Hauptwerk 3.30 released

[B. Milan]

Dear all,

Hauptwerk version 3.30 is now available from our downloads area or by ordering the latest version on DVD from our online store. This is a free upgrade for all licensed version 3 users.

Version 3.30 features full support for Windows 7 as well as other enhancements. Please view the following pages of the Hauptwerk site for further details:

News

Downloads

Release notice

Requirements

Please be sure to review the Prerequisites .pdf especially since many audio and MIDI interfaces that we listed and recommended for XP and/or Vista do not currently have working drivers for Windows 7. Please check with the manufacturer of your interface to see if they have drivers available prior to upgrading to Windows 7.

Thank you and we hope you enjoy Hauptwerk 3.30.

[rumpus]

Thanks Brett and congratulations Martin on yet another milestone achieved.

[martinus]

Hello Brett and Martin,

In one word; Brilliant!!!Super much appreciated!

Thank You both and keep up the good work,

Martinus

[kiwiplant]

Awesome !

[kwbmusic]

However, if I understand correctly, I as a Basic Edition home use owner, requiring stereo audio only, but having just invested ln a new computer plus upgrading to Vista 64 to take advantage of 8Gb memory, will have now lost the increased capacity if I go to Version 3.30?
If so, I'm not very happy!
Keith

[engrssc]

Hi Brett,

Minor request - can you add page numbers and maybe also the current version number and/or date to the Prerequisites pages? You have to read carefully to note the new revisions.

Thanks to you and Martin once again. Wish there was a "thumbs up" in the smilies.

Rgds,
Ed

[mdyde]

Thanks, all.

However, if I understand correctly, I as a Basic Edition home use owner, requiring stereo audio only, but having just invested ln a new computer plus upgrading to Vista 64 to take advantage of 8Gb memory, will have now lost the increased capacity if I go to Version 3.30?
If so, I'm not very happy!
Keith

Hello Keith,

That's correct, as we announced a few weeks ago in this post:

http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5573

In v3.30 we're giving Basic Edition users a truly huge benefit in terms of doubling the core polyphony, as well as improving the polyphony management system to such a degree that even the largest (stereo) cathedral organ sample sets are effectively now usable in full within the polyphony limit of the Basic Edition, whereas before (Hauptwerk v2.00-v3.23) the Basic Edition's polyphony limit was only sufficient for quite small/dry organs or small registrations. However, since the polyphony limit was the main distinction between the Basic and Advanced Editions, and since we absolutely rely on Advanced Edtion sales to fund Hauptwerk's continued development, we couldn't gave away something as valuable as that without balancing it by restricting something else.

The Basic Edition was never intended to be suitable for very large organs that would need 8 GB of memory anyway, so we felt that by hugely increasing effective polyphony but restricting the memory we would be making medium-sized and wet sample sets vastly more usable for Basic (and Free) Edition users, whilst maintaining the status quo for extremely large (8 GB) sample sets, in that they could still not be used in full, as they weren't in previous versions, thus maintaining an incentive for people to upgrade to the Advanced Edition if they want to use those extremely large sample sets.

Since installing your 8 GB, have you actually tried using a large sample set that needs 8 GB in the v3.23 Basic Edition? If not, I think you'd find that it wouldn't be usable in full anyway - you would almost certainly only be able to use it with smaller registrations.

Similarly, most new computers are dual or quad-core, which would largely be wasted on the v3.23 Basic Edition, since its polyphony limit was about as much as a single-core computer could manage.

So in almost all cases, we feel that Basic Edition users *massively* benefit overall from this exchange of features.

Feedback via email and the forum from our announcement (the above forum topic) has been overwhelmingly in favour, supporting that view. Actually only two people replied to us that they were unhappy about exchanging polyphony for memory.

As the saying goes, unfortunately you can't please all of the people all of the time (although we try our best!), so sorry if you would prefer memory instead of polyphony. V3.30 is a free upgrade for v3 users, and you're completely free to stick with using v3.23 if you prefer. We'll continue to support v3.23 for as long as v3 remains supported.

We're very emphatically not trying to force anyway to pay for anything - the main purpose of this release was to find a way to make most sample sets hugely more usable for Basic and Free Edition users (whilst not completely bankrupting ourselves!), i.e. specifically to benefit Basic and Free Edition users. We actually implemented these features for Hauptwerk v4 originally, but decided to release them early and for free (even they would have been significant selling points for v4 upgrades) because we felt they were so beneficial.

[davidthedim]

As a Basic user made the mistake of updating to 3.3, now find cannot use my Haverhill Extended which I had paid good money for, will have to invest a further £200 pounds if wish to use it. Now trying to go back to 3.2 but looks like I will need to remove the whole system and reload. Lots of errors when trying to reloading on 3.2 after loading 3.3
If you have Basic and an Organ such as Haverhill suggest that you do not upgrade.

[mdyde]

Hello David,

If you have Basic and an Organ such as Haverhill suggest that you do not upgrade.

To clarify, according the memory requirements for the various Haverhill versions in the user guides on the Lavender Audio website, the Haverhill Full sample set requires 2830 MB so should easily load with default rank options within the 3 GB memory limit of the v3.30 Basic Edition, whereas the Haverhill Extended requires 3840 MB in 16-bit with memory compression and single loops, so you would probably need to disable some ranks for the Haverhill Extended (but not for the Haverhill Full). If you're not already doing so, also make sure that all ranks are set to 16-bit, memory compression on and single loops.

Personally, I think you might find the massive increase in polyphony and performance you would get with v3.30 more than makes up for having to disable a few ranks of the Haverhill Extended, but of course if you prefer to stick with v3.23 that's entirely your choice.

Now trying to go back to 3.2 but looks like I will need to remove the whole system and reload. Lots of errors when trying to reloading on 3.2 after loading 3.3

To revert to running an older version of Hauptwerk after a newer one you would normally need to uninstall completely, reinstall the older version, and then use Hauptwerk's native backup restore mechanism to restore your settings from the last backup you made with the older version.

However, in this particular case, it would probably be sufficient just to restore your last settings backup using Hauptwerk's native backup restore functionality, then reinstall v3.23 immediately (before launching Hauptwerk v3.30 again).

[Anton Heger]

Hello Martin and Brett,

I think I do not understand the claims about polyphony.
In version 3.23 I have disabled the two filter options and set the maximum polyphony to about 3000.
I can see in the Windows Task Manager that the processor load goes up to maximal 80-90%.

Now in version 3.30 I expect a higher polyphony (that is what I understood from the anouncement; "a second life for my old hardware").
But..
After installation the maximum polyphony is automatically set to about 1500 (according to the release notes, this has something to do with the defenition of polyphony (mono/stereo) etc.)
The two filter options are still disabled.
And the processor load still reaches 80-90%, just as before.
So, what has changed?
I should conclude that the new limit of 1500 is practically higher than the old limit of 3000?
Or did I understand the anouncement completely wrong?
As far as I can see now; nothing has changed in the new version...

Anton

[Fokko]

Hi Brett and Martin,

I succesfully installed the new version 3.30 with the 64-bit preview for OS on my Mac Pro with OS Leopard, 16 Gb RAM.
I do have the same question as Anton Heger mentioned. I see the polyphony is set back to about 4000.
When the Hinsz Bovenkerk V3 full loaded in 20bit compressed (like before in 3.23) and play tutti I get still soundcrackes.
Is that correct?

Greetings!

[mdyde]

Hello Anton,

Hello Martin and Brett,

I think I do not understand the claims about polyphony.
In version 3.23 I have disabled the two filter options and set the maximum polyphony to about 3000.
I can see in the Windows Task Manager that the processor load goes up to maximal 80-90%.

Now in version 3.30 I expect a higher polyphony (that is what I understood from the anouncement; "a second life for my old hardware").
But..
After installation the maximum polyphony is automatically set to about 1500 (according to the release notes, this has something to do with the defenition of polyphony (mono/stereo) etc.)
The two filter options are still disabled.
And the processor load still reaches 80-90%, just as before.
So, what has changed?
I should conclude that the new limit of 1500 is practically higher than the old limit of 3000?
Or did I understand the anouncement completely wrong?
As far as I can see now; nothing has changed in the new version...

Anton

No.

A given polyphony limit setting value now actually allows about twice as many pipes to sound as that setting value allowed in v3.23. Here's the relevant excerpt from the release notice that explains that:

Since most current sample sets are stereo, the polyphony limit setting has been changed so that it now specifies the polyphony for stereo, rather than mono, pipes/ranks. It also now specifies the exact point at which the polyphony management system will start to fade out pipes, rather than the absolute maximum polyphony. These two changes allow almost twice as many pipes to sound for a given polyphony limit setting than previous Hauptwerk versions.

To ensure that your computer's processor(s) are not overloaded, your previous polyphony limit setting might automatically be adjusted downwards to compensate when upgrading. (Note that the lower value doesn't mean that you're getting any less polyphony in reality, and you can adjust it back up again if you wish.) You may also wish to fine-tune the setting further, due to the enhanced polyphony management system.

These changes to the way that the polyphony limit is specified make it possible to reach almost double the polyphony for the Free and Basic Editions before any pipes are faded out, compared to previous versions.

So a setting of 1500 in v3.30 allows about the same maximum number of pipes to sound at any given instant as a setting of 3000 did in v3.23.

We changed the way it was measured specifically so as to try to help Basic Edition and Free Edition users by giving them effectively twice the polyphony.

If you measure the polyphony your computer can handle using the polyphony testing organ you should find it's the same with v3.30 as with v3.23. So v3.30 doesn't allow your processor(s) to play more pipe simultaneously.

However, what it does do, which is the major benefit, is to allow you to play much larger/wetter organs in full within that polyphony limit, because its polyphony management system is so much better.

So, for example, you should find that with your computer's current polyphony setting of 1500 you can play sample sets that are vastly larger and wetter, without running into any shortage of polyphony or noticeable effects of polyphony management, than you could with v3.23.

As another example, previously an 8-core computer would struggle to play the extremely large Sonus Paradisi Caen Surround sample set in full (tutti), whereas now a 4-core computer should be able to handle it fairly easily.

Here's another excerpt from the release notice that explains it:

Hauptwerk's polyphony management system ensures your polyphony limit setting (maximum simultaneous voices/pipes) is not exceeded, whilst making its effects as unnoticeable as possible.

For this Hauptwerk version it has been optimized very significantly so that it effectively now allows you to play many more pipes at once, before the effects of excess pipes being faded out become noticeable. It's also now almost impossible to overload Hauptwerk to the extent that new pipes can't sound, even with extremely 'wet' (reverberant) sample sets and modest polyphony limit settings.

This allows you to use much larger/wetter organs and much larger registrations within the limitations of your computer hardware or Hauptwerk edition. It also allows you to use many sample sets with fairly large acoustics very effectively, even with the Free and Basic Editions.

Some of the largest and wettest sample sets currently available, which previously required computers with 8 CPU cores for good performance, can now be used very effectively with 4-core computers, effectively almost halving the computer processing power required for good performance with large/wet sample sets.

[mdyde]

Hello Fokko,

Hi Brett and Martin,

I succesfully installed the new version 3.30 with the 64-bit preview for OS on my Mac Pro with OS Leopard, 16 Gb RAM.
I do have the same question as Anton Heger mentioned. I see the polyphony is set back to about 4000.
When the Hinsz Bovenkerk V3 full loaded in 20bit compressed (like before in 3.23) and play tutti I get still soundcrackes.
Is that correct?

Greetings!

If the sound crackles or breaks up then that means that your polyphony limit is set too high for your hardware.

Try testing the polyphony you computer can manage using the polyphony testing organ and setting the polyphony limit value according to the instructions on its screen (also covered in the 'performance tuning' section in the user guide, as before), i.e. to about 35 percent of the static polyphony value you measure.

If the sound still cracks up, then try reducing the polyphony limit setting further, e.g. try setting it to 2000. You should still find that the Bovenkerk Vol 3 is fully usable (tutti) with a polyphony limit setting of 2000 (or even less).

(With v3.30 you should no longer need extremely high polyphony limit settings.)

[Anton Heger]

Martin,

Now I understand that the statements about 'a double polyphony' was ment specifically for the Trial and the Basic version (I hoped you have optimized Hauptwerk, to achieve this in the Advanced version too...).
I understand too that in every case one can use larger and wetter organs on older hardware with much less audible distorsion. That's a great improvement indeed!

Thanks for this explanation!
Anton

[micdev]

All of this seems a bit confusing at first; on my first try with 3.30 (of course like every "GOOD" user, without reading the release notes) I set my polyphony to my old 4400... and it was worst than ever... Thinking about "twice the polyphony" I changed it to 8000... ouch... even worst! Finally, for fun, set it to 2000... ahah, it is working... but 2000????, then 3200.. oups, some break up. Finally for my system the sweet spot is about 2500.

The interesting thing, is, if you set it very low, for example 1000 with the Caen surround Tutti, it will play without crack/pops but you will hear once in a while some "dryer parts"... normal since the polyphony manager is "killing" the oldest notes (by that time they are only reverb).

So, take your time to experiment with the polyphony setting to find "your sweet spot"... then don't bother about its value ... 2-3-5000 is not important, the important thing is the final result, being able to play larger/wetter/ organs with large registrations. Now my Caen Surround with Tutti on my Quad PC is more than usable.

Now that I don't need to buy a new i7... what should I do with my money??? Let me talk to my wife, I'm sure she will know what to do

Regards
François