Silver Octopus Romantic Series released.

[Charles Braund]

I am very pleased to announce the release of 7 new libraries from the Silver Octopus Romantic Series. these are the 64, 48, 36, 32, 30,25 and 20 stop libraries. The larger 80 stop four manual should be out in a couple of weeks and the 100 stop hopefully, by the end of the month. Anyone purchasing one of the smaller libraries can upgrade for the difference in price between the larger library plus £10 for administration.

All of the Romantic Series libraries consist of samples taken from several Father Willis organs together with several appropriate stops from other sources.

The 64 stop will happily load in under 8 Gb of memory at 24bit

I hope to get some more demos up in the next week but for the moment here's the first from the 64 stop together with details of the specification.

Cook Fanfare http://www.silveroctopus.co.uk/prod02.htm

[eajohnson]

Wow, very nice! Love those reeds.....

[NeilCraig]

Over 200 reads and one comment? I concur with the other poster - the reeds in particular are absolutely superb! I assume the lack of photo-realistic 3D-rendered graphics accounts for the almost complete lack of interest?

In the Cook there are many shades which remind me of Liverpool Anglican and the final phrase with the box opening had the hairs on my neck standing up. A cliche, I know, but this is what I always hoped you'd achieve. The choruses in the quieter parts sound very well balanced and the only real (slight) criticism that could be levelled at it is that the Tuba was a bit overwhelmed by full organ and the 32' reed was (true to Father Willis form) a little reticent, both of which are easily addressed with the voicing tools.

Charles, do you have a rough idea what the RAM requirement will be for the 100-stop in 16-bit? I built a Core I7 machine with 6GB just before Christmas which is at present mostly used for Propellerhead Reason and Pianoteq, neither of which requires huge amounts of RAM. Fitting in under 12GB at 16-bit would be, err, useful!

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, and I'll do my very best to support your efforts in Gloucester next month.

Best//Neil

[Gert]

Hi Charles,
Congratulations!
Could you give more specific RAM requirements for the 64, 48, 36, 32, 30,25 and 20 (dry) stop libraries?
This is a very important characteristic for potential customers.
Thanks,
Gert

[eajohnson]

I also think that the option to put together a custom specification is a big plus. I've ordered one of the smaller sets to evaluate, and then will probably look in to putting together something that fits the stop labels already on my console. That is a very nice feature of this sample series!

[Lougheed]

I hope to get some more demos up in the next week but for the moment here's the first from the 64 stop together with details of the specification.

Cook Fanfare http://www.silveroctopus.co.uk/prod02.htm

Thanks, Charles.

I would appreciate the Cook Fanfare (and any other demos) DRY as well as WET, for testing with my Rodgers RSS ambience.

Lawrence

[Charles Braund]

As I said above, I'm hoping to have quite a few demos - both wet and dry out in the near future but it's also finding the time to do so as well as finishing off the 80 and 100 stop instruments. I am somewhat out of practice and am having to relearn pieces as I do them. I haven't played the Cook Fanfare for some years for instance and although it's not a difficult piece, it still required several hours practice before I could play it properly. I did play the Elves on Spanish TV 18 months ago so that was not too bad. However, some of the pieces for demos that I have planned are really difficult and will require lots of practice before I can produce a performance of any sort. My MIDI files are not just stepped in to a sequencer and in order to get the correct feel and phrasing have to be played at the right speed. It would be so much easier to either step them in or play them slowly before speeding them up but they then sound just like that.

Some of the demos that are planned are really quite unknown to the general populace and certainly to my knowledge, have never been performed on HW - there aren't even commercial recordings available of them. However, they are either very lovely pieces or are so infernally difficult that they are rarely if ever played though they are stunning. One such piece requires double pedals at opposing ends of the pedalboard together with large manual parts which usually results in the player falling off the bench or rupturing themselves. It is however, a magnificent piece.

I have yet to produce accurate figures on the RAM requirements throughout the series but I will do so ASAP. Suffice it to say that I only run 4Gb on my machine in HW 32bit since it isn't happy in 64 bit mode. However, I cannot run the 48 at 24 bit with the new mixtures obviously, the 64 will only work in 16 bit. on my particular system. The lower sized libraries will run on very much less and the 20 will most likely work with about 1 Gb - 1.5 Gb depending on bit resolution. I know that the 64 stop will happily run in 24 bit well within 8Gb because Graham H has run it on his 8 Gb system. As soon as I can obtain them, I'll post accurate figures.

As regards the 80 stop the 2 double string ranks on the Solo are going to take up quite a bit of memory since some of the samples are 10 seconds or more long. The 100 stop will have one or two ranks duplexed into the pedal such as the Great 32' which will reduce requirements slightly. However, since neither the 80 or 100 are yet finalised I cannot even make a guess. However, the live concert in June on the 80 will give me more idea about memory requirements.

As regards the 100, the provisional spec. is just that at the moment and is more likely to come out as a 4 manual and pedal with 20 stops per division which then leaves things open for a 125 stop with 25 stops approx per division. It all depends on what I still have available that can be used without changing the overall character of the basic organ.

[Charles Braund]

I would appreciate the Cook Fanfare (and any other demos) DRY as well as WET, for testing with my Rodgers RSS ambience.

As per the request, a dry file of the Cook is now on both the News page and the original Product 2 page.

Just as a point of interest, The Cook Fanfare does not use the Octave or Sub-octave couplers on any division at any point and the 16' and 4' reeds on the Great aren't used either. So, this instrument has a fair bit more "oomph" to show as yet in future demos.

Some figures for the RAM are as follows:

Romantic 20 16 bit: 0.874 Gb
Romantic 20 24 bit 1.529 Gb

Romantic 48: 16 bit: 2.244 Gb

Romantic 64 16 bit: 2.999 Gb

[cknight]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

Wow, very nice! Love those reeds.....

All true. I've posted my review of Charles' latest offerings in a new thread.

[Lougheed]

[ I've posted my review of Charles' latest offerings in a new thread.

Clinton -

I've read your comments, with interest, but wonder why you started a new thread?

Lawrence

[cknight]

why you started a new thread?

Hi, Lawrence. I guess I just wanted an attention-grabbing title for those not following this thread.

[NeilCraig]

Charles,

Looking at the specifications on your website, the (provisional) 100-stop spec doesn't seem to include the string division of the 80-stop. If a customer upgrades from the 80-stop to the 100-stop, will a definition file be made available to give a composite of the two organs or do you plan a 100+ stop spec in the future? It would be good to have the Positiv section, but not at the expense of the strings!

Best//Neil

[Charles Braund]

Neil,

The 100 stop has not been updated and will not be finalised until the 80 is released. The 100 is now likely to be a 4 manual with 20 stops per division plus some percussions and a couple of other "fancies" such as a Pajarro - (Spanish influence there as opposed to theatre).

This will probably culminate in a 4 manual 125 stop with 25 stops per division. Both the 80 and 100 stop instruments etc. will have the string section and the extra stops in each library will be additional rather than alternative. Thus anyone who has the 100 will also have the 80 etc.. So the only upgrade path needed will be the difference in price between the libraries plus the handling of £10.

The string section although definitely not found in any Willis will still consist of much Father Willis pipework and has been / will be developed as a result of requests from the USA for such a facility (as are the percussions). It won't quite be Wanamaker but it will certainly be impressive I hope.

Charles

[smfrank]

Has anyone been able to compare this series to the Salisbury Willis set?
Steve

[bcollins]

To me it would seem near impossible to compare a very wet set to a very dry set.