Peterborough Cathedral Hill - Sample set Released

I am very pleased finally to be able to announce the release of the Peterborough Cathedral Hill organ. William Hill is regarded as one of the great English organ builders along with Henry Willis, and the 1868 / 1894 Peterborough organ is a fine example of his work. This sample set was recorded prior to the recent re-pitch (so is around 1/4 tone sharp in old Philharmonic pitch), although it can of course be played very effectively at concert pitch should you wish. The set is available for purchase from my website http://www.audioangelorum.com. There is an 8 rank fully functioning trial version available (installation of which is a pre-requisite for the rest of the instrument), and I encourage you to download and enjoy it!

Many thanks to everyone who has given their time so generously in support of this project, I am extremely grateful to you all!

I’ve been reading the manual being provided with this sample set and listening to some of Agnus_Dei’s fine recording on contrebombarde.com. The organ sounds very impressive and the performance of the music is excellent. This looks like a fine product. Thank you to all concerned.

On contrebombarde.com I read the follow comment by agnus_dei in response to a comment about adjusting surround settings for the sample set (made before the set was released)

You CAN'T adjust the "surround" in the first "volume" of the sample set, which is what you're hearing now. This accurately portrays the Hill BEFORE the most complete restoration by Harrison. "This organ" is the one that will be in volume two, and that one WILL be multi-channeled.

Harrison did a complete overhaul, preserving the Hill sound, but adding several new stops (built upon Hill examples) including a second 32' Open Wood, and a second Solo Tuba.

The most significant change they made, and it was a MASSIVE one, was to bring the organ down to standard pitch!

This meant the lengthening of MANY pipes, including the wooden ones, down because of the older sharp pitch and "shorter" pipes!

The work has received great praise, and THIS is the organ that will be in the second part of the set!

I am a little confused about the sample set being offered.

It is clear from the website that it is in three volumes which can be purchased sequentially or all at the same time. With the three volumes installed you have the organ with the complete specification after the repitching work. Is this correct? Page 6 of the manual says there are 89 stops on the organ and the volume 3 specification on page 23 says there are 87 stops? I’ve not counted them but is this just an error?

As far as I can tell from the website and the manual, it seems that the samples used for most of the sample set were made before the repitching (the samples were made to conserve the sound before the pitch change work was undertaken) with samples taken after the repitching work was done for the additional stops. (This is consistent with the post http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16751&p=126267&hilit=Peterborough#p126267).

What is the pitch of the sample set currently being sold? Have the samples taken to preserve the sound before the repitching been repitched digitally for the sample set?

The sample set on offer is a ambient stereo sample set http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16751&p=127658&hilit=Peterborough#p127658. Is a surround sound version going to appear? Will it be offered as an upgrade to the current sample set being sold?

I’d appreciate some clarification of the points noted above. Thanks in advance.

Iain

Iain,

The currently available sample set is a stereo set. The full surround sample set will be available sometime in the future.

As far as I know, it is some sort of a "hybrid" sample set using the samples recorded before re-pitching plus the additions made in 2016. The pitch is 452 Hz, which is the pitch before re-pitching.

Chris

Iain,

The currently available sample set is a stereo set. The full surround sample set will be available sometime in the future.

As far as I know, it is some sort of a "hybrid" sample set using the samples recorded before re-pitching plus the additions made in 2016. The pitch is 452 Hz, which is the pitch before re-pitching.

Chris

Hi Chris and Iain,

This "version" of the sample set has the "old" stops PLUS the NEW Tuba mirabilis in the SOLO, which I do NOT use in my uploads.

Just the old stops at the old pitch!

Peace,

David

Hi Iain, many thanks for your questions and for giving me the opportunity to clarify these points. And many thanks to David and Christoph for their helpful replies!

The current stereo sample set is of the Historic organ as recorded in April 2015, prior to its repitch (the original intention of this sample set was archival). It is therefore roughly at A=452. You can of course adjust the pitch in Hauptwerk to play at A=440 should you wish, and random tuning parameters have been set up to provide minute pitch variations to avoid it sounding too clinically “in tune” when played at this pitch. The specification therefore relates to the organ at that time (2015), with, as David mentions, the exception of the Tuba Mirabilis, which did not exist in the 2015 instrument, although a non functional drawstop did exist in the jamb for this purpose at the time of sampling with the rank having been”prepared for” some years earlier. It seemed to me to be a shame to put a non functional stop in the virtual instrument, and so I have added the Tuba Mirabilis samples, recorded at A440, and digitally modified to sound at A451 in this case. Feel free to resist the temptation to pull it if you want to be entirely authentic!

Further recordings have been made in 2017 following the repitch to capture some of the voicing differences and the tonal changes, which were: the addition of the Tuba Mirabilis, replacing the 1’ flageolet on the choir with a Nazard and sesquialtera, and the renaming of the pedal 16’ open diapason to open wood, and a new 16’ open diapason wood added by extending the 32’ open diapason. Hence the difference in the stop counts (i.e. before and after the 2015/16 work). I believe that the voicing was improved in some areas following the re-pitching work, in particular on some of the high pressure reeds, and these have been resampled, along with various other ranks to capture the improved tone. I will release an updated version of Volume 3, with a significant number of new audio samples at the current lowered pitch and specification in due course, which will be an update based on the existing 3 volumes. Note that there are also plans to create a dry set (for use in ambient spaces) and a multi channel set which will indeed be an upgrade to the existing wet set (so owners of the current wet stereo set will be able to upgrade once it is available).

Thanks for the clarifications and additional information.

It seems a little odd to have included so much about the repitching in the manual and elsewhere when the samples used are from before this work was carried out. it might be helpful to state this in the manual and on the website.

Iain

It seems a little odd to have included so much about the repitching in the manual and elsewhere when the samples used are from before this work was carried out. it might be helpful to state this in the manual and on the website.

I think it does cover this somewhat indirectly in the manual, and perhaps I could make it clearer. Many thanks for the suggestion Iain.

Hi Richard,
Is the upload to the trial set the wrong one? The releases on the hautboy are very WRONG. They increase the volume in the bass registers. This surely is an error???????

Tony

Addendum: It seems to be the mid releases, in the bass area. They seem to be coming in at the wrong time-point/level. The short releases seem ok, as do the long ones. The middle ones seem to have been sampled for a longer time than the actual play-time used.

Any ideas???????

I decided to buy this a year or so ago! So I placed my order for the complete set yesterday morning, submitted my license update request to MDA and started downloading. Thanks to a prompt response from MDA I was up and running early yesterday afternoon.

It sounds very fine indeed!

A couple of immediate impressions may help others to determine whether this first version is for them.

First, as explained above, this is the organ sampled before repitching so is at 452. And to my ears this is the pitch at which it sounds its best. Repitching this sample set in HW to 440 takes (and I realise this is subjective) much of the sparkle away even with random detunings enabled.

Second, it is not especially reverberant for a cathedral set. To be precise, while the building is certainly reverberant the stereo set seems to have been mixed to give an organist's console perspective with a lot of direct "organ" and less "building" than one might expect to hear as a listener or in a CD recording. I have hardware reverb on my setup and my immediate impression is that it sounds better - and certainly more impressive - with a little extra. Of course, as I get into it a little more I may well come to prefer the clarity of the more direct sound. And it is always better to have a little more "organ" and less "building" in the sample set, since reverb can be added but never removed. The surround set, when it comes, will presumably allow the choice of a wider range of perspectives.

Overall this seems a great achievement and a fine addition to the still rather limited selection of English organs on HW.

- Adrian.

A wonderful sample set, indeed. I just regret that the pedal compass isn’t extended to 32 notes.

A wonderful sample set, indeed. I just regret that the pedal compass isn’t extended to 32 notes.

Thank you! If there is interest, I would certainly consider creating an alternate organ definition with an extended pedal compass.

A wonderful sample set, indeed. I just regret that the pedal compass isn’t extended to 32 notes.

Thank you! If there is interest, I would certainly consider creating an alternate organ definition with an extended pedal compass.

That might push me over the top!
Steve

It seems to be the mid releases, in the bass area. They seem to be coming in at the wrong time-point/level. The short releases seem ok, as do the long ones. The middle ones seem to have been sampled for a longer time than the actual play-time used.

Any ideas???????

Many thanks for raising this. Reeds often have a stopping transient when a note is lifted off which can sound strange. I have been careful to try and preserve these stopping transients in the releases where they exist, but I also recognise that in certain situations, this can cause an un-natural effect for certain combinations of release sample and length of note played. I believe this can happen if the transient interferes with the normal release scaling used by hauptwerk which usually prevents this kind of thing. I will of course go back and listen to the Hautboy again, and see if it would benefit from some adjustment of the release marker positions to improve the release scaling for these mid releases. I would however add that the pipes do indeed sound like this, it’s just perhaps the effect is being over emphasised on some of the lower notes in this case. If that is the case, I will of course make some suitable adjustments to improve this.

It seems to be the mid releases, in the bass area. They seem to be coming in at the wrong time-point/level. The short releases seem ok, as do the long ones. The middle ones seem to have been sampled for a longer time than the actual play-time used.

Any ideas???????

Many thanks for raising this. Reeds often have a stopping transient when a note is lifted off which can sound strange. I have been careful to try and preserve these stopping transients in the releases where they exist, but I also recognise that in certain situations, this can cause an un-natural effect for certain combinations of release sample and length of note played. I believe this can happen if the transient interferes with the normal release scaling used by hauptwerk which usually prevents this kind of thing. I will of course go back and listen to the Hautboy again, and see if it would benefit from some adjustment of the release marker positions to improve the release scaling for these mid releases. I would however add that the pipes do indeed sound like this, it’s just perhaps the effect is being over emphasised on some of the lower notes in this case. If that is the case, I will of course make some suitable adjustments to improve this.

Having spent MANY hours working with you on this set, Ben, I should add that this Swell Hautboy gets quite a bit stronger, and also a bit "rougher" as it comes down into the tenor range.

I played the real organ once, briefly, and that was quite a few years ago.

However, if anyone recalls the Gustav Merkel series that was recorded on the Peterborough Hill, long before the work by Harrison, they may remember that the sounds are not always as "smooth" or as "English" as they may seem on other prominent British instruments.

If anyone is interested in hearing these recordings, I think that all of them are on youtube.

Peace.