Antoni Scott wrote:Once an organ needs replacing or rebuilding, you find churches opting for electronic organs in many cases.
Perhaps some people think that sampling will accelerate the growth of electronic organs and the decline in real instruments. But if you don't have the money for pipes you don't have the money, and there are already plenty of companies out there building expensive electronic or hybrid instruments.
A counter argument could be make that a church that doesn't have physical space for a pipe organ could still benefit from a high quality VPO. A church with a good VPO is better than a church with no organ at all (or even worse, a "praise" band
)
I think there may be another possible reason. Perhaps some fear that by allowing replicas of the original, uneducated listeners could come away from a service or performance believing that the replica is an accurate representation of the original, no matter how good or horrible it may actually be. This in turn could tarnish the name and reputation of the original, particularly if the VPO's owner made it a point to advertise the sample set's origin instrument.
I don't necessarily agree with that either. But as jbittner said, no one on this forum would likely support a no-sampling decision. Likewise, those who are not in favor of sampling aren't likely to be on the forum either.