How to figure out the number of polyphony?

Hello from Cologne Germany with the big cathedral and the famous Klais organs,

first, sorry about my bad English, but I hope you understand what I ask.

In the description of some samplesets I read, that they need a specific number of polyphony (i.e. 12000). But how to figure out how many polyphony my computer system is able? I there any software-tool to test this?

Second question: Does the number of polyphony depends only on the power of the CPU or/and the audiocard?

Best regards
organplayer

[mdyde]

Hello organplayer,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for the interest in Hauptwerk.

(I've moved your topic here for now, since I understand you're using the Free Edition at the moment.)

Please have a read through the 'Performance tuning' section in the main Hauptwerk user guide (on the Help menu in Hauptwerk; pages 200-213 in the current v4.2.1 version), which covers those things in depth.

The 'Technical data' document, linked from the prerequisites page on our website, also covers polyphony and computer hardware:

https://www.hauptwerk.com/clientuploads/documentation/PDF/HauptwerkBackgroundTechnicalInfoOnComputerHardware.pdf

Hope that helps.

Hi Martin,

thanks for the answer (very fast ). In the meantime I read the suggested pages carefully. Very good explanation and help. Thank you. ((Sometimes it would be much more better to read the manual before asking a question ))

I don't use the free edition but I bought the advanced version. If I understood it well, polyphony is limited in the free version, so most computers don't have a problem with this. But I use the advanced version! And there is no limitation in polyphony, if the computer-and sound-system supports this. Correct?

May be I was confused by the problem I found. Let me explain with simple words: Sometimes I hear absolutely too quiet the higher pipes when I hold a cord with my left hand and play i.e. a trill with the right hand. Or to say it the other way round: The cord is too loud.

The audio (amplifier etc) is set to equal. That seems not to be the problem. Speakers are ok. I thought it was a problem of polyphony but that seems not to be the case, because the higher pipes sound, but too quiet.

Any ideas what's going wrong?

[mdyde]

Hello organplayer,

I don't use the free edition but I bought the advanced version. If I understood it well, polyphony is limited in the free version, so most computers don't have a problem with this. But I use the advanced version! And there is no limitation in polyphony, if the computer-and sound-system supports this. Correct?

That's correct.

My apologies for the confusion over your licence. I can't seem to find a record of you having a licence under your name or current email address in our database or email archives, so my guess is that it must have been ordered under a different name and email address. I've sent you an email to clarify the details, so that we can get our records updated appropriately. (I've moved the topic back here too.)

May be I was confused by the problem I found. Let me explain with simple words: Sometimes I hear absolutely too quiet the higher pipes when I hold a cord with my left hand and play i.e. a trill with the right hand. Or to say it the other way round: The cord is too loud.

The audio (amplifier etc) is set to equal. That seems not to be the problem. Speakers are ok. I thought it was a problem of polyphony but that seems not to be the case, because the higher pipes sound, but too quiet.

I don't think that could be related to polyphony.

Using the St. Anne's sample set, and with just the Great Open Diapason Small 8 stop drawn, do you still experience the issue?

If not, how about with the FF piston turned on (beneath the virtual Great manual) on the St. Anne's organ?

Also, do you mean that the higher-pitched pipes specifically sound quieter *only* when other lower pipes are played (e.g. a chord held with the left hand), or do they sound quiet even if no other pipes are being played?

Please also check that your amplifier and audio interface hardware/software don't have any dynamic compressor/limiter effects enabled (which would turn the overall output level down as the signal level from Hauptwerk became higher, potentially giving the impression that some pipes had been turned down relative to others).

Hello Martin,

first, thank you for your detailled help. Here my answers:

Also, do you mean that the higher-pitched pipes specifically sound quieter *only* when other lower pipes are played (e.g. a chord held with the left hand), or do they sound quiet even if no other pipes are being played?

The higher-pitched pipes sound quieter only when lower pipes are played. Example: If i hold the chord C4 E4 G4 with the left hand und play simultaneously a trill with C5 D5 with the right hand the trill is very, very quieter than the cord. When I play the trill without the chord it's absolutely ok. When I try the same (chord an trill) with the chord played and hold C3 E3 G3 then the trill with C5 D5 is perfect.

Using the St. Anne's sample set, and with just the Great Open Diapason Small 8 stop drawn, do you still experience the issue?

If not, how about with the FF piston turned on (beneath the virtual Great manual) on the St. Anne's organ?

Yes, with Great Open Diapason Small 8 stop drawn, I still experience the issue. With FF I don't hear the trill at all.

Please also check that your amplifier and audio interface hardware/software don't have any dynamic compressor/limiter effects enabled (which would turn the overall output level down as the signal level from Hauptwerk became higher, potentially giving the impression that some pipes had been turned down relative to others).

Next days I will check everything with the audio interface, cabeling, amplifier etc. and will rebuild all this stuff again from scratch. After this I will come back to this issue. A solution must be found!

Best regards
Werner

Most every Amplifier built today has "inbuilt Limiting Ability at Maximum Volume".

Therefore, If you play at High Volume,
It is quite possible that your Amp Is lowering its output to protect itself from catastrophic damage !
The side effect of this is total level reduction of all sounds .

[quote]Far Superior Amps and Speakers, will prevent this ! [/quote]

Mel

[B. Milan]

Are you sure it's just not the wind model? You can disable the wind model in the 'Organ settings | Organ preferences | Wind supply model' screen. With the wind model working it will often "rob" wind from higher notes when playing lower notes depending on how low the wind pressure is set to.