Immanuel Presbyterian Church | Los Angeles, CA
Immanuel Presbyterian, Los Angeles is one of the great churches on Wilshire Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles, California. The main church seats over 2000 people. There are three organs on the campus. A 1929 EM Skinner, a 1956 Schlicker (the first three manual Schlicker to be installed in Southern California), and a 2 manual 1977 Hradetzky. A history of the church is available at https://immanuelpres.org/history/
Unfortunately, due to significant demographic changes since its heyday in the mid 20th Century, the instruments have fallen into disrepair, and the church is serving its community in ways that don't involve these fine instruments. We are happy to be able to have preserved them using this platform. All three of these instruments are available as one set from Evensong.
Clarence Mader was the organist at Immanuel Presbyterian from 1929 through 1966. He presided over the then brand new EM Skinner organ, and over the installation of the 1956 Schlicker in the Westminster chapel on the campus. The Schlicker was Clarence Mader's primary teaching instrument. The Hradetzky organ was donated in memory of Clarence Mader in 1977. The instrument was one of three instruments of similar size by the same builder at about the same time for Southern California. The other two are at UCLA and UC Irvine.
The hall housing the Hradetsky is relatively small, and as was the acoustic trend at the time, very dry. The organ has very distinct and clear voicing, and is outstanding for the performance of Baroque and some modern literature.
As expected for instruments that hadn't been maintained for over a year or more, the Mixtures are somewhat out of tune. We have created a mixture of similar composition for our Hauptwerk model. However the sampled mixture is also available in the set, available by pressing the area to the left of the mixture stop. There is no indication of if the
mixture is on or not – it's an Easter Egg in this set! The Great is 4' principal based, so it's a quite small case. The Positiv is behind the great, and uniquely the shades open to the side of the case.
The Schlicker is in quite poor repair. It has not been maintained for many years, and is alleged to have been inoperable since around 2000. Much of the console is inoperable, with many notes in most ranks being missing. The mixtures are all hopelessly out of tune. We have composed mixtures matching the composition from the other principals
in the instrument. We were able to fill in missing samples through advanced audio processing techniques.
Westminster chapel where the Schlicker organ is located is now used as cold storage for the community food bank run by the church.
The chests are chambered high on the left and right side of the chancel area at the Balcony level. The console is in an alcove on the right side of the chancel on the floor level. The 16' Quintadena is unified across much of the instrument. The Krummhorn is unified into the pedal, but the rest of the instrument is straight on traditional Schlicker slider chests.
Encryption
The samples are offered in 48kHz/24bit resolution. The multiple releases have 2 or 3 levels: short, mid and long. Hauptwerk 5 and higher required (incl. HW6). The sample set is encrypted via the iLok system used in Hauptwerk
The sample set is offered in the Stereo variant (2 channels) for the Schlicker and Hradetsky instruments. Because the reverb time of the rooms were so minimal, we chose to not include a second perspective. The sample sets respond very well to added reverb via the HW convolution feature. Below is a screenshot of one of our favorite reverb settings in HW;
The Skinner sample set is offered in a 6-channel variant (Close-Mid-Ambient), even though the room is not highly reverberant, (max 2.5~3 sec) the other perspectives give a richer sound to the set.
Reverb time
The reverb time is ca. .5~1 second for the two chapel instruments, up to 2.5~3 sec for the sanctuary Skinner.
Keyboards, pedalboards
The original compass of the Skinner: keyboards - 61 notes, pedal division - 32 notes, some divisions have 73-note ranks, and the sample set faithfully reproduces this behavior. Schlicker: keyboards - 61 notes, pedal division - 32 notes. Hradetsky: keyboards - 56 notes, pedal division - 32 notes
Requirements
RAM consumption (Skinner, 6-channel)
- 16-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: 13 GB
- 20-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: 23 GB (recommended)
- 24-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: 25 GB
RAM consumption (Schlicker, 2-channel)
- 16-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: 1.5 GB
- 20-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: 2.8 GB (recommended)
- 24-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: 3 GB
RAM consumption (Hradetsky, 2-channel)
- 16-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: .9 GB
- 20-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: 1.7 GB (recommended)
- 24-bit, compressed, all releases, single loops: 1.85 GB
Skinner Organ Company Opus 676 1929 | 4 manuals, 49 stops, 62 ranks
GREAT ORGAN (6" wind) | SWELL ORGAN (7 1/2" wind) | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
16' | Bourdon | 16' | Bourdon | |
8' | First Diapason | 8' | Diapason | |
8' | Second Diapason | 8' | Rohr Flute | |
8' | Harmonic Flute | 8' | Gamba | |
8' | Erzähler | 8' | Voix Celeste II | |
8' | Gedeckt (SW) | 8' | Flauto Dolce | |
8' | Flute Celeste II (SW) | 8' | Flute Celeste (TC) | |
4' | Octave | 4' | Octave | |
4' | Flute | 4' | Flute Triangulaire | |
2 2/3' | Twelfth | 2' | Flautino | |
2' | Fifteenth | V | Cornet | |
IV | Mixture | V | Chorus Mixture | |
8' | Tromba | 16' | Waldhorn | |
4' | Clarion | 8' | French Trumpet | |
Chimes (EC) | 8' | Cornopean | ||
8' | Oboe | |||
CHOIR ORGAN (6" wind) | 8' | Vox Humana | ||
8' | Geigen Principal | 4' | Clarion | |
8' | Viol d'Orchestre | Tremolo | ||
8' | Viol Celeste | |||
8' | Concert Flute | ECHO ORGAN (6" wind) | ||
4' | Flute d'Amore | 8' | Cor de Nuit | |
2 2/3' | Nazard | Tremolo | ||
2' | Piccolo | Chimes | ||
8' | Corno di Bassetto | |||
Tremolo | PEDAL ORGAN (6" wind) | |||
8' | Harp (TC) | 32' | Diapason (resultant) | |
4' | Celesta | 16' | Contra Bass | |
16' | Major Bass | |||
SOLO ORGAN (10" wind) | 16' | Bourdon | ||
8' | Gamba | 16' | Echo Bourdon (SW) | |
8' | Gamba Celeste | 8' | Octave | |
8' | Flauto Mirabilis | 8' | Gedeckt | |
4' | Orchestral Flute | 8' | Still Gedeckt (SW) | |
8' | French Horn | 4' | Flute (SW) | |
8' | English Horn | 32' | Bombarde (20" wp) | |
Tremolo | 16' | Trombone (15" wp) | ||
8' | Tuba Mirabilis (20" wind) | 16' | Waldhorn (SW) | |
8' | Tromba |
Schlicker Organ Company 1956 | 3 manuals, 37 ranks
Pedal | Great | Swell | Positif |
16 Subbass
16 Quintadena (Gt) 8 Principal 8 Quintadena (Gt) 4 Choralbass 4 Quintadena (Gt) 2 Nachthorn Mixture III 16 Fagott 4 Krummhorn (Pos) |
16 Quintadena
8 Principal 8 Hohlflöte 4 Octave 4 Quintadena 2 Nachthorn Mixture IV-V Chimes |
8 Rohrflöte
8 Viola 8 Celeste 8 Dolce 4 Splitzflöte 2 Principal 1 1/3 Larigot Cymbel II 8 Trumpet Tremolo |
8 Gedeckt
8 Quintadena (Gt) 4 Principal 4 Koppelflöte 2 Gemshorn Sesquialtera II Scharf-Cymbel III 8 Krummhorn Tremolo |
Hradetsky Organ Company 1977 | 2 manuals, 20 ranks
Pedal | Great | Positiv | Couplers |
16 Bourdon (Ext 8)
8 Bourdon 4 Octave 16 Tromba |
8 Waldfloete
4 Principal Sesquialtera 2 Octave Mixtur 8 Trompette |
8 Coppel
4 Flauto d'amore 2 Flautino Sesquialtera 1 1/3 Quinta |
Positiv:Great
Great:Pedal Positiv: Pedal Tremulant |
Skinner
Schlicker
Hradetsky
Skinner |
Schlicker |
Hradetsky |
All of our updates are cumulative, so you don't have to remember what order to apply them in... simply download and install (choose "Upgrade"option).
Click HERE to download the most recent update (fixes some issues with the pedal Major Bass - September 3, 2023)