Utrecht sample set released

Dear Hauptwerkians,
I take the opportunity to inform you that Utrecht – Dom sample set was just released. This sample set features the 1831 organ of the brothers Bätz. The organ is widely acclaimed for its mild tone and its expressive tremulants which make the instrument really suitable for the romantic style of compositions, especially the Dutch romantic (and post-romantic) music. As I was told, even the great Cavaillé-Coll expressed his admiration for the instrument when he visited Utrecht in 1844.
This time, recording the tremmed ranks was indispensable to preserve the special character of the instrument. Most of the ranks of the Ist and IIIrd manuals are, therefore, included also with the recorded tremmed samples.
The church building is really generous in space. And still, the cathedral is only a fragment of its original size. The great nave was destroyed in past, so only the Choir plus the Transept remains. The ogan is positioned in the back wall of the Transept in the centre. Perhaps because of this position, the sound is rather diffused. This sample set is therefore really very "wet", unlike other sample sets from the Sonus Paradisi collection.
The presentation of the instrument can be reached through our web pages and the orders can be made there as well:
http://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/organs/d ... model.html

Please note that the sample set is ready for download immediately. However, if shippment of the physical installation media is required, there will be a dealy of 5 bussiness days since the installation media are still being in preparation.

Yours,
Jiri Zurek

Great news! I feel strongly "tempted" to buy it, but I have to watch my budget...
Given that it includes tremmed samples (!!) it should definitely be worth its price.

The new sampleset sounds absolutely fantastic in the Demos! I really like the great acoustics of the cathedral that are present even in the front channels. If one chooses silent, tranquil registrations, you can nearly drown in the ethereal reverb of this set. I'll better start saving for this one now

Great news dear Jiri !
Demos sound terrific
A great set no doubt.

All my best

Another great sampleset released! This organ seems very majestic and versatile!

However, does this sampleset have a kind of "ringing" effect? You can listen to this piece on Jiri's website:
http://www.sonusparadisi.cz/media/demos ... _Echo6.wav

The "Prestant, Carillon (box closed)" on the BW (especcilly in the beginning) seems to have some "ringing" effect, because of the release tail.
What could the matter be, please? Besides, do you think this organ can play both Bach and Romantic?

Thank you all!

Best regards,
Christian Liu

Hi Christian,

I'm not sure what you mean by "ringing", but the Carillon is like a high-pitched Cornet stop. It has a natural bell-like quality to it, similar to other examples of the stop like the one at Caen. The Utrecht sample set also has a strong sense of physical position embedded in the recording. The RW is quite present, and the BW at the top of the case has a more distant, diffuse feel to it, which is captured in the releases. The Carillon is doing just what I would expect a stop like that to do in a (very) reverberant room with a closed swell box in the Echo below.

Can this organ play Bach? Sure. The Utrecht sample set is large enough that you can find good registrations for most Bach works. But It is not what people would tend to think of as a "Bach organ" in terms of, say, Trost. There are several very old stops on the RW, two short reeds, a full set of pedal reeds up to 2', and generally clear voicing throughout the instrument. The equal temperament is not ideal for early music, but you can always load an older temperament if you like.

For romantic music, it's a bit better suited to the early romantic works than later ones (natural, given when it was built), but so long as you adapt registrations and work around the lack of a celeste on the BW, you can perform a lot of romantic literature on this organ..

Cheers,
Erik

Dear Erik, thank you for handling the question for me. I would not be able to give more detailed and precise answer. Of course, the users must be alerted that this sample set is indeed very reverberant compared to the "usual" Sonus Paradisi production.

The response to the Utrecht sample set is unexpectedly high. Of course, I feel honored by the interest of Hauptwerk users and I feel ashamed that my poor server once again is showing some weakness: it was almost collapsing under the heavy download of many of those who ordered the sample set during the first days after it was released. I am really sorry for that. If there is difficulty of download, it is because of the limitations of the server, it is working at its limits for the past 3 days or so. If any of you have difficulty to download, the installation media will be shipped immediately when I have them in my hands, what should be tomorrow or on Thursday at latest.
Nevertheless, after the horrible weekend (the server was several times down due to overload and the response was unexpectedly slow for many hours) the support team has tried to do their best to optimize the server behavior so that it should now be much better responding to the download requests. If you were not able to download up to now, please try again, it could be better. However, the drawback is that it is now impossible to download with a normal web browser. During the download, the data stream can be interrupted several times, so it is absolutely necessary to use a download manager instead, since only such tool is able to resume interrupted data stream successfully.

Hello Jiri,

This sample set looks to be very tempting. But I can't decide without having tried it. Would it be possible that you add a demo version to your Free Stuff? I realize you're probably very busy but a demo version would help me, and probably others, a lot.

Ernst

Hello Jiri
Now it's working fine with the download ca. 1900 KB/s today from 123.5 yesterday
By the way I use "Speed dowload" Manager for Mac.

Now the Organ is installed and works fine and sounds GREAT

Best Regards

Peter (Switzerland)

If the download problems are sorted out, that would be a good step forward. I will keep watching the issue to prevent further problems.

The demo sample set will be added later, when the initial boom of orders is over. I need to first serve to those who pay for the sample sets, only after they are happy, then I can also do something for the rest of the world. I am usually adding the demo versions with some delay after the sample set was released.

Hello Jiri,

With respect to a demo version: please add at least some stops with the surround samples added.

Anton

Dear Anton,
I think it will be impossible. The sample set is distributed on 6 nearly full DVDs. I am always doing the demo versions so that they fit into 1 DVD. I see no possibilty how to show the tremulants, the different colors and the huge reverb and sqeeze it into 1 DVD with the surround samples (surround means that everything together is twice as big). The other possibility is to reduce the samples into 44.1 and 16 bit only, but the digital hiss of the 16-bit noise floor will destroy the clean sound of the sample set in that case, I think it is worse than the absense of the surround samples. Well, there are always some limitations.

To have the idea of the surround and its relation to the wet, you can try other free sets where this is enabled.

Dear Jiri your demo sets are always wonderful and wisely created so they can fit even on free version's 1.5GB limit.
If I can have a demo of this new set "simply" wet I will not complain at all !!!

all my best
Panos

Hello,

An other possibility is to visit someone who has the set up and running so you can try the whole instrument instead of little piece of it.
It would be nice if there would be some sort of 'portal' where people (who are willing to) can fill in which samplesets they have and that one can make an appointment to go try the samplesets.
At least the wholesalers should be giving this opportunity to prospects in my opinion. In Zuid Nederland there are at least 4 adresses where people can try the Utrecht set. Johan van de Waal van Dijk (http://www.vanderwaalvandijk.nl) is a wholesaler of Sonus Paradisi and he is happy to welcome those who are interested.

Yours
Cribo

Just purchased and installed the Utrecht sample set. WOW! Just wonderful!! The sampling is very wet. More so than others from Sonus, however the tonal quality is quite clear. The specification gives the organ a more baroque sound than romantic, however it is definitely sweeter than most baroque organs. The flutes sing and the principles are rich but not too strident. It is a really nice sized organ--about 50 stops. I didn't count the actual ranks. Mostly flutes, principles and reeds. There is a viola da gamba on the bovenwerk. I found the coupling interesting: full organ couples to the positif, not to the hooftwerk. The organ is definitely a kind of romantic/baroque hybrid. While it generally plays like a baroque organ, it has elements of a romantic organ also. Two very nice romantic-style temulents, one on the positif and one on the bovenwerk. The bovenwerk is enclosed.

I'm tending to play a little more detached with this one, because of the long reverb-time. However, hymns really play well. As the first and most important function of a church organ is to support congregational singing, I always test an organ by first playing hymns. It has a really great sound: full, but not as round as the Willis organs. I haven't spent much time with solo/accompaniment registrations yet, but the touzijn on the positif is lovely, especially with the tremulant--similar to an hautbois but not as nasal.

In general, this organ is not quite as "sweet" as the Willis organs, not as shrill and nasal as the Schnitger instruments, and not as lush as the French symphonics, yet it seems to have the ability to live between these three schools very well on its own. It's "just right."