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Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

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adri

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Organ culpa? Sampling culpa? Mea culpa?

PostMon Oct 13, 2014 7:09 pm

I have tried this sample set, and I am very sorry to admit that (despite all the hard work by Reiner) in its current status of sampling I don't like it, for the following, I believe legitimate, reasons:

:arrow: the staccato releases just do not sound right; quickly repeated chords sound very strange, hollow, acoustically off the mark, and release-wise it's just not right. You just can't play fast repeated chords or staccato music. The double (why not triple,as is the norm nowadays?) releases can't handle it.

:arrow: the organ's volume is not set right; some stops are hardly audible

:arrow: the microphone placement seems too close to the organ; the reverberation is a hardly audible distant sounding after-effect; it doesn't sound quite natural

:arrow: the organ sounds unbalanced between reeds and flues.

arrow: the youtube videos of this organ sound a lot better.

I loaded it in 24-bits, my PC has 32GB RAM, and a Quad processor.
Samples were played back through a quadrophonic speaker setup, including Bose speakers.

Some of the problems may very well be with the original organ, but the lack of good staccato releases is definitely a sampling issue.

This is my honest and I believe objective impression.
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ReinerS

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostTue Oct 14, 2014 4:25 am

Dear all,

the comments made by Adri and also on the german forum made me take a closer look at the issues mentioned. Unfortunately these have not been brought up by my beta-testers, who obviously didn't judge them to be servere. I'll address your points below:

:arrow: the staccato releases just do not sound right; quickly repeated chords sound very strange, hollow, acoustically off the mark, and release-wise it's just not right. You just can't play fast repeated chords or staccato music. The double (why not triple,as is the norm nowadays?) releases can't handle it.

There are in fact three release layers for all stops, staccato, portato and regular. However I noticed that the parameters for the staccato releases leave some room for improvement. At the moment I am experimenting wth different settings, and quite some improvement seems possible here.

:arrow: the organ's volume is not set right; some stops are hardly audible

The voicing has been done by Hans-Peter Reiners, the long term titulaire of the original organ. This is however a very personal judgement and also the organ may sound different depending on the audio setup. Please send me a note which stops you find hardly audible, as of course errors may have slipped into this as well. It is however something that a user can fix easily.

:arrow: the microphone placement seems too close to the organ; the reverberation is a hardly audible distant sounding after-effect; it doesn't sound quite natural

It was deliberately recorded fairly (but not extremely) close and not in the middle of the church to get a good direct sound of the organ with clear speech. Unfortunately (I did not make the recordings myself, but licenced them from Peter Ewers) the recording position for the Positif is in fact very close. However, keep in mind that we are not talking french cathedral here, but a building of a much smaller scale, so you don't have a Notre-Dame like acoustic in the first place. Also, the Positif is placed on the balcony, while the rest of the organ is way back on the tower wall. Hence the Positif of the real organ also does sound more direct.

:arrow: the organ sounds unbalanced between reeds and flues.

Again this is the way that Herr Reiners regulated it, and so I believe it is the way the real organ is balanced.

I am working on fixing the release issue, I also am working on improving the denoising in the attack phase of mainly the flue stops (I found that a small change in my denoising algorithm may get a substantial improvement there as well). I will revisit the voicing, but I do want the sampleset to reflect the original instrument as much as possible. If errors slipped in I will happily correct those.

Hopefully within a few days I will be able to update the files on the server with an improved version.

Best regards
Reiner
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adri

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostTue Oct 14, 2014 9:30 am

Not wanting to sound harsh or disrespectful, but you are responsible for the end result, not the people you contracted to do things for you...

I think this set should not have been released without first having all the issues addressed and fixed.

I am surprised your beta testers didn't find these problems; perhaps it's time to get more critical and organ-knowledgeable beta testers....(again I'm not saying this to be judgmental, but out of a desire to see only good sample sets come to market).

We, as the customers, will not expect anything less. I have spoken out before in other situations, and will continue to do so for the sake of quality and end user satisfaction (after all this set cost a substantial 500 euiros).

As an organ historian and expert, I feel it's my duty to do so.

Thanks.

PS the availability of 5 stops in the demo without interruption is a brilliant idea and I hope others will follow it as well!
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sesquialtera

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostTue Oct 14, 2014 12:09 pm

Ok this sound bank is not cheap, and maybe not perfect now,
but It is difficult so produce high quality sample sets ( as MDA, SP or OAM )
When Inspired Acoustic released their Scott australian organ, they made mistakes too ...
(problems with sample attack in the ever noisy city. )
But every one was rather tolerating, and accept to wait for the update.
So I hope all the problems noticed here can and will be corrected,
and I wish a success for this virtual organ.
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adri

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostTue Oct 14, 2014 1:07 pm

the website of Pipeloops says: two releases; but Reiner, you tell us here: three releases.

what is it?
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ReinerS

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostTue Oct 14, 2014 1:42 pm

adri wrote:the website of Pipeloops says: two releases; but Reiner, you tell us here: three releases.

what is it?

Hello Adri,

the website tells "at least two". There are in fact some samples (a small number) where one of the releases was not usable, and hence it is three releases for majority of samples, and two releases for very few of them.
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organsRgreat

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostWed Oct 15, 2014 5:43 am

Thanks to adri and telemanr for commenting on the different ways of designating pitches. There's also the MIDI system, which I think assigns note number 60 to middle C, so that tenor C is 48, and bottom C on a 5-octave manual is 36. All very confusing, but “forewarned is fore-armed”; I am glad to have been made aware of these different conventions.
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lefranc22

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostWed Oct 15, 2014 9:30 am

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petervdzwaag

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostWed Oct 15, 2014 2:45 pm

Let me begin by saying I highly respect all the hard work Reiner has put into this and he deserves our praise for acquiring this instrument.
We had to wait years for this set to be released and with a heavy heart I have to report it is a massive dissapointment. I truly wished it was otherwise, but alas.

1. The recording position is too close to the organ. Now you can clearly hear it's not a Cavaillé-Coll and with a recording position further away from the organ this wouldn't have been a problem anymore.
2. The set doesn't reproduce the full (original) acoustic. The church is not a cathedral, but the reverberation in the set is even less than the original.
3. The staccato releases are all wrong and unusable. It sounds like the bell effect of the old HW1 organs.

Because we already had to wait so long I can unsterstand the urgency of releasing this set, but I'm afraid it was to hasty. At the moment the set is just an alpha version and not worth € 600.

I wish Reiner all the best in reworking these samples, but in my opinion a complete new recording is needed (preferably done in-house). And by that time we'll probably already have access to an updated Metz and Dudelange (and who knows what else)...
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ludu

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostWed Oct 15, 2014 3:31 pm

adri wrote:Not wanting to sound harsh or disrespectful, but you are responsible for the end result, not the people you contracted to do things for you...

Unfortunately, I cannot give another diagnostic. I am afraid Pipeloops doesn't always receive good advices. For instance, in Laeken (full edition), the idea to group several stops in one tab is absolutely incomprehensible. This wonderful instrument deserves a new recording too.

Of course this is a very difficult job. The great concept of this kind of trial version is a great progress. I wish Pipeloops all the best for the future.
Luc
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smfrank

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostWed Oct 15, 2014 4:00 pm

ludu wrote:
adri wrote:in Laeken (full edition), the idea to group several stops in one tab is absolutely incomprehensible.

Not at all. If you read on their website, it was early and fits in a 4gb system. This is really one of my all time favorite sets. Yes, I do wish they could do a complete, stop by stop recording, but I am VERY thankful to have this set. I love it! And it's full compass manuals and pedals.

An interesting side effect with some samples being multiple stops, you can actually layer. i.e.
1) Fonds 8’ - Montre 8’, Bourdon 8’, Flûte 8’, Gemshorn 8’, Salicional 8’
2) Gambes et Flûtes 8' - Flûte harmonique 8', Gemshorn 8', Salicional 8'

you get doubled Gemshorn 8' + Salicional 8'

Very interesting effects are possible.

Steve
Steven Frank
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ludu

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostWed Oct 15, 2014 4:11 pm

Of course, the possibility to use a sample with a 4 GB ram is an interesting option, but only if the full use of the organ is possible in the main version. Many works are absolutely impossible to play in this conception. The interesting mixes you mention could be better if you mix them yourself, after correcting the tune!
Luc
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adri

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostWed Oct 15, 2014 4:52 pm

smfrank wrote:
ludu wrote:
adri wrote:in Laeken (full edition), the idea to group several stops in one tab is absolutely incomprehensible.

Not at all. If you read on their website, it was early and fits in a 4gb system. This is really one of my all time favorite sets. Yes, I do wish they could do a complete, stop by stop recording, but I am VERY thankful to have this set. I love it! And it's full compass manuals and pedals.

An interesting side effect with some samples being multiple stops, you can actually layer. i.e.
1) Fonds 8’ - Montre 8’, Bourdon 8’, Flûte 8’, Gemshorn 8’, Salicional 8’
2) Gambes et Flûtes 8' - Flûte harmonique 8', Gemshorn 8', Salicional 8'

you get doubled Gemshorn 8' + Salicional 8'

Very interesting effects are possible.

Steve


The poster made a mistake in quoting me; it was ludu who said that not me.
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ReinerS

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostWed Oct 15, 2014 11:45 pm

Regarding the Laeken sample set:

At the time of its recording it was not a question,what might be preferrable, but what was possible at the time. We are talking pre-Hauptwerk here! The organ was recorded by Peter Ewers to be used with Giga-Sampler around 2000/2001! At that time the polyphony required for and provided by Hauptwerk and modern PCs was absolutely unthinkable, a few 100 voices were absolutely max. Hence this was the ONLY choice.

I do agree that this wonderful instrument would deserve a full Hauptwerk set, sampled pipe by pipe with all the features possible. But, I'm afraid, that's not an option for me at this time.
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Fokko

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Re: Now released: The 1981 Oberlinger organ of Bonn-Beuel

PostThu Oct 16, 2014 3:07 am

ReinerS wrote:Regarding the Laeken sample set:

At the time of its recording it was not a question,what might be preferrable, but what was possible at the time. We are talking pre-Hauptwerk here! The organ was recorded by Peter Ewers to be used with Giga-Sampler around 2000/2001! At that time the polyphony required for and provided by Hauptwerk and modern PCs was absolutely unthinkable, a few 100 voices were absolutely max. Hence this was the ONLY choice.


You are absolutely right, Reiner. A vast majority of the Hauptwerk community these days is absolutely unknown with the huge challanges and impossibilities everyone stood for in the very beginning of the Hauptwerk project. We means: Martin Dyde, sampletsetproviders and users/customers as well. Now a days the highest expectations becomes standard.
I hope you will find a way to solve the known problems with Oberlinger.
Fokko Horst
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