Unnicked organ pipes produce a sharper, clearer consonantal attack tone called chiff.

Evidence

Nicking relates to a series of small nicks that are made in the approximating edges of the languid and the upper lip. This has the effect of reducing the highfrequency components in the sound source spectrum and giving the pipe a smoother but slower onset to its speech. More nicking is customarily applied to pipes that are heavily blown. A pipe which is not nicked has a characteristic consonantal attack to its sound, sometimes referred to as a “chiff.” A current trend in organ voicing is the use of less or no nicking in order to take advantage of the onset chiff musically to give increased clarity to notes, particularly in contrapuntal music (e.g., Hurford, 1994). — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1148

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘nicking’ and ‘chiff’ as voicing concepts that shape breath-attack timbre.
• CANDY: That organ builders trade smoothness for a consonants-like ‘chiff’ attack gives a fun fact connecting organ pipes to speech sounds.
• XREF: connects to: Chiff-voiced open pipes briefly sound an octave high at onset; Chiff-voiced organ pipes begin with the second harmonic leading by about 30 ms — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1470; Stopped flue pipes sound their harmonics in a characteristic staggered order producing a chiff — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1448

Broader Connections

• Chiff-voiced open pipes briefly sound an octave high at onset #expands (0.82)
• Chiff-voiced organ pipes begin with the second harmonic leading by about 30 ms #expands (0.80) — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1470
• Stopped flue pipes sound their harmonics in a characteristic staggered order producing a chiff #qualifies (0.78) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1448