New Sample Set - 1852 William B.D. Simmons

Evensong is pleased to announce the impending release of our latest sample set - the 1852 William B.D. Simmons organ in Los Altos UMC. This is a first for HW - an historic American organ from the mid-1800s.

Stoplist, pictures, screenshots, and some history here:
http://www.evensongmusic.net/?page_id=3113

This is our first release after our merger with CLR Resources - the two teams have combined and focus on their respective strengths... I do sample prep and Quality Control, Charlie does ODF creation, photorealistic GUI design courtesy of Christoph Schmitz.

The sample set will be released as soon as MDA can get a revised master license package prepared and a serial number issued for the encryption process, (hopefully soon). There will be a 2-week introductory sale price once the set is released, and I will update this thread when that happens. I'll also be posting some demos on the site soon, and will update here when they are available.

Best to all,

An interesting instrument! So according to your website there will be a version of this sample set for Hauptwerk 4 after all? That would be good news too. You have been so adamant in defending the move to HW 5 that I had assumed you would not support anything to do with HW 4 in the future...

An interesting instrument! So according to your website there will be a version of this sample set for Hauptwerk 4 after all? That would be good news too. You have been so adamant in defending the move to HW 5 that I had assumed you would not support anything to do with HW 4 in the future...

I am adamant in defending V5, but that does not mean I don’t “support anything to do with v4...”

As far as most of our larger sets, yes, they will be only V5 - simply because we need to protect the intellectual property (and in many cases, are required to do so by our contracts). Our smaller new sets will possibly still be supported in v4 (we’re still actually deciding on this... but for now are leaning this way).

I understand many people’s difference of opinion about moving to V5, and respect it. However, the long-term benefits of V5 are still compelling to me - especially the speed at which I can issue activation codes to customers (with no intervention from MDA except the occasional purchase of batches of activation codes). The old HASP update procedure was complicated and often in recent months took far too long (I even was forced to refund a purchase because of it, and nearly had to do another). Then, there is the fact that HASP was cracked...

This is quite interesting to me. At the Soldier's Home in Washington D.C.,, I was organist on a ca. 1855 Stevens and Jewitt organ; builders also from Boston, and the specification is extremely similar, as is the look of the console. "My" organ had a neo-gothic appearance, however. The organ sounded more "baroque" than 19th C., as these builders were very old-fashioned in their pipe making approaches. The organ gave me many hours of pleasure.

Looking forward to the sound demos.

This is quite interesting to me. At the Soldier's Home in Washington D.C.,, I was organist on a ca. 1855 Stevens and Jewitt organ; builders also from Boston, and the specification is extremely similar, as is the look of the console. "My" organ had a neo-gothic appearance, however. The organ sounded more "baroque" than 19th C., as these builders were very old-fashioned in their pipe making approaches. The organ gave me many hours of pleasure.

Looking forward to the sound demos.

It’s a beautiful little instrument, and lovingly cared for.

First demo is here - http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/37737
the first time through it is the direct recording, then it is repeated with an impulse response taken from the back of the room. This set could conceivably be used as surround if a second pair of outputs were created for your rear speakers and the included impulse response is applied (the convolved sound is pretty much indistinguishable from the recordings taken in that spot)

It sounds wonderful! Is the temperament somewhat unequal? (I seem to remember that George Bozeman has an interest in temperaments). I wouldn’t be surprised if the original tuning was some kind of meantone in 1852.

David Enos

It sounds wonderful! Is the temperament somewhat unequal? (I seem to remember that George Bozeman has an interest in temperaments). I wouldn’t be surprised if the original tuning was some kind of meantone in 1852.

David Enos

It might have originally been, it isn’t now. Certainly it would be fine to experiment with temperaments and see!

The sample set will be released as soon as MDA can get a revised master license package prepared and a serial number issued for the encryption process, (hopefully soon)

Great. Waiting on them again
Steve

The sample set will be released as soon as MDA can get a revised master license package prepared and a serial number issued for the encryption process, (hopefully soon)

Great. Waiting on them again
Steve

Actually, Steve, we are not waiting on MDA now... and haven't been for almost a week. We had our info 2 days after posting this, so it wasn't long. I know there have been some glitches in things of late with MDA, but let's not blame them for something that isn't their fault....

We found a couple small bugs that needed fixing, and decided to do so. Then we'll make a final test in HW5 and HW 4.2 before encryption (and we'll need to do a test download/install and THEN we'll be ready)

It's Lent, and I'm a FT church musician with extra rehearsals and services, so blame me this time. <chuckle>

Just a quick update - we do have all the things we need to get this up and for sale, but my life has been complicated of late as we learn how to do online/virtual worship at church (and my “real” job is a FT church musician, so I’m in the thick of it!)

So, patience for a few more days, and we’ll have it done soon.

I'm very interested in having this, given the lack of early American samplesets, so please don't take these remarks as discouragement.

Yes, I'm buying it no matter what!

I don't think dry samplesets with the building's IR included is a sustainable model, compared to offering a surround version built from multiple mic positions. I'm happy to pay a lot more for surround.

With 50+ samplesets already, and only 8 mixer presets, using up a preset for each new dry + IR sampleset to fake ambient samples isn't going to work out very well, if this practice becomes a trend. I'll end up applying a common reverb I already have in a preset, like Freiberg or Izola, to this in order to conserve my presets.

I could expand to 32 presets using alt configs, but that's still not that many buildings if everyone took this approach in the future.

Not to mention that dry samples are sometimes recorded with the mics too close to the organ for my ears to tolerate. I can't tell from the demo recording whether that's true in this case.

Just my 2 cents. Please consider selling a surround upgrade if you have rear samples recorded.

Thank you.

With 50+ samplesets already, and only 8 mixer presets, using up a preset for each new dry + IR sampleset to fake ambient samples isn't going to work out very well, if this practice becomes a trend. I'll end up applying a common reverb I already have in a preset, like Freiberg or Izola, to this in order to conserve my presets.

For my own installation (now 48 installed Organs), I find that all of my Reverb needs can be met very simply.

Using only Headphones, I have only the default mixer preset. Carefully testing each Organ to determine the optimal Reverb setting, obviously certain of the Wet Samples do best without any added Reverb. For those sets requiring added Reverb, I have found that they fall into only three classes: Some do best with the first "Chapel" setting, some do best with the first "Church" setting, and a very few do best with the "Hall" setting.

To keep everything straight, I arrange for each Organ (of those needing added Reverb) to open with the pop-up Window for "Audio Mixer, Routing and Voicing/Panning Settings" open. If the window is located at the upper right, I know to activate the "Chapel" Reverb. If it is located at the lower right, I know to activate the "Church" Reverb. And if it is located in the middle right, I would use the "Hall" Reverb.

On that same pop-up Window, the Slider is appropriately set for each Sample Set, either at 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%, as already worked out by careful listening for each Organ.

Using this System, it is straight-forward to get each Sample Set playing with my preferred Reverb settings... and all of this without EVER TOUCHING any of the Mixer Presets.

I'm very interested in having this, given the lack of early American samplesets, so please don't take these remarks as discouragement.

Yes, I'm buying it no matter what!

I don't think dry samplesets with the building's IR included is a sustainable model, compared to offering a surround version built from multiple mic positions. I'm happy to pay a lot more for surround.

With 50+ samplesets already, and only 8 mixer presets, using up a preset for each new dry + IR sampleset to fake ambient samples isn't going to work out very well, if this practice becomes a trend. I'll end up applying a common reverb I already have in a preset, like Freiberg or Izola, to this in order to conserve my presets.

I could expand to 32 presets using alt configs, but that's still not that many buildings if everyone took this approach in the future.

Not to mention that dry samples are sometimes recorded with the mics too close to the organ for my ears to tolerate. I can't tell from the demo recording whether that's true in this case.

Just my 2 cents. Please consider selling a surround upgrade if you have rear samples recorded.

Thank you.

I appreciate your feedback, and generally I agree.

Honestly, the difference with the rear samples is so minor that it is not worth the extra work in this case... impulse response shows .75 ~ 1.25 sec. If you add to that fact the church is right near a major SoCal freeway, the further away you get from the pipes, the harder it gets to have a high enough signal-to-noise ratio to make denoising and sample prep viable.

The main reason for doing this set was to preserve and make available an historic American organ...

What we have found, is that unless the reverb is close to 2 sec, it’s not really worth the extra work to try and make a surround set... it’s not just twice the work, it’s more than that, since the further away you get, the more challenging it becomes to de-noise

That said, when it is feasible, we will still offer that option... and that will tend to be on the larger organs (which are in larger venues that typically have a more reverberant space).

Best to all,

Thank you for your thoughts on this. I do see your point that surround isn't worthwhile in these circumstances. And I am very happy to see even one complete American organ from before 1900. I hope you'll do more!

Are you able to share the distance of the direct mics to the pipes? Thank you.

(I may just dedicate a mixer preset to this IR as my "tiny church" option...)

Thank you for your thoughts on this. I do see your point that surround isn't worthwhile in these circumstances. And I am very happy to see even one complete American organ from before 1900. I hope you'll do more!

Are you able to share the distance of the direct mics to the pipes? Thank you.

(I may just dedicate a mixer preset to this IR as my "tiny church" option...)

You are very welcome.

I didn’t do these recordings, Charlie my business partner-in-crime did them, so I can’t give exact figures, but typically he records the close mic 6-10 feet back (I do it a bit further back usually 15 - 20 feet... a lot depends on what our ears tell us). I did all of the denoising, mixture tuning, and loop correction.

We do have other historic American organs planned... sandwiched in between our larger instruments. (A lot of recording sessions are understandably on hold right now....)

We hope to have this one ready to go shortly!