Now that is very surprising. I have been under the impression that the pipe organ goes much lower than the typical 32Hz. I've always felt that I was missing a lot of the bottom end, regardless of how low the subs that I've had in the past go. Let alone live performances in a proper hall, even the sound of a live pipe organ in a church is something that I've never been able to attain in my own systems. Sounds like I need to get in to the church more often....
In short, yes, they do and the statement above that the lowest possible being 16 Hz is true for many organs though far from true for all out there.
Forgetting for a moment synthesizer-produced bass popular in electronic pipe organs and/or electronic pipe organ stops as add-ons to traditional pipe organs and also forgetting all the great synthesized bass out there in prog-rock,
techno, electronica, etc.....
Human hearing is capable of hearing and distinguishing tones down to 16-20 Hz though that presumes good hearing without damage or disability. Otherwise, below a certain frequency the body feels vibrations. Below 16 Hz, it's all vibration and for the deepest notes (8Hz, etc..it sounds like a slowly oscillating phenomenon). Seek out the YouTube video that gives a full tour of the front of house all the way through the
back of house including "basement to rafters" and catwalks for the Midmer-Lash Organ at the Boardwalk Convention Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They have a great segment in there when a 64-foot pipe is sounded and they walk several levels to show the full extent of a (literally) 64-foot long pipe rank.
While it's true that there are only 2 pipe organs in the world with full 64-foot stops (Sydney Australia Town Hall and the Boardwalk Convention Center in Atlantic City NJ whose organ has been renovated and revived to its original full splendor),
Many organs in the world have one or more 32-foot full stops whose lowest fundamental frequency is 16Hz. The Cavaille-Coll Organ at the Abbey of St. Ouen in Rouen France is a personal favorite as its 32-foot Contra-Bombarde stop is one of the most highly regarded, earth-shattering/bombastic in the world (and it has two others!).
Great examples of this:
Kolner Dom (Germany):
three 32-foot full bass pedal stops
and one 64-foot "Resultant" stop (see below for explanation)
Passau Cathedral (Germany): has at least
six full, working 32-foot stops. Also is the largest cathedral organ in the world.
Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ (Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA): The largest organ in the world, it is reported to have the largest number (
nine) 32-foot stops in the world, counting only complete 32' ranks.
Wanamaker Grand Court Organ (Macy's Center City, Philadelphia, USA): Was the world's largest fully operational pipe organ prior to Atlantic City's being brought back to full life; it has
seven 32-foot stops. Note: Tragically Wanamakers/Macy's has now been sold off and closed and the future of the organ is in transition.
The stunning/breathtakingly wonderful Newberry Memorial Organ at
Woolsey Hall at Yale University: Has
three full 32-foot stops (and one Resultant 64' foot stop)
United States Military Academy Cadet Chapel (West Point, New York, USA): This massive organ is listed as having
seven 32-foot stops.
First Congregational Church (Los Angeles, California, USA): This organ is listed with
eight 32-foot stops.
LDS Conference Center Organ (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA): This organ is also listed with
seven 32-foot stops.
Cavaille-Coll organ at Saint-Sulpice (Paris):
two full 32-foot stops plus one 32-foot "Resultant"
Cavaille-Coll organ at Abbey of St. Ouen / Rouen France:
two 32-foot full stops plus one 32-foot "Resultant"
Cavaille-Coll organ at Notre Dame (Paris): t
hree full 32-foot full stops and at least 1 resultant stops. Post-fire renovation build added/modernized the entire organ so the specs are lagging a bit behind.
There are MANY other examples.
I mentioned a "Resultant" pipe organ stop above. Even for organs with limited or no 64-foot, 32-foot and 16-foot bass pipe ranks, this is a common technique for achieving frequencies much lower than the largest pipe rank possible in the organ space, the build budget, etc...
A "resultant" stop is a way to effectively output the equivalent of a deeper stop by combining two other stops as noted below.
note: a Resultant pipe organ stop is sometimes listed as an "Acoustic Bass" or "Harmonic Bass" pipe rank though "Resultant" is much more common. It is a psychoacoustic illusion that results in the human ear actually hearing
the lower tone.
In summary:
A 16-foot full pipe organ rank can at most produce as its lowest frequency, 32Hz (one octave lower than 8-foot).
A 32-foot full pipe organ rank........its lowest frequency, 16 Hz (one octave lower than 16-foot).
A 64-foot full pipe organ rank......it's lowest frequency, 8 Hz (one octave lower than 32-foot).
A Resultant stop is the combination of two pipe organ ranks "sounding together" in that they are coupled and when a note is played, the primary rank and the harmonic rank are simultaneously played and the "resultant" note achieves the same frequency as a much bigger stop playing that same note.
More specifically, to create a 32-foot "resultant" full stop:
To mimic a 32-foot stop playing a fundamental frequency ("F")...
Combine a 16-foot stop and a 10 2/3 foot stop. The 16-foot stop plays the primary tone (frequency "2F") for a given pipe played. The 10 2/3 foot stop plays the harmonic, a perfect-fifth above the note produced by the 16-foot pipe. This is 3-times the fundamental frequency ("3F") played by the non-existent and desired 32-foot stop.
The human ear (or microphone) then perceives the "resultant" or "difference" tone as having been played and it is the difference of the frequencies: (3F - 2F) = Fdiff.
To mimic a 64-foot stop playing a fundamental frequency ("F"):
Combine a 32-foot stop and a 21 1/3 foot stop. The 32-foot stop plays the primary tone (frequency "2F") for a given pipe played. The 21 1/3 foot stop plays the harmonic, a perfect-fifth above the note produced by the 32-foot pipe. This is 3-times the fundamental frequency ("3F") played by the non-existent and desired 64-foot stop.
The human ear (or microphone) then perceives the "resultant" or "difference" tone as having been played and it is the difference of the frequencies: (3F - 2F) = Fdiff.
In short, the resultant is the 1st harmonic and equates to the pitch of the note from the pipe organ stop one is mimicking through this technique.
*If it's not obvious, I love pipe organs and like other genres that I own, I have a (somewhat embarrassingly) large number of albums collected and enjoyed over 3 decades...
!