound.

You should be able to get a good sound using a DI by maybe piggybacking or splitting off the inputs to the main amps (if you can locate them). This is assuming your organ does not have a headphone jack. If yours has a headphone jack, use that as it will be pre-mixed properly. One thing to realize is that organs many times have multiple keyboards (called "manuals" in organ-speak). Each keyboard would feed a separate synthesizer and power amp section. So you would have different amps and speakers for the different manuals (keyboards). Different sounds and parts of the song are played on the different manuals (keyboards). I'm not an organist, so not an expert here. But I did get some very fundamental knowledge download from the tech who installed our organ in 2018 by him patiently answering my questions.

Yes it is true an organ is "tuned" for the room, but for an all-electronic organ you should get a more than satisfactory sound for a livestream broadcast mix using a DI connection if you can rig one up.

Here is a YouTube link to the Dedication Service we had for our new organ back in March 2018. You can skip around to listen to the organ. The recording was from a few Dante channel feeds from the LS9 into Reaper. The mix in the video is essentially the same as the livestream broadcast. The organ sound was captured via that Dante feed from the headphone jack I mentioned and via two Audix choir mics located in the choir loft in front of the pipes. For the dedication the organ console was pulled out into the center of the chancel area for show. That is not its normal place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQwNKF1b8r8

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