adri wrote:this is what I wrote on the Dutch forum:
Het spijt me erg maar dit anders erg leuke orgel is met een HW1 niveau aangepakt, en dusdoende klinken snelle akkoorden en snel gespeelde noten behoorlijk belabberd.
Is het professioneel zo'n orgeltje vervolgens uit te breiden tot c4 en zelfs tot 2-klaviers?
Ze zeggen dat je een giftpaard niet in de mond mag kijken, maar toch.... kan het echt niet beter met een beetje meer inspanning? Met multiple opnames en releases? Anders raken zulke gratis sets toch wel heel gauw in de vergetelheid, omdat de lol er heel snel van af is omdat het muzikaal toch niet bevredigd.
Dit klinkt wellicht wel erg hard en kritisch, maar ik ben bang dat het merendeel van de Hauptwerkians er ook zo over denken, maar uit beleefdheid niets zeggen.
My critique is meant, hopefully, as a way to encourage new sample set makers, new on the scene, to try their best to go beyond HW1 technology. I do not know how many folks here still play HW1 organs, but it surely must be a minority by now. Should new sample set makers target this minority?
Yes, it's free and one should not look a gifted horse in the mouth, but this saying also makes no real sense in case the horse is sick, or in any other way is just not quite a perfect animal. These old sayings are somewhat silly. I know what they mean, and that's all good and well, but I'm not sure how effective this gift is at this point in time.
I truly appreciate the effort, but I would love to see a beautiful cabinet organ sampled with the latest up-to-date approach.
I really want to encourage in that direction!
Hope this helps.
If I am totally wrong, I'll be the first one to admit it!
Making a sample set like this is a lot of work. The choice to make this sampleset available free of charge was made to give as many organ lovers as possible the opportunity to get acquainted with this organ and to enjoy musical pleasure. For me the fact that it is free is no reason for concessions to the quality.
Rather than saying "You're not supposed to look the gift horse in the mouth", my motto is therefore:
"Are you satisfied, tell it others, do you have complaints please tell us". We have already experienced that the first is happening. In a few weeks we have already had more than 90 applications.
As far as Adri's complaint is concerned: Quick pieces by Bach played in tempi as we know them from Marie Clair Alain (that is not slow, is it?) sound good to me. If playing fast chords and fast-played notes at Adri sounds “belabberd" (lousy) their must be something that is not right. I hereby kindly invite Adri to send me audio as well as corresponding midi recordings of his fast organ playing with this sample set. We can then see if we can reproduce his problem and perhaps find what it is.
The remark that the organ would have been addressed with an HW1 level is not correct.
HW1 was (as far as I remember): 16 bit, no real stereo but "panned" mono, single loops, 44.1kHz.
The sample set discussed here is 24bit, stereo, multi-loops per sample. Recorded and finished on 96kHZ, published on 48kHz. In addition, we anticipated the use of the VST link for audio reproduction in virtual spaces which was not possible with HW1 but is possible with HW4.
I would like to give you some explanation on the choices I have made in creating this sample set.
The cabinet organ is an instrument that is meant as a house organ. It does not form a unity with the church. It can be used on different places in the church and than produces a different spatial effect. I I opted for a recording with mono-point stereo technology at a short distance from the instrument, (just so that the sound of the entire organ could be recorded from this single point) and with little influence from the church.
Incidentally, I also experimented with the microphone at a larger distance and with a different placement of the organ, but I opted for the above approach because in my opinion it produced the best result.
The recording is dry enough that applying multiple samples per pipe would have no added value, nor does the use of multiple attacks. A fast attack is anyhow needed with this organ, even if you play slow parts, because of the “Spuck”. All the attacks were carefully edited for fast and synchronous response.
There is indeed some reverb-tail at the release. I left that intact. I understand from organists who have a real pipe organ in their house that they often feel a need for a little artificial reverberation. Usually we do not have the acoustics at our present homes as in the "Houses" where such an organ as this Onderhorst organ would have used to be (at least not in the Netherlands, the USA might be different).
If you want to play very fast and especially “staccato” that (short) reverb-tail might be considered as being a bit long. Nevertheless, multiple releases have not been chosen. Starting from the organ as an instrument we have other options nowadays. If you want to play a staccato effect in a virtual space (ie not actually playing the organ but the church) I consider it a better option to abstain from the use of the reverberation of the sample set * and instead to opt for a good acoustics simulator.
HW4 offers a range of possibilities via the VST link. For example: "Cantabile" as Vst host, with plugins such as ReverberateLE (free) up to Altiverb7 (not free).
Minimizing the reverb tail is anyhow to recommend if you want to use the virtual organ with real instruments or together with singing voices. After all, they also have to do with the natural reverberation of the space in which you play.
And, oh yes, I have not (yet) implemented the wind model, but that is not a HW4 vs HW1 issue but a HW4 advanced vs. HW4 basic and free.
* You can limit or minimize the echo tail yourself via the menu: "Load organ, adjusting rank, audiomemory etc." and then, when loading, set the "Release sample truncation" to the minimum value (or to the value you want). Note that you first select all the ranks to which you want to apply this.