PAB Medium, out-of-the-box cathedral acoustics

Dear All,

According to the polls at the IA Knowledge Base many of us would prefer cathedral acoustics as an option to concert hall acoustics - so now it’s here!

The PAB Medium Edition is ready and is available now as a download, with selectable CSA cathedral acoustics, out-of-the-box.

Most important features:

1) The PAB Medium Edition is a 3-manual version of the PAB organ with 45 stops, 2 swellboxes and 2 tremulants. These 45 stops were selected according to the opinion of multiple professional organists.

2) PAB Medium Edition ships with two ODF files. One loading the original concert hall acoustics and the other that loads the organ with CSA cathedral acoustics. No additional equipment or software is needed, the cathedral acoustics comes out-of-the-box. CSA is a feature of the Extended Edition of PAB, but was made available to the Medium Edition to allow immediate use. CSA acoustics shipping with PAB is based on multiple measurements at a real cathedral match-processed to PAB’s semi-dry recording. The reverb provided is of 6 seconds in length and 3 independent release layers for each sample are available.

This is a first preliminary, non-musical live play with the PAB Medium Edition with the out-of-the-box CSA cathedral acoustics:

http://www.inspiredacoustics.com/temp/temp_audition.mp3

Real performances will be posted soon.

This is how the interface looks like:

http://www.acoustics.hu/index.php/Image:PAB_Interface_Ch.jpg

3) Loading requirements for the Medium Edition:
- Concert Hall Acoustics: 6.60 GB of RAM: losless mem compression, all loops, all layers, 16 bit.
- CSA Cathedral Acoustics: 6.87 GB of RAM: losless mem compression, first loops, all layers, 16 bit.

4) The size of the Medium Edition is 32 GB, so it can be downloaded in about a day (depending on FTP client software and connection speed). First 6 packages installs the concert hall acoustics, the second 6 package adds cathedral acoustics to the collection.

5) The Medium Edition is priced at $399. As manufacturing allows it will be available later at $499 in a physical box as well.

All smaller editions are upgradeable to the Medium Edition and the Extended Edition is coming soon with CSA acoustics and with even more features.

Stops in PAB Medium Edition (click the Editions tab and scroll down) -

http://www.inspiredacoustics.com/products_details.php?idtermekek=8

What is CSA acoustics? -
http://www.acoustics.hu/index.php/Coupled_Space_Acoustics

I would be honored to hear your opinion!

Just listened to the demo - the organ sounds much better with a wetter acoustic.

Will there not be different graphics for the medium edition? It seems a shame to waste all the screen space showing additional stops/manuals that aren't available (and will make its use much less intuitive).

I would also second the request made elsewhere (can't remember who by) for a 32' pedal stop in the medium edition.

Hi Csaba, the added acoustics sound great. Hopefully this will make the set more accessible to the masses.

[micdev]

Csaba,

Two organs for the price of one in a way... the semi-dry, perfect for study and practice, and a cathedral acoustic one for the show!

Friday I held a demo at my place and the PAB was a big it; we tested it with different IRs; now with the choice of "out of the box reverb" or "semi-dry", this set will appeal to even more people.

Nice work

Hi Csaba, the added acoustics sound great. Hopefully this will make the set more accessible to the masses.

Should I object to being called "the masses" ???
mud fight, mud fight :-)

Seriously - a very interesting and welcome addition. The reverb on the demo is still just a little bit metallic - but this is often due to the mp3 compression. I look forward to hearing more demos. I must admit that I find the ideal length around 4.5 sec rather than 6s, but it sounds dry enough to still articulate well. Perhaps you would consider extending this acoustic to the trial edition too??

I would also add a vote for a pedal 32'

Czaba,

this sound is really amazing. But I've read, that the Pro Edition - which I've bought a few day ago - will not be fitted up with this feature, is this correct? :cry: Will there be an update ProEdition to ExtEdition and how much will this be?

Would there be any way of reducing the download size (by compression of other means) without compromising the protection of the sample set? If encrypted samples result in such huge downloads because they can't be compressed, perhaps it would be an idea to think of alternate strategies. 32GB is a pretty hefty download! I wouldn't want BT throttling my broadband (again!). Perhaps the installer could be encrypted and the samples encrypted on installation?

Should I object to being called "the masses" ???
mud fight, mud fight :-)

Haha, seriously though, I did not mean that as a condescending remark. Whenever people ask me about PAB, I tell them that it's a great set, but not quite as instant gratification as a smaller wet set. The installation takes a while, the download is hefty (but at least it's available), the system requirements are relatively high, and the audio setup is considerably more involved if you are adding software reverb. These factors are, of course, to be expected from a set like PAB; however, it does take away from the instant gratification of the sets that you can be up and running with in an hour or less.

[mdyde]

Hello Chris,

Would there be any way of reducing the download size (by compression of other means) without compromising the protection of the sample set? If encrypted samples result in such huge downloads because they can't be compressed, perhaps it would be an idea to think of alternate strategies. 32GB is a pretty hefty download

Yes - a native mechanism built into Hauptwerk to compress sample set downloads/packages that would work efficiently for both encrypted and non-encrypted sample sets is already logged as an enhancement for the future.

[micdev]

Chris, if you intend to download some large files, make sure to use a good FTP client software. FileZilla works great; I downloaded the 35 Gb for the PAB-Pro in one day without any problem.

I think that the possibility to download samplesets is a big plus and sampleset producers should offer this option for all their samplesets... almost instant gratification.... of course you need a Hi-speed internet connection!

[The reverb on the demo is still just a little bit metallic - but this is often due to the mp3 compression. I

I agree with the "metallic" assessment, with something of a "digital reverb"-ish character. Maybe it's due to MP3 compression(?). Perhaps someone could make available some samples in uncompressed 24-bit format with these added reverbs for a better take on it.

Hi: It would really be great (if it is possible) to offer a patch which would add the accoustic choice for those of us who bought the Pro version already. Thanks. Ed

Hi! Thank you for your comments, yes the Pro Edition will be upgradable to the Extended featuring the acoustics and more interesting features. We plan it as a patch to the Pro but also as a separate download (Pro packages + upgrade packages). Some little image files are already there in the Pro Edition for providing an easier upgrade to the extended functionality. We will try our best to make it happen soon, but it requires some time since it seems that it is quite large (about an additional 30 GB) and a bit complex.

Edit: one more thing I forgot to mention: the reverberation time itself is 4.57 seconds (wideband average of both channels of T20 and T30), so it is quite the same as you mentioned above, but the sample is 6 seconds of length so that the decay can continue at quieter levels beyond the definition of reverberation time.

Well the added reverb is alright, but sounds rather artificial (like lexicon units). I would prefer this dry with convolved reverb much better.

It's a convolved reverb measured at a real cathedral and transformed to match the dry sound, so it has no connection to digital reverbs like lexicon in the terms of how they work / reverberate.

What I experienced earlier is that many of us may call a reverb artificial when the recording sounds different of what we are used to in terms of noise: namely if the recording has a lower noise level than what we are used to in real life or if the listening conditions are different, sometimes we may say it is artificial. However odd it is, if you add a considerable amount of hiss / background noise to the recoding it will sound more like a real-life recording, with all of its noise-drawbacks naturally. But you cannot convolve a recording with a noisy impulse response to produce the same results, so a well prepared impulse should be made. Later on, you can add any type of noise that you wish.