First of all, a little about me.... 30 years ago I took organ lessons (2 years) with one of the best teachers/players in Canada; before my lessons I was playing organ by "ear" (had 6 months of piano lessons only a few years before). Then I went to college, began to work, family... basically didn't touch the organ for years. 5 years ago I bought a Rodgers 340, pratice some of my "theatre style favorites" then took some of my classical organ books and got hook once again to classical... discovered Hauptwerk 15 months ago... and began to take some organ lessons for the last six months. My level of playing... very amateur! Bach's 8 Little Prelude and Fugue, Widor 6th Symphony (first 2 pages... after hourssss of pratice), various easy organ pieces.
I only had the chance to play a few pipe organs (Casavant: 75, 92 ranks, on 10 ranks trakker for my lessons back then), one theatre organ (Wurlitzer) and a lot of electronic organs... That's it
Why this introduction... so you understand how "Amateur" I'm (I know that this description applies to some of you..), very far from being a pro... so here are my comments about the PAB sampleset.
Last week I downloaded the trial version; the comments (mainly before the release) and threads about this sampleset and it price left me "luke warm", but with the availabity of a free trial, I decided it to give it a try. For a little 13-15 stops organ, I was impress by the sound, quality of the trial version, so much that I bought it! The "soon" to be release Medium edition was perfect for my budget but finally went all the way to the Pro version.. hey you only live once!
Saturday I began the 35 Gb download... clicking on the links provided by Csaba, using Internet Explorer instead of a robust Ftp client as recommanded by Csaba. The next day... horror... all the files were only partially downloaded (some 500 mb to 1 gb of data missing)... so back to square one. Began the download once again sunday with FileZilla (took almost 12 hours), but it worked flawlessly!
Last night I installed the organ: 9 files (3-4 gb each) + 2 update files. Then the "clicking festival" began.
I have an XP64 machine with 8 Gb, so I must carefully select how I load the stops to make sure it fits into memory; thanks to the guidance of Rob (telemanr), I knew what to do:
------------------------------------------------------
All stops
No change necessary because it is the HW default
Memory compression mode: Lossless memory compression
Multiple attack/sustain sample handling mode: Load all available samples
Release sample truncation: Normal (full release samples)
Change necessary for all stops
Multiple sample loop handling mode: Load only loop which ends first (less realism, less memory) NOT the default
NOT All stops
* Maximum memory sample resolution: SEE BELOW
* Multiple release sample handling mode: SEE BELOW
14bit memory for the following stops (by stop number)
1-2
7
10-17
21
128-129
150-152
Extra Sounds
Multiple release sample handling : Load only default sample (less realism, less memory)
1-21
35-38
40-60
66-76
90-91
95-104
109, 120
122-129
152
------------------------------------------------------------
So I clicked, and clicked and clicked to adjust the loading options for each and every stops... following Rob's "recipe"; I did changed a few things from his recipe; truncated each ranks @250msec (since I use it with convolution reverb) and loaded some of the pedals and 16' ranks in mono.... OUF, after all that clicking I finally clicked LOAD and went to diner... when I came back, I was expecting the worst (error message, crash...), but no, here it was, the console waiting for me to try it.
I pressed a few tabs to make sure everything was working and it was. I immediatly configured my crescendo pedal.
I move a little bit the pedal, hold a chord and hear some sound, but barely... it is so subtle, distant, I go to Organ Setting | General Ouput and increase the value; ah, now I can hear a lot better, I push a little bit the crescendo pedal... oohh nice (and I'm only at 20), a little more, ohoh... 32' pedals, reeds.. a little more... the room starts to vibrate... let's go all the way.... Woohoo... room is now "shaking", my heart starts to race, I'm surrounded by sound, feel the sound, see the lights of the console all on... then I ease back on the pedal until only a few stops remains engaged... Woho... excuse the expression, I don't want to offend anyone but I think I had my first "musical orgasm"
I now understand "anonymus" what he meant when he wrote on contrebombarbe.com
The dynamics range is impressive, we will now need some "audio compression algorythm within Hauptwerk". There are so many stops and couplers for "newbie" like me that I'm overwhelm by the choices.
Unfortunatly I was only able to play it for about an hour, but I'm truly impress; pros and purists will certainly find something wrong about it, discussing how such and such stop sound to harsch, to electronic etc etc, but for the rest of us, it is quite an instrument!
The Medium Edition at less than $400 for 45 stops will be a great all in one instrument for anyone buying Hauptwerk, then later on you can always upgrade to the Pro version.
Soon, 2 professional organists and an organ builder will come to my place; I'm looking forward to their comments... but for me, after spending only one hour with this sampleset I know that I will have hours of fun, exploring, experimenting and playing with it.
The IR I used with it was moderate (3-4 sec.), I'm looking forward to try it with a long IR (cathedral like), it will be spectacular I think
Is it like the Metz? Not at all... it is a completely different beast; I love the Metz, and this set remains a "standard", but it will now share my playing time with the PAB for sure.
For all of us, amateur, looking for a flexible, very well built instrument, I think that you can't go wrong with the PAB, no matter which version you buy. (Go for the Medium at least... and Csaba, please add a 32' rank to the Medium Ed).
Now, for the "pro" who own the PAB, can you share your combinaisons with me... I'm sure there are incredible sounds to get out of this complex instrument but don't know where to start.
Hope that this "amateur" first impression review will be useful to some of you; don't hesitate to download the Trial version... but don't forget, with the trial version you only have 13 ranks.... let's call it " a teaser" :-)
Regards
François
I only had the chance to play a few pipe organs (Casavant: 75, 92 ranks, on 10 ranks trakker for my lessons back then), one theatre organ (Wurlitzer) and a lot of electronic organs... That's it
Why this introduction... so you understand how "Amateur" I'm (I know that this description applies to some of you..), very far from being a pro... so here are my comments about the PAB sampleset.
Last week I downloaded the trial version; the comments (mainly before the release) and threads about this sampleset and it price left me "luke warm", but with the availabity of a free trial, I decided it to give it a try. For a little 13-15 stops organ, I was impress by the sound, quality of the trial version, so much that I bought it! The "soon" to be release Medium edition was perfect for my budget but finally went all the way to the Pro version.. hey you only live once!
Saturday I began the 35 Gb download... clicking on the links provided by Csaba, using Internet Explorer instead of a robust Ftp client as recommanded by Csaba. The next day... horror... all the files were only partially downloaded (some 500 mb to 1 gb of data missing)... so back to square one. Began the download once again sunday with FileZilla (took almost 12 hours), but it worked flawlessly!
Last night I installed the organ: 9 files (3-4 gb each) + 2 update files. Then the "clicking festival" began.
I have an XP64 machine with 8 Gb, so I must carefully select how I load the stops to make sure it fits into memory; thanks to the guidance of Rob (telemanr), I knew what to do:
------------------------------------------------------
All stops
No change necessary because it is the HW default
Memory compression mode: Lossless memory compression
Multiple attack/sustain sample handling mode: Load all available samples
Release sample truncation: Normal (full release samples)
Change necessary for all stops
Multiple sample loop handling mode: Load only loop which ends first (less realism, less memory) NOT the default
NOT All stops
* Maximum memory sample resolution: SEE BELOW
* Multiple release sample handling mode: SEE BELOW
14bit memory for the following stops (by stop number)
1-2
7
10-17
21
128-129
150-152
Extra Sounds
Multiple release sample handling : Load only default sample (less realism, less memory)
1-21
35-38
40-60
66-76
90-91
95-104
109, 120
122-129
152
------------------------------------------------------------
So I clicked, and clicked and clicked to adjust the loading options for each and every stops... following Rob's "recipe"; I did changed a few things from his recipe; truncated each ranks @250msec (since I use it with convolution reverb) and loaded some of the pedals and 16' ranks in mono.... OUF, after all that clicking I finally clicked LOAD and went to diner... when I came back, I was expecting the worst (error message, crash...), but no, here it was, the console waiting for me to try it.
I pressed a few tabs to make sure everything was working and it was. I immediatly configured my crescendo pedal.
I move a little bit the pedal, hold a chord and hear some sound, but barely... it is so subtle, distant, I go to Organ Setting | General Ouput and increase the value; ah, now I can hear a lot better, I push a little bit the crescendo pedal... oohh nice (and I'm only at 20), a little more, ohoh... 32' pedals, reeds.. a little more... the room starts to vibrate... let's go all the way.... Woohoo... room is now "shaking", my heart starts to race, I'm surrounded by sound, feel the sound, see the lights of the console all on... then I ease back on the pedal until only a few stops remains engaged... Woho... excuse the expression, I don't want to offend anyone but I think I had my first "musical orgasm"
I now understand "anonymus" what he meant when he wrote on contrebombarbe.com
WARNING: this recording is very demanding on the speakers, beware of the level (my Genelec monitors did complain a lot... huge dynamics and complex waveforms, I gess).
The dynamics range is impressive, we will now need some "audio compression algorythm within Hauptwerk". There are so many stops and couplers for "newbie" like me that I'm overwhelm by the choices.
Unfortunatly I was only able to play it for about an hour, but I'm truly impress; pros and purists will certainly find something wrong about it, discussing how such and such stop sound to harsch, to electronic etc etc, but for the rest of us, it is quite an instrument!
The Medium Edition at less than $400 for 45 stops will be a great all in one instrument for anyone buying Hauptwerk, then later on you can always upgrade to the Pro version.
Soon, 2 professional organists and an organ builder will come to my place; I'm looking forward to their comments... but for me, after spending only one hour with this sampleset I know that I will have hours of fun, exploring, experimenting and playing with it.
The IR I used with it was moderate (3-4 sec.), I'm looking forward to try it with a long IR (cathedral like), it will be spectacular I think
Is it like the Metz? Not at all... it is a completely different beast; I love the Metz, and this set remains a "standard", but it will now share my playing time with the PAB for sure.
For all of us, amateur, looking for a flexible, very well built instrument, I think that you can't go wrong with the PAB, no matter which version you buy. (Go for the Medium at least... and Csaba, please add a 32' rank to the Medium Ed).
Now, for the "pro" who own the PAB, can you share your combinaisons with me... I'm sure there are incredible sounds to get out of this complex instrument but don't know where to start.
Hope that this "amateur" first impression review will be useful to some of you; don't hesitate to download the Trial version... but don't forget, with the trial version you only have 13 ranks.... let's call it " a teaser" :-)
Regards
François