New Low-Cost sample set coming your way: First Demos!

[ReinerS]

Hi all,

in just a few weeks I will release a low-cost sample set derived from the Notre-Dame de Laeken material. This set will comprise those stops from the Laeken organ that have been sampled individually (about 15) plus some derived ranks to fill the gaps. It will be a ~20-25 stop 2-manual set, obviously in french romantic style, and be priced around 75 Eur. The low price accounts for the fact that not every note was sampled and the two additional release layers are not sampled originally, but produced using convolution techniques, plus some stops are derived from others rather than recorded individually.

I'll post a stoplist and some first preliminary demos in the next few days. Meanwhile if you are interested you might want to have a look at the stoplist of the full Notre-Dame de Laeken sample set on my webpage, where you can see which stops have been sampled individually and will be included in this mini-set.

I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Best regards
Reiner

[Jonathan Taylor]

Reiner,

This is welcome news as I have downloaded the trial set and love it! This would be a great addition to my sets as I don't have much money to spend now.

Thank You!

Jonathan

[Anton Heger]

Hello Reinier,

I'm looking forward to it, as I miss until now a nice French romantic organ.
Can you provide us the stoplist you have in mind?

You have added some artificial releases? Is it possible to load the organ dry, thus without any release? Reaper can do the work for me.
I wonder if loading an organ with cutted releases at 120 ms gives the same sound as loading it completely dry.

Anton

[ReinerS]

Hello and thank you for your interest.

I will post a preliminary stoplist after the coming weekend, so please be patient a few more days. My plan is to provide an instrument in the style of the smaller (i.e. 2-manual) Cavaille-Coll organs. I'll also post some first demos then.

@Anton:
Yes, you can load the organ with truncated releases and let external reverb do the rest, but: Be aware that the reverb is not only contained in the releases, but also in the sustain part of the sample. And this set has a massive reverb, so the sound of the sustain part is affected by the reverb quite a bit. Adding external reverb to that will certainly have a negative effect on the sound (in my personal view) as compared to the natural reverb included in the samples. You can however experiment with this using the ND-Laeken trial version.

Best regards
Reiner

[Anton Heger]

Thanks for your reply!
I will try the Leaken set i.c.w. Reaper

[ReinerS]

I figured I might as well post a preliminary disposition now. Even though this really is very preliminary and likely to change during development, this might give me some useful feedback.

So here it is:
Belgian romantic organ based on samples of Notre-Dame de Laeken:

Grand Orgue (C-g''')
Bourdon 16'
Montre 8' (*)
Bourdon 8' (*)
Flûte Harmonique 8'
Prestant 4' (*)
Doublette 2' (*)
Grand Cornet (from c')
Fourniture 4 rgs (*)
Trompette 8'
Musette 8'
Clairon 4' (*)

Récit expressiv (C-g''')
Flûte 8'
Gambe 8'
Flûte 4'
Octavin 2' (*)
Quinte 2 2/3' (*)
Tierce 1 3/5' (*)
Carillon (from c')
Voix Céleste 8' (from c)
Trompette 8'
Clarinette 8'
Voix Humain 8' (with tremulant only)

Pedal (C-f')
Bourdon 16' (G.O.)
Bourdon 8' (G.O.)
Violoncelle 8' (REC)
Flûte 4' (REC)
Bombarde 16'
Trompette 8'
Clairon 4'

(*) means derived from other samples

Couplers:
G.O. to Ped, Rec to Ped, Rec to G.O., G.O. Oct grave
Reeds for Ped, G.O., Rec
Tremulant for Rec

16 general combinations

Comments are welcome!!

Best regards
Reiner

[Anton Heger]

Hello Reinier,

This is a very attractive stoplist!
I think this will be a organ I can't resist.

Anton

[Cribo]

Hello,

This stoplist looks promising. I found the big Schyven set a bit difficult in using all these combinations so this might be better (for me).
I have some questions:
Is it possible to add a 16' reed to the recit? I know someone else can say to just add a 4' reed as well in order to get 'roaring' 16,8,4 reedsound when shutter is closed but a 16 foot reed would be very useful imho. It also adds some power to the tutti. (Perhaps a slightly softer intonated Bombarde 16'as planned on the pedal micht do the trick)

Glad you added the Voix Humaine because I like this one very much.

About the pedal flues; are they real transmissions (so when also used in the manuals you don't hear a difference) or are you planning to make them as individual samples which can be voiced a bit louder/different in order to hear a difference when using both voices in the manuals as well as the pedal? I would prefer this last option.
Looking forward to the demo's anyway. (Can Anton play one or two perhaps?)

[Jonathan Taylor]

Looks Great! Also would it be possible for you to add the 32" flue stop to the Pedal division?

Thank You,

Jonathan

[Morse]

Hello Reinier,
This organ looks very attractive. I am curious about how you are going to derive the montre and prestant stops since there are not any single sampled principals in the previous organ. Were there samples that you did not originally use or are you going to borrow from another organ?

[ReinerS]

Hello all,

thanks for your comments.

Is it possible to add a 16' reed to the recit?

I'm afraid not. I don't really have decent material for that (the 16' pedal Bombarde would be a bit too much), and I think it is also too big for the disposition.

Glad you added the Voix Humaine because I like this one very much.

Yes, its a really lovely stop.

About the pedal flues; are they real transmissions (so when also used in the manuals you don't hear a difference) or are you planning to make them as individual samples which can be voiced a bit louder/different in order to hear a difference when using both voices in the manuals as well as the pedal? I would prefer this last option.

I havn't decided that yet, it depends a little bit on memory consumption. I'm certainly thinking about it.

Also would it be possible for you to add the 32" flue stop to the Pedal division?

Again, sorry, but no. I don't have samples for that (only the 16' Boudon), so I'll have to leave it out.

I am curious about how you are going to derive the montre and prestant stops since there are not any single sampled principals in the previous organ.

This is in fact a big problem, and it might have to stay without them. I do think these stops are almost required for a decent spec, but in fact I have to try to derive the stops by some smart filtering. We'll see how it works.

Best regards
Reiner

[Cribo]

Is it possible to add a 16' reed to the recit?

I'm afraid not. I don't really have decent material for that (the 16' pedal Bombarde would be a bit too much), and I think it is also too big for the disposition.

I understand, besides de Bombarde has not enough samples anyway.
Could you then consider to make also a subcoupler on the Récit? In that case you get 'the job done' without a 16' reed. From this point of view, a supercoupler on the Recit would be useful as there is no 4' reed also. Is that an idea? With the swell closed, you then get that fantastic 'rumble' sound.

Cribo

[ReinerS]

Hi all,

I have now finalized the disposition of the Laeken Mini Set:
Notre-Dame de Laeken Small Edition:

Grand Orgue (C-g''')
Bourdon 16'
Bourdon 8' (*)
Flûte Harmonique 8'
Prestant 4' (*)
Doublette 2' (*)
Grand Cornet (from c')
Fourniture 4 rgs (*)
Trompette 8'
Musette 8'
Clairon 4' (*)

Récit expressiv (C-g''')
Flûte Octaviante 8'
Gambe 8'
Flûte 4'
Octavin 2' (*)
Quinte 2 2/3' (*)
Tierce 1 3/5' (*)
Carillon (from c')
Voix Céleste 8' (from c)
Trompette 8'
Clarinette 8'
Voix Humain 8' (with tremulant only)

Pedal (C-f')
Bourdon 16' (G.O.)
Bourdon 8' (G.O.)
Violoncelle 8' (REC)
Flûte 4' (REC)
Bombarde 16'
Trompette 8'
Clairon 4'

(*) means derived from other samples

Couplers:
G.O. to Ped, Rec to Ped, Rec to G.O.,
G.O. 16', Rec 16', Rec 4', Rec to G.O. 4'
Reeds for Ped, G.O., Rec
Tremulant for Rec

16 general combinations

I have scrapped the Montre 8', since it was not possible to build it from the existing samples. I have also decided to keep the transmissions in the Pedal. Playing the same sample twice at the same time, which would happen if it is loaded independently, can lead to very bad sounding comb-filter and phase cancellation effects, and in addition the transmissions save memeory, allowing the entire set to require only 2.6GB of memory with HW's default loading options.
On the other side I did add a few 4' coupelrs to increase the versatility of the instrument.

Currently I am in the process of balancing the stops and finetuning the instrument. I hope to have enverything ready for release in about two weeks.

Best regards
Reiner

[ReinerS]

Dear all,

here come the first demos of the Laeken-mini Set:

César Franck, from le Organiste Vol2, Andantino
(all 8' stops of the set are used)

Leon Boellmann, Suite Gothique, Introduction

J.S. Bach, St-Annes Fugue (BWV552)

Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély, Andante "Choeur de Voix humaines", from Meditaciones religiosas, Op 122.(This is of course no comparison to the version played live by Anton Doornhein on the full Laeken set)

(MIDI files with kind permission from Werner Icking Music Archives)

Enjoy!!!

Reiner