The AWSoP sound

and the 'stone church' preset

Two 'Beyond the Pale' articles about the AWSoP organ sound - one by Joan May, one by Dan Kerl - make mention of a Hammond 'stone church' preset. (Note that Matthew Fisher's registration is authoritatively explicated on this page)

Joan's article quotes Larry Pennisi: "There is no such setting as Stone Church ..." yet Dan's concludes in apparent contradiction: "The 'stone church' reverb is also an important part of AWSoP."

'Beyond the Pale' contacted Dan Kerl for clarification, and he kindly explained as follows:

• "I wasn't referring to a preset. I was referring to the setting of the reverberation control. The euphemism 'stone church' refers to the acoustical characteristics of a large room built out of stone (old cathedral, etc.) which, as you probably know, results in a great deal of reverberated sound. AWSoP sounds like it was recorded with lots of reverb, hence my use of the term 'stone church'. I first saw this term used to describe a reverb control setting in Mark Vail's article 25 Hammond Licks You Must Know, originally printed in the US publication Keyboard. It seemed apropos.'

This resolves the contradiction. When two writers refer to 'stone church' it seems probable that they are referring to some real feature of Hammonds; in fact, Mark Vail, whom Dan Kerl is quoting, is the author of the book Joan May is quoting. Effectively only one author has used the phrase 'stone church', and that impressionistically only.

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