Thank you everyone for your great replies. I noticed that a certain free "competitor" that I had issues with nad mentioned in my previous post was censored. That's kinda funny, but understandable.
larason2 wrote:I sympathize with your predicament, as I was there once. It’s a difficult problem to resolve. It’s a function of how St. Anne’s was recorded, along with how English organs tend to be. How many manuals does your home setup have? If you only have one, you may find St. Anne’s is more versatile if you are able to switch manuals using the floating divisions function. I agree that Piotr’s instruments are good, but you may have to load them in the demo version of basic or advanced if you are short on funds, which you may find annoying. I wonder what kind of repertoire you are trying to play, so that the volume difference becomes problematic? I ended up buying St. Eucaire once I was able to come up with more funds, which has a much better balance between the manuals. In retrospect though, I think St. Anne’s can register a lot of the same music, but you definitely need to be more creative. The trouble with the big dynamic range always rears its head though, and I find I have to adjust the volume a lot on St. Anne’s.
My home instrument has two manuals and a 30 note pedalboard. It's an old Viscount Jubilate 230 (with some electronics issues (crackling and unstable volume), so I can't use the built in sounds, which may not be a bad thing because they sound like a cheap Casio synth
). So far I have found it to be an issue with Bach's Toccata from BWV 565. I have managed to get the swell to balance to an acceptable point by skipping a few stops on the great, it works, but it's still a bit too quiet without using some of the reeds which is a bit much instead.
josq wrote:For the HW free edition, there is a 1.5 GB RAM limitation, which is a very serious limitation indeed.
The Pitea sample set might fit the bill, but I don't know where to locate the download site (if still available).
Yes, that limitation is a big issue. I would think limiting polyphony would be enough. 1.5 GB is almost nothing, although I'm using an old laptop with a Core i3 and 4GB of RAM so there's not a lot more RAM to deal with anyways, and I'm spiking the CPU occasionally too.
1961TC4ME wrote:Was in the same boat myself 10+ years ago, not from the swell standpoint, but I wasn't in a position to afford a decent computer at the time and I had an old Dell running XP with a whopping 2 GB of memory at my disposal. I also couldn't swing the price-tag at the time for the advanced version of Hauptwerk and the basic version was not of interest. I either went all in or not at all, so for quite some time I too ran with the free version while I saved up and learned how Hauptwerk worked, what it's limits with the free version were and so on, all the time drooling over and dreaming about the sets I wished I could have!
I found for the most part, other than a few freebie sample sets (they're out there you just gotta dig) and now what would be rather old sample sets, that I was pretty limited in my selection. As has been mentioned here already, even if you have 4 GB of memory, you won't be able to use it with the free or basic edition of Hauptwerk. I will also say that you're not likely to find many sets that will even feature a swell pedal, especially in the memory limitation range of 1.5 GB, most you'll find will be older sample sets of older organs not featuring this option.
At the time of my limitations there was one set I found that not only fit into the 1.5 GB memory limit, it also filled the bill for the time and I was quite happy with it, especially if you want a swell pedal and a more modern church organ. This was the 3 manual Schantz from Evensong music. My understanding is it has been discontinued as an offering, however I'm sure if you were to contact Jonathan Orwig he could still hook you up with this set and probably for a very paltry sum. He goes by 'giwro' here on the forum. Worth looking into.
Further info:
http://www.evensongmusic.net/?page_id=155Here's another source, look over the sample set list and free sample set list, this will give you some good info on what's out there and what will fit into the 1.5 GB memory limit.
https://www.pcorgan.com/indexEN.html Marc
Yeah, I'm dreaming too, but for now I will have to contain my big ideas of what could be.
I'm thinking a powerful computer built in to my console, running some big sample sets with tons of floating divisions to fit every need. Maybe some day.
I noticed that there is a three manual Schantz available that will run on 1.3 GB of RAM, and it's on sale at US $35, and it even has a Vox Humana 8' (I have a soft spot for vox humanas), but no tremulant it looks like. That may be an option, although even $35 is a lot right now. I'm recovering from lyme disease so I can't work, and money is very tight. This one looks interesting though. I'm guessing a sample set for version 2 will miss some features/realism compared to one for version 4? I'm guessing maybe no blower sound and less dynamics?
Maybe that's the one you were using?
http://www.evensongmusic.net/?page_id=589evertjan wrote:josq wrote:The Pitea sample set might fit the bill, but I don't know where to locate the download site (if still available).
Pitea is on this webpage:
http://almorse.net/content_freeorgans.htmlThe 41 stops version requires about 1.5 GB to fully load in Hauptwerk at 16 bits.
Oh yes, the Piteå School of Music organ. I did try that one in a competing free option and liked most of it. I'll give it a try!
Thanks everyone, I have some things to think about now!