Zwolle v. Kampen

I think it is a great opportunity being able to choose between so many versions, especially between a direct and diffuse wet version. I really appreciate these innovations.

Yet, indeed, given a limited budget and complaining wives about 'again a sampleset', it increases the choice problem. Without asking for a full 'try before you buy' it would be much more easy to choose if one could test a very limited subset of the sampleset in all available versions, for example one or two octaves of a Prestant or Flute 8 and a reed.

At least, I am afraid I have to face the choice between four of them somewhere in the future (one I have got 'sampleset budget' again), since this Silbermann promises to be very interesting.

My main question is, what type of reverb does the church have (how long)?

The church of the Freiberg-Petrikirche has a reverb up to 4 seconds - what is in fact rather unusual for G. Silbermann organs, as the rest of the extant instruments are usually in much drier acoustics.

as the rest of the extant instruments are usually in much drier acoustics.

That is just why I asked, and I am very much interested in the sample set.

Hello all,

After several months of using Zwolle, I got my copy of Kampen a few weeks ago.
I was wondering how this organ would perform compared to Zwolle and for example Cappel.
At this moment I want to state that in my opinion Kampen is definitely a great and attractive sample set (i.m.o. much more than Cappel).
Zwolle is great too (but less wet than Kampen)

The quality of sound of both sample sets is the same. Higher harmonics are still present, giving a transparent en clear sound, even with the 8 foot stops.

They are different in 'wetness' but both very attractive!\

I'm looking forward to Volume 2 (when???)

One major advantage of the Zwolle set for me is that the Kampen set is getting more expensive by the day due to this flight to the 'safe haven' of the dollar. Zwolle is still the same price in GBP, but if the pound keeps falling like this it'll be cheaper to buy the Netherlands itself rather than the Kampen virtual organ. Unlucky for non-US buyers who are likely to have to pay rather more for the last two thirds of the organ than the first third.

Nine months on, I got round to making my decision; I've gone for the Zwolle wet set, with the hope of upgrading to surround in due course. For me, the primary deciding factor was cost. I qualified for one of the Sonus Paradisi discounts so the cost was just over €400 (EUR) whereas I imagine the Bovenkerk organ could cost $1300 (USD) by the time the third volume comes out. Is it worth twice the price? Of course MDA still benefited from my purchase because I had to upgrade to HW3.22 Advanced edition to get sufficient polyphony.

So far I'm greatly enjoying the Zwolle set. Anton said it is less wet than Kampen, yet to me it seems to have huge reverb, but that's probably because I've been using the MDA Cappel set for the last two years (and I'll still be using that for practice). I see that I'm going to need to upgrade my hardware:

- I can load the extended organ into about 14.9GB with 24bit for all stops and uncompressed for most stops. If I upgrade to surround then I will need another 16GB to use it at the same level.
- I get break up if I set the polyphony above 3500. I have one dual core processor at the moment, so if I go for the surround version I plan to get two quad core processors as I read on a thread about the Caen surround that eight cores are what's need to make that work well.

I'd gladly recommend the set, but just be sure your hardware is up to the job.

It must be a difficult decision for our Hauptwerk organ samplers to take (microphone position) when recording any organ. The Kampen organ certainly captures the ambience of the large church but maybe at the cost of organist closeness to the console. I was fortunate in having the honor of playing the Kampen organ ( the real one) and must say that the pipes are high above the console so it is not a "feel close" feeling like some other organs I have played ( i.e. the Hinz at Bolsward) .

As for which organ is preferable. This is a difficult position as if one were to choose between two colors. I think the question should be how well were each organ faithfully reproduced. This is also a difficult decision, since microphone placement determines the organists experience at the console. If the microphone were placed closer to the pipes, it would compromise the ambience of the room, if far away it would compromise the closeness of the pipes. I will say that the option for Surround is a step in the right direction since the "up-front" vs. "farther away" effect can be balanced to suit the organists preference.My personal preference is a little closer to the pipes, but I know others that prefer farther away.

All criticisms aside, I keep in mind the fact that I have at my disposal a huge variety of organs to choose from. I am not stuck with a commercial organ of relatively fixed specification. Some commercial organs offers four "tunings" which in my opinion are hardly different enough to be of any interest, but are still fixed around the same number of stops. Also, I know of no other option in which I can play a Wurlitzer one minute and then a Cavaille-Coll the next !!!!!

Antoni