CD's

Hello Jonathan,

Congratulations for this initiative! It really brings something complementary to the traditional market. I hope that you will develop this activity. Cordially.

Purists that complain about CDs being from a recorded organ should just not listen to any organ CDs, as they all contain recorded organs.

It's quite a bit cheaper than recording in church and also a bit easier to fix errors in just hitting the wrong note or bad timing in registration without having to play the music over and over again, and thereby losing some of the initial vibe of playing the piece.

Last year, organist Erik Simmons ("Hoofdwerk") and I produced a CD (entitled "Canzona") of his excellent performances of some of my organ compositions on the Krzeszów model from Sonus Paradisi. We've distributed the resulting CD to a wide variety of people, and the response has been universally favorable. In Fanfare Magazine, the disc was reviewed alongside another CD of my organ music recorded in the traditional way (on a large E. M. Skinner), and the reviewer explicitly said that he preferred the recorded sound quality and organ of the Krzeszów CD. (Admittedly, the organs are in totally different styles, but it shows that the HW recording can be evaluated and accepted on total equal terms with other recordings.) Likewise, other reviews of the Krzeszów disc have commented very positively on the sound and the instrument. So, for me, this certainly is proof that CDs made on the best HW organ models can absolutely "hold their own" out in the world against organ CDs recorded in more traditional means.

And, for all the reasons mentioned earlier in this thread (ease of recording, corrections/editing, not worrying about traffic noise/silence), there is a great deal to commend the use of HW in this manner.

For my ears, many of the HW models also have a greater clarity than the typical recording position used for commercial organ CDs, which I also feel is a huge plus. A friend of mine who has been a professional record critic for over 40 years always told me that he hated organ recordings, because he just didn't like how unclear all the sound was -- always just too soupy and wet, and he disliked not being able to hear every detail of the music. After playing him the Krzeszów CD (as well as other individual recordings made on Sonus Paradisi sets with HW), he told me it was the first time he'd ever heard organ recordings that he actually found satisfying, since there is never a loss of clarity, but there is still a nice/wet acoustic present.

The Krzeszów CD can be obtained from here:

http://www.coomanorgan.com/

Marc,

There were actually two 12" video discs formats. One was quite successful the other not. The laserdisc format was around for several decades and at the time of the introduction of the DVD had begun to have quite a following of collectors. I, myself, had several hundred titles and special collections, and the quality was excellent. The other format, which was short lived was RCA's Capactance Electronic Disc (CED) often called "Needle Vision" because it used a very fine needle and a high density groove system, very much like a phonograph record.

Even a small amount of dust would cause a CED to skip and was very frustrating to use. It's estimated that RCA lost aournd $600 million in the project.

-Chris

@Carson Cooman: if it is as good as you claim it to be, this may have amazing implications. Making samplesets (or hiring sample set makers) would be very interesting for recording companies and publishers. Which in turn may result in much more and cheaper sample sets.

@Carson Cooman: if it is as good as you claim it to be, this may have amazing implications. Making samplesets (or hiring sample set makers) would be very interesting for recording companies and publishers. Which in turn may result in much more and cheaper sample sets.

May I suggest following Carson's link, and spending $6.84 (including postage and packing) to buy the CD?

What Carson and Erik have done isn't just to use Hauptwerk--it's also to use Kunaki, an unbelievable e-commerce venture that is doing to record companies what Craigslist did to the newspaper industry. The result is an excellent quality CD at a price dramatically lower than you can buy in a shop. And--to put it another way--a CD you couldn't find in any shop, unless you know of a shop that sells classical organ music.

This is revolutionary.

Here's where Hauptwerk and organs have a huge advantage. Suppose we're going to record an orchestral performance. We need to hire a hall for the performance; we need to hire the musicians; we need to hire the recording engineers, producer, and technicians; we need to rent a whole bunch of audio gear; and we need to set aside a couple of weeks of time (and a boatload of money for consulting fees) arguing over whether the winds are too loud, whether the percussion is sufficiently tight, and whether we need more cowbell.

Which is to say, we're going to spend a LOT of money before we ever press the first CD.

By contrast, Carson and Erik don't have to hire the hall. They don't have to hire the musicians, the technicians, the audio engineers, or the producers. They don't have to rent any audio gear, other than the gear they already have. And they don't have the huge payroll costs of mixing, consulting, mixing, consulting, and so forth--because the organ sound set is fixed. There's no changing it. (And I checked: there's no Cowbell stop on the Krzeszów.)

Okay--so we have something close to zero in pre-production costs. What about the setup and manufacturing costs? Here's where Kunaki comes in: their setup cost? Zero. Manufacturing? They have a published price list--for one copy? One dollar. They charge for shipping, they'll handle credit cards and/or PayPal for you, they'll drop-ship to CD Baby--they'll do everything except answer the phone. (I love their website. They emphasize again and again that Kunaki is really a machine, not a company. They don't even list a phone number to call--if you're familiar with Myers-Briggs testing, these guys are INTJs--deeply "I".)

Buy the CD. Discover the cutting edge of music production, as artists disintermediate the record labels.

(I expect, sooner or later, organ library producers will ask for some remuneration--it's only fair. They're providing the facilities for the record production, in effect. But that's an incremental cost to the manufacturing of each CD--rather than an up-front capital expense to rent Salisbury Cathedral.)

As a follow up to the above post, just released today is the 2nd CD/volume in Erik's ongoing recordings of my organ music -- this disc is entitled "Planctus" and uses the Utrecht model from Sonus Paradisi.

As before, it can be downloaded for free or purchased on CD for minimal cost. Available from:

http://www.coomanorgan.com/

When I gave up my apartment I gave up at least 100 CDs and 20-30 DVDs. I don't even have a player attached to my laptop, though there are all kinds of such machines in the living room. I really thought WiFi, You_Tube, video streaming and flash drives would replace those formats. With the next generation of WiFi, I might be proved right.
http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wms-gupta-wifi/
In the meantime I am using Trepstar
http://cd-fulfillment.com/
to make a few CDs because my rent's going up.
http://www.virtuallybaroque.com/cd.htm

James Pressler

I became aware of this thread at about the same time that I began assembling an order to send to the recording merchant, jpc.de. In the process, I was pleased to find and to include in that order a CD of recordings performed on the Sonus paradisi sample set of the organ of St. Etienne, Caen. The parcel from jpc.de arrived yesterday, and since searches in the HW Forum for the contents of this CD gave no results, I thought I would report on it here.

The organist on this recording is Walter F. Zielke. The copyright is 2010 by AlbisMusic, Brunsbüttel, Germany, but the logos of “WOM” (World of Music) and of jpc itself appear both on the tray card and on the disc. The Hauptwerk logo is also included on the disc, under the words “PRODUCED WITH.” The liner notes, entirely in English, properly reference “Czech sound engineer Jiri Zurek” and also mention “Hauptwerk 3.” Earlier in the notes, the original Cavaillé-Coll organ is described as a “55-registered Masterpiece,” distantly suggesting that "extended" sample set stops were not used in the recording.

True to earlier suggestions in this thread that Hauptwerk can enable the recording of little-known repertoire, three of the four works on this disc are footnoted as “World First Recoding”:

Fernand de La Tombelle (1854-1928)
Symphonie Pascale (1883)

Lazare Auguste Maquaire (1872-1906)
1re Symphonie pour Grand Orgue, op. 20

Georges Jacob (1877-1950)
Symphonie pour Grand Orgue (1906)

Brief comments:
The de La Tombelle was a particularly happy “find.” I felt that his interweavings of O filii and Victimae pascali were both meaningful and even sweet. The Andante of the Maquaire (who is mentioned elsewhere in the HW Forum) was especially striking, given the beauty of the registration and of the playing. It was during the following Scherzo that I briefly, almost subconsciously wondered about an unnaturalness in what I was hearing. However, I quickly determined that what seemed unfamiliar was the fact that the spatial differences between divisions—particularly with respect to the Positif—were more readily apparent in stereo headphones from this recording than in typical commercial recordings of the original instrument. (I enjoy this spatial representation as part of the experience of playing good sample sets.) The Final of the Georges Jacob Symphonie was performed with enjoyable “spring.”

The concluding work on the disc is the César Franck a-minor Chorale. To be honest, I have yet to warm up to this performance, but then there is a lot of other experience potentially in the way. For Hauptwerk purposes, I do look forward to making an A/B comparison between it and the ERATO recording that the late Marie Claire Alain made of the same work on the original St. Etienne instrument.

A rewarding disc.

NOTE: I just saw that a second disc from Mr. Zielke is now listed at jpc.de which presents several romantic works, including three “Weltersteinspielung[en]” (world first recordings). This recording employed the Sauer-Orgel Dortmund/Dorstfeld sample set from OrganArt Media. Looks like another order will be forming for me around this and Mr. Cappellaro’s disc.

This was interesting to read about. Is there a list of sample sets that may be used and may not be used for recording a CD? Is it true that the only ones right now that cannot be used are those by OAM? It seems somewhat vague when I read around...

This was interesting to read about. Is there a list of sample sets that may be used and may not be used for recording a CD? Is it true that the only ones right now that cannot be used are those by OAM? It seems somewhat vague when I read around...

I doubt that there is such a list--because the world of Hauptwerk includes sample sets produced in many different countries, each of which has a unique perspective on copyright law. If you're contemplating a recording project, let me suggest that the simplest approach to take is to:

a. Read the license agreement for the sample set
b. Write to the producer and ask if your intended use falls within their license terms.

That's a good thing to do for practically any use outside of your living room--because of various copyright rules regarding public performances, recordings, and so forth. It's something I've done (and continue to do) for my church; if/when I get around to doing a Christmas CD or fundraiser for the church music program I'll check with everybody involved again.

TV, film, and record producers call this "rights & permissions"--part of the pre-production process. It's a drag--but it's a very necessary drag to avoid all sorts of unpleasantness after the fact. (Cf. the OAM issue.)

There was some interest over on Contrebombarde.com for a CD project I was doing that contains Czech organ music, mainly from the 18th century, played on three Czech organ models from that period (Kdousov, Rabstejn, and Zlata Koruna). I have enable the default retail option at Kunaki (see the discussion above about this wonderful CD service).

Besides the new Jewels of Czech Organ Music CD, I also made two prior CDs available: Silesian Splendor, which is recorded on the Krzeszow organ model, and Leo Belgicus, recorded on the Santanyi organ model. The track lists are available on the back of the CD once you are on the Kunaki page, so I won't take time to reproduce them here.

The CDs are produced on demand in the USA (Nevada). So, that means some shipping costs for people in other countries - sorry about that. But, I've priced the CDs at all of $2.00 each ($1 for Kunaki, and the same for me) so you will be paying the minimum price for the CD itself. I hope that can help with shipping costs for anyone who might like a physical CD with WAV files rather than the MP3s available over on Contrebombarde.com. I do these CDs to give friends who want full-resolution audio, and those who still use home stereos with CD players (which turns out to be a lot of people).

The one major limitation of the Kunaki service, aside US manufacturing only, is that the CD can have only a single insert page. There is no multi-page booklet in these CDs.

All the tracks of all the CDs are already posted on CCH. So you only need to get a CD if you want the physical media.

Aside - I can fully recommend Kunaki as a service. Very convenient and reliable. Once you figure out how to do the cover art and upload the CD contents, it is very easy to do CDs this way to give family and friends, or sell for whatever price you want. And, there is no minimum order, so you can do even a single CD this way.

Here is the link that takes you to the order page. If you chose to get any, I certainly hope you enjoy them.
http://kunaki.com/msales.asp?PublisherId=134590

BTW, You can still also get CDs of me playing Carson Cooman's music at http://coomanorgan.com. Two (Canzona and Planctus) are from Kunaki, and the third (Litany) was released by Divine Arts in March 2014. Links to all are on his site.

Erik

I totally agree with Schantzplayer about CD's being the best thing to come along in the music industry. When I had my turntable, I used to send the signal through a "clicks and pops" electronic device. It was marginally effective. I made sure I recorded all of the LP's to Cassette so as to not further degrade the vinyl records through repeated playing.

Quite some time ago (before 1995) I knew a computer expert that was using a software program that allowed him to record an LP to a hard drive and then slowly go through it, removing the clicks and pops. It was an extremely time consuming process but the end result was quite effective. This was before the time when many "oldies" were being re-introduced on CD. Fortunately, many of the old classic LP's are available on CD, but many aren't, especially organ music.

I received the CD's from Kunaki today. They were very fast shipped and the sound is great, thank you.

That's wonderful, Thomas. I'm glad you like them.

You are the first from overseas to order the CDs. I see from Kunaki that the shipping to Germany was $8.40 for the three CDs, which is not a large amount. Given the $2 price per CD, that means all three can be obtained for less than a single CD would cost in most stores or websites, even with international shipping. I'm happy to see such reasonable shipping prices so that almost anyone can enjoy the music.

Erik