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A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

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adri

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A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostTue May 31, 2016 12:30 pm

What follows is a strong and perhaps biased personal opinion, which you can take with a grain of sea or land salt, if you so desire.

Dr. Helmut Meier kindly asked me to write a review of the Ottobueren set and post some of my improvisations (I'm having trouble uploading anything right now). In thinking about this, I thought it would only be fair to provide a quick review of several sample sets I have acquired in the past 6 months or so.

Allow me first to give a little reflection on my organistic background, so you know my frame of mind and my historical context, as well as my preferences and perhaps biases.

I grew up in the organ garden of the Netherlands, namely in and around the city of Groningen, in the province with the same name. It has apparently the densest presence of well preserved historical organs, with many of the baroque period, as well as some interesting instruments from before and afterwards. The brothers Huis/Husz, his successor Arp Schnitger and his successors Albert Anthoni Hinsch (Hinsz) and his stepson Frans Caspar Schnitger Jr.and his compagnon Heinrich Hermann Freytag all left their significant stamps here, with competition in the 19th century from the brothers Lohman, Petrus van Oeckelen, Wilhelm Timpe and a little bit from Joachim Wenthin.

I grew up in the village of Noordwolde, home of a 17th century (Huisz?) organ, later reduced from three to two manuals by Freytag and recently restored. I listened to this organ every Sunday for 11+ years, a d had a chance to play it myself as well. A fantastic instrument that forever ingrained into me what good and authentic organ sound sounds like.

You can understand that this exposure every Sunday led to my love of the organ. At home I played on a harmonium, now a regretfully forgotten instrument with its own beauty and vast treasure of sheet music literature. I now possess a beautifully restored 1894 Mason & Hamlin 2-manual reed organ (sans pedals; only two for pumping).

On many Sundays, with my father in the beginning and later alone and with a friend, I scoured the province in search for the old organs I had read about. And so, I had a chance to play a large gamut of historical organs, from Krewerd (16th century; and before and after restoration) to e.g. Usquert which houses a 19th century Van Oeckelen. And anything in between, including several Schnitgers, Hinsches, Lohmans, Timpes and Freytags.

When I listened to a newly restored organ, in the late 1960s, when restoration techniques were somewhat still in its infancy, I wasn't always happy with the results (as in e.g. Leens and Appingedam). My ears were already well trained. It was easy to hear the difference between original stops and reconstructed ones, like reeds especially. Reeds were still very difficult to make sound old. And not every organ builder was yet making their own pipes.

Thus, over time, my ears developed a very good sense of distinction and to sense how an organ survived history. A very good example is the Vollenhove sample set, masterfully sampled by OAM. It's easy to hear the differences between the 17th and 18th and also 19th century pedal pipes. Personally I don't think the stops of the Rugwerk and Hoofdwerk blend well; they represent a different era and musical world. Also, I question the correctness of the mixtures; they all sound just a bit over the top and reveal that the restoration techniques of the time that they were carried out weren't quite perfected yet and still feel "neo-baroque." I'm sure it would be done a lot better if it were done today.

The organ of Zwolle is another well-known example and need no further discussion. When you witness what Flentrop (who did the 1950s restoration in Zwolle) has now been able to produce in Hamburg, you have a hard time believing that this new organ is "new". It sounds old. If money allows them to handle the Zwolle organ once again, it will reveal a sound you never could imagine! It will be reborn. It's one of the few major organs in Holland needing a re-restoration (as does Gouda, actually). The work done recently in Alkmaar is another testimony of how far we've come .

In my later teens I had the privilege of taking lessons from Johan van Meurs, a fantastic human being, who inspired so much love of organs and organ music, and who was a very patient and kind teacher. He was the "organist maker" of the Groningen city and province (à la Sweelinck; as he raised many great organists in Holland) on the world-famous Schnitger organ (with much older material) in the Aa-kerk of Groningen, and I had also the privilege of being able to practice there, and I also became involved with the Saturday night concerts there, where I was a host handing out programs and taking free-will offerings. After the concerts, I was allowed to hang out in the coffee room, where famous organists would gather and have many discussions about organs, music, etc. What a treat! A great influence on me was Klaas Bolt, originally from Appingedam,who became my good friend, then already organist in Haarlem of the famous Chr. Muller organ, who was an organ expert and helped advise churches and organ builders on restorations. As a trained archivist he used many of the reports I wrote.

This is my foundation: solidly rooted in old organs. Consequent listening to many records and now CDs of organs of the world once again confirms my suspicion that some restored organs have lost their original luster quite bit and this has become rather easy to detect. But I understand the challenge of a restoration: wind leaks are fixed, wind pressures are different and brought back to their original levels, and some revoicing is needed. The trick is to make old stops and new stops blend well. Recent work by some great organ builders who have tons of firsthand experience maintaining, studying and restoring old organs make this almost indistinguishable now. They can even make new organs sound like old ones! That's extremely encouraging, but not all organ builders are capable of producing the same top results. Not yet at least. Some say it's a dying art, as not enough young people become organ builders or work for organ building firms.

It is with this same set of ears that I approach historical organs sampled for Hauptwerk. And then there are a few organs that stand out immediately for their basically unspoiled sounds.

Frechilla stands out, even though the instrument has pipes from two, but close, periods.

St. Michel de Thierache stands out as an outstanding French baroque organ; and has deservedly gained fame as such. It's an absolutely gorgeous sound; and those Flutes are to die for! The much larger and flashier grand Isnard in St. Maximim is supposedly totally original, but I do detect some elements in the sound that may reflect some, but probably unintentional "tampering" overtime. But nevertheless a glorious organ that inspires to play the larger works, and the later works by Balbastre and his contemporaries. And to improvise!

Other smaller organs of note are: Rabsteijn and Zlata Koruna. Small organs, but also in their fantastic acoustical surroundings a great joy to play. A trip back in time! I do not have the little OAM set of the Frans Caspar Schnitger organ in Duurswoude, but this instrument has survived very well as well, as far as I understand.

Zoblitz-is an example of a recently sampled organ whose sounds really strike me as very musical, authentic, and in a good acoustical setting. A modest organ but with lots of possibilities.

Weissenau. This recently acquired and published sample set, which has been an excellent labor of love by Gernot Wurst, is an instrument with a wonderful palette of 8' flues and strings, as well as some nice reeds. This instrument is my view best suited for carefully chosen registrations, as personally I find the mixtures and trumpet stops too harsh, unblending and bombastic. Perhaps my 66-year old ears cannot take this 'in your face;' sound anymore. Perhaps. Nevertheless, here is a case where I personally want to place some question marks as to the sounds of the trompet reeds and mixtures/plenum. I cannot say that I find the organ sounding really old, even when played with a historical temperament.

And I think I know why old organs have irregularities in voicing; some pipes speak a little better, faster, slower, differently, than their brothers and sisters in the same rank. This actually adds the human touch to an organ: the slight imperfections make up for a perfectly satisfying musical experience. The more "perfect" the voicing is, that is, when the pipes in a rank all speak equally smooth, and thus the same, in a kind of monotonous fashion, the organ's sounds seems more dead, less alive, less human, and almost electronic and artificial.

Ottobueren. Now, here is an interesting and rare historical organ. Also, plenty of 8' flues and strings, as well as reeds. Luckily, no blaringly loud trompete and mixtures here. The Crumhorn is more like a little trumpet and does a good job trying to be a trompette. Quite useful. A well sampled organ; and I tried to even play early baroque and renaissance music on it, but then you do hear that the organ is from a later period. If you play old music on it, I recommend the Cimbel of the Hauptwerk and leaving the low mixture out. Then, just for fun, I started playing even suitable piano music on it, and it adapts extremely well. What I sorely miss on this sample set: no 16' reed in the pedal, no pedal coupler and no 2' flutes anywhere. But the Bourdon 16' in the manual is fabulous. Combine that with the Octave 4', and you have a wonderful sound. The same is true for the Weissenau: Principal 16' and Octave 4' function very well together as a running bass, where normally you would use a Fagot 16'. Ottobueren is a highly recommendable set. Here you hear desirable imperfections as you run up and down the scale of a stop. It's a good test.

Tholen: A wonderfully sampled organ, with good implementation of tremulants and the "acoustical slider". The organ is very well suited for the smaller works from around the turn of the 18th to 19th century and for smaller romantic works. And for choral preludes. But the organ's stoplist has been criticized throughout its history as being underdeveloped, and this remains the organ's Achilles heel. You have to be careful about stop usage. Modesty is key to musical success here. The Prestant 8' foot stops are very beautiful.

I once asked Jiri Zurek to sample a French double harpsichord. He said he had no plans. He sampled three string instruments so far, and I must say in one sense they are all a natural failure. Not because they are sampled badly, but simply, because you cannot reproduce in Hauptwerk software the natural resonance of an entire soundboard. In a way, end of discussion.

If we want ideal stringed instrument sounds, we have to either expand the possibilities of Hauptwerk (which is not going to happen, I'm sure; as this is organ software), or simply use other software that have natural resonance built-in. Harpsichords still sound kind of dead and artificial in Hauptwerk. It just cannot be helped. Organ pipes not played may vibrate sympathetically a little, but are still not heard. If they were, it would be trouble.

In stringed instruments, this is exactly the opposite and desirable, which cannot be imitated in Hauptwerk. The soundboard of a harpsichord and piano or psaltery, dulcimer, and what-have-you, is the natural acoustical environment, while for an organ it is the entire building. If the non-played pipes would "sing" as well and be heard; it would create double acoustics and thus overtone confusion. It's amazing how these two opposite natural principles are nevertheless totally perfect!

My sample set collection is bit bigger than what I covered here. As I said, it's my personal testimony and observation. It's not meant to be complete. I have some romantic organs and other baroque organs as well.
Hope it's helpful or interesting at least. It's not meant to exert any influence upon your decision to buy or not to buy.

I can naturally recommend any of the sample sets I have myself; otherwise I wouldn't have them...right?
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profeluisegarcia

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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostTue May 31, 2016 4:03 pm

Fascinating story ...waiting for the final (i.e. your Holy Spirit organ improvisations¡)
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostTue May 31, 2016 4:31 pm

Thank you ever so much for this so interesting , authentic and lively testimony, revealing a true expert and a true musician .
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostTue May 31, 2016 5:40 pm

Dr. Helmut Meier kindly asked me to write a review of the Ottobueren set and post some of my improvisations


You confirm a growing suspicion of mine that maybe a few of the postings on this site and perhaps quite a few professional performances on CCH seem to have been silently commissioned. (Perhaps just favours for buddies or freebies being repaid, at worst bought-and-paid-for content.) Either way, it seems regrettable if true.

This is not, though, a criticism of your post. You offer full disclosure and an expert, considered and balanced appraisal. I hope others will follow your fine example and let us know if they are commissioned to write something, play something or choose a particular sample set for their performance. Thank you.
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostTue May 31, 2016 9:58 pm

Adri, I don't quite understand why you say harpsichords samples can't reproduce the sympathetic sound board and string resonances properly. If they are sounding and a player is aware of them why is a microphone unable to "hear" the sounds and hence record them to be reproduced for a the Hauptwerk player to hear?
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profeluisegarcia

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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostWed Jun 01, 2016 12:15 am

adrianw wrote:
Dr. Helmut Meier kindly asked me to write a review of the Ottobueren set and post some of my improvisations


You confirm a growing suspicion...


I respectfully disagree: I do not see in this HW reduced market anything objectionable neither suspicious that some producer asks an expert for review and display the sound of a new VPO, a fortiori if the producer is widely recognized by the quality of his products. Any information (review and playings) spontaneous or solicited to experts (like Adri) should be -I think- very welcome by this relatively sparse community of potential costumers. Besides, if there were a secret negotiation nobody would known it, and if the producer decides give a gift, it is up to him.

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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostWed Jun 01, 2016 1:59 am

To make things clear:
Dr. Adrian de Groot purchased the set with the full price, so there was no "alimentation" or bribe. :?
Prof. Helmut Maier
OrganArt Media Sound Engineering
D-88662 Überlingen/Lake Constance
http://www.organartmedia.com
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostWed Jun 01, 2016 3:46 am

telemanr wrote:Adri, I don't quite understand why you say harpsichords samples can't reproduce the sympathetic sound board and string resonances properly. If they are sounding and a player is aware of them why is a microphone unable to "hear" the sounds and hence record them to be reproduced for a the Hauptwerk player to hear?


Although an audio sample can reproduce the sound of a single harpsichord/piano note being played accurately, samples alone can't reproduce the sound of multiple harpsichord/piano notes sounding together, or within a short space of time, with full accuracy, because the resonances of the harpsichord's/piano's soundboard are the result of complex interactions between the notes. Physical modelling systems are really needed to soundboard resonances well.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostWed Jun 01, 2016 6:36 am

Thanks Martin. I presume that is why the piano sampler Ivory uses physical modeling.
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostWed Jun 01, 2016 10:02 am

Concerning being 'silently commissioned' I don't buy it either. The way I look at it, if you're asked to give opinion / evaluate a set, then you the asking party are at the mercy of the one giving the opinion good or bad and that's the way it should be. I did take note in Adri's original post that it was not all just about OAM sample sets and actually Jiri @ SP got a pretty good plug as well which seemed to be totally unsolicited but I feel well deserved.

I do appreciate Adri posting this because he did confirm something for me which is I spent a lot of time fiddling with the St. Max set when I first got it thinking I was doing myself a favor by balancing some of the ranks, the reeds in particular which do have a fair amount of uneven speaking / amplitude between notes, the way it should be. What I've been noticing as of late by doing all this evening out is as Adri points out, the set kind of lost it's character and became somewhat bland in certain areas, just way too even and perfect and I had actually been thinking of going in and re-setting the voicing on a number of the stops I had initially adjusted. Well, this morning after playing the original version for a few (which has had zero voicing) it confirmed things for me and I went in to the extended version which has seen considerable voicing and took every reed and zapped the voicing back to the way it came out of the box. All I can say is..... Thanks, Adri! :D

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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostWed Jun 01, 2016 11:03 am

True,

There was nothing going on "under the table." He casually did ask me for a review or improvs on CBB after I send him some observations of the set. I then decided to make it a part of a larger review and write a context before doing so.

I see nothing wrong in someone asking you to write a review. If I wrote an article for a magazine or a book, wouldn't I like to get reviews? Now, if he had asked me for a favorable review, that would be a different story. But of course, that didn't happen.

That's it.
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostWed Jun 01, 2016 12:16 pm

I do apologise - I had not meant to suggest anything wrong (far from it) but I had clearly misunderstood your remark about the review being invited by OAM. My own cynicism is the only fault here.

The perception, integrity and authority of your remarks are obvious and speak for themselves. Thank you again for your observations and review.
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostWed Jun 01, 2016 6:55 pm

adrianw wrote:I do apologise - I had not meant to suggest anything wrong (far from it) but I had clearly misunderstood your remark about the review being invited by OAM. My own cynicism is the only fault here.

The perception, integrity and authority of your remarks are obvious and speak for themselves. Thank you again for your observations and review.



No offense taken and you're quite welcome.
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostSat Jun 04, 2016 7:06 pm

Thanks for telling your story, and giving honest opinions about the many sets you own! I've learned that it's hard to tell wether you like a set from recordings, and this sort of feedback is very valuable.
I second your impressions of Weissenau. I first knew this instrument from a Pachelbel CD, and was quite interested when the samples were released. None of the recordings on CB, however, caught my fancy. I think it may be because the dryness, but the impression that it gives me is that stops don't blend well. (Same for Haarlem, although this may be with the organ itself after it was revoiced by obsessive Neo-baroquists.) Still, the sampling is of very high quality, and perhaps some voicing amendments can change that....?

By the way, I've heard that although the Zwolle organ is going through a restoration these days, this is only to clean the action and pipes of the organ and perhaps make a few voicing adjustments, but is not a fundamental restoration of the sadly Flentroptized Schnitger, as the current, "Neo-baroque" state is considered "historical" (Over 50 years?) and can not be changed. I could be wrong about this info, but this is a great shame to not return the organ to a more original state. (Or perhaps they are waiting for restoration techniques to be even more refined?)

I would like to delve deeper in the harpsichords. I recall the last time I had a discussion on here, the verdict seemed to be "just get a real harpsichord."
Well, of course, we all know that not all of us have the money, space, patience, neighbors etc. to get a real, well-built harpsichord - I'm one of these people, and although I do enjoy my playing organs very well, I sometimes do miss being able to convincingly play my most beloved Froberger, Rameau, Forqueray etc. on a nice-sounding harpsichord.
I don't know wether if it's because I've been hearing harpsichords more than pianos (!) in my life, but I think many of the piano models out there sound very convincing, but the harpsichords all sound artificial. This shouldn't be, as pianos and harpsichords are both chordophones, and although perhaps modeling is needed to simulate the resonances characteristic to the instrument, if we can convincingly model a piano (Which arguably can be even more challenging, with sustain pedals etc.), I don't see why we can't do the same for a harpsichord.
Previously, I suggested that Realsamples had the best harpsichord samples out of all, and that they should make hauptwerk versions of them. But the more I listen to their models, the more artificial they sound. If you pay attention to the releases, they don't seem to be very well done - namely, they don't have the rich decay that real harpsichords have, and the sound just sort of fades away. It's also quite obvious that the sounds are individually played, as there isn't much "singing." This gives a very "dry" (Not in the recording sense) sound to the model that doesn't resemble real harpsichords. Otherwise, (I'll attribute this to the "many samples for each note," but some of you may know better) the harpsichords sound quite lively, and don't have the twangy sound many other instruments have.
here's an example of their model being played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm-7cNmQtD0
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-7FQZunD68
As for the SP Mietke, I think more efforts were made to simulate a real harpsichord, but it doesn't sound convincing, especially in the shorter notes. I also realized when playing the harpsichord, the plenum sounded the most realistic, while the 8x2 and the individual 8's sounded choppy. I think the problem isn't just the resonance (which still, is an important problem), but also the releases etc.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdV_O7quX1c
But I can envision someone these days successfully, using what has been applied to pianos, recreate a harpsichord. What joy would it be if we could play convincing models of historic Ruckers, Couchets, Zells, Taskins etc. through Hauptwerk, just like we are with Schnitgers, Silbermanns and other ancient organs?
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Re: A personal review of some new (and older) sample sets

PostSun Jun 05, 2016 12:57 pm

Why would one leave Zwolle alone when no one is really satisfied with it? To preserve bad history? Give me a break.

After all, Flentrop reconstructed Harlingen back to its original 18th century state, because no one was satisfied with its history. And it its reconstructed sate it's absolutely fantastic! A fabulous achievement!

My late friend, Klaas Bolt, organist of Haarlem, was rightfully less than enthusiastic over the Marcussen makeover of the Chr. Muller organ. It went more than just tonal; also the action was revised. It was done during a period when Holland went Marcussen crazy. Alas.
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