Wed Aug 28, 2019 2:37 pm
Thank you all in joining me (see my several earlier posts) in my great displeasure in what discipulus is doing here; I am greatly surprised that Jiri Zurek hasn't already stopped him. Many points I made before are being repeated now by you, and I am happy about this, because now I am no longer one of the few who have expressed displeasure about this before, but also in private to him. Alas, to no avail. The chorus of displeasure with this is growing. I hope that discipulus is humbly listening to this growing chorus. Please, Jason?
I was also approached by one sample set maker who surely wishes to remain anonymous expressing great displeasure and consternation about what's happening here, and that was many months ago already! Since then, so many new composite sets have been announced by Jason. Too many.
It is totally beyond me how anyone can possibly produce new "composite sample sets" about every two weeks. The above-referenced CC-set is indeed the work of a team of people, plus beta testers, laboring at it for a very long period. If they were to now suddenly come out with new composite sets about every month, nobody would take them seriously anymore.
Indeed, whatever Jason wants to do for his own enjoyment is of course totally fine and within his rights (as long as the sample set maker allows this kind of tinkering), but I agree that bringing this to the Hauptwerk community and even trying to make money from it, seems quite out of place and ultimately a disservice and a lowering of standards. I have gone as far as to possibly call it a form of plagiarism.
Dear Jason Baruk: Please listen to all of us here and keep your efforts just private.
I stand with those who feel that our HW community is not being served by what you are doing publicly. Personally I find the posted audio samples below of what can be and what is to be expected in 2019. We have come a long way since the beginning of HW, and I have been here since the very early days. One of my first sets was the one-manual Silbermann by Brett Milan and the Italian and castle organ by OAM. Indeed, we have come a long way since then.
If you listen to recent sample sets, which I have, such as e.g. the Furtwangler by Pipeloops, the Annaberg Walcker by OAM, and the Van Deventer organ of Nijkerk by Voxus, you might discover what I am talking about. All very high quality sets. Add to that the recently updated organs published by Inspired Acoustics, the sets by Lavender, etc. I am sure I am overlooking some here.
Sample set makers have beta testers, who play/test all kinds of music on the to-be-released new sample sets, and give feedback for improvements. That is a very good way to ensure high quality.
Do you have beta testers? If you had, you would have quickly discovered from the feedback that to perfect even a composite set, will be one heck of a gigantic job. We appreciate your enthusiasm, but you are going about it the wrong way. And this is why the chorus against what you are doing is growing.
Why not try to sample at high quality an actual organ yourself to find out what's truly involved? And get beta testers?
Mixing baroque organs with romantic ones, mixing samples with different reverbs, voicings, tunings, etc., all means having to water down the sound qualities in order to arrive at a lower or possibly lowest common denominator composite set. It may sound OK to you, but not to us.
I am an organist and an organ expert (my Ph. D is in organology), and your approach just does not strike me as kosher whatsoever. OK for private use, no problem, but not fit for public consumption. If you had beta testers, you would find out what you would have to do to make a really good set. And you might just want to quit at that point. It's that hard.
So, pretty please, Jason, just please listen to us and keep your efforts wonderfully private?
We greatly thank you in advance.
Peace,
Adri