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Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

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JulianMoney-Kyrle

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostSun Jan 30, 2022 2:20 pm

I am in the process of re-caching all my sample sets, which is going to take a couple of days, and I had a setback with a power cut which corrupted my HW installation (though after reinstalling it everything is working fine again). However, I wanted to play today and I thought I would try BWV 538 with Walterhausen Trost, as I have never been very comfortable with the sound of the plenum, which is a bit screamy and confused with this organ (to some extent on recordings of it, too). I was very impressed with the improvement in sound over HW6, however, and found it much clearer and easier on the ear, even when adding the sesquialtera to the mixtures, and much more enjoyable to play as a result. I have always liked this particular sampleset a lot but generally that has been with lighter registrations.
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mdyde

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostSun Jan 30, 2022 2:35 pm

Thanks, Julian.

Excellent.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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LukasT

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostSun Jan 30, 2022 4:52 pm

Thank you Iain for your report. This looks like a great update.

I'm a bit unsure about the improvement in sound quality. When I first started HW7, I thought it sounded amazing. However, I then did a blind listening test, using the same MIDI on both HW6 and HW7 recorded to WAV, and using ABX listening test software. I could not hear any difference.

Perhaps I just can't hear the fine details that more experienced organists hear. Or my ears are just tired today. Or I used the wrong organ for the test (I used Salisbury and the "Impromptu" MIDI file that comes with it).

Can someone share a test recording that illustrates the quality difference between HW6 and HW7? Would also appreciate some pointers what sounds to pay attention to, in order to notice the difference.
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mnailor

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostSun Jan 30, 2022 7:52 pm

Unfortunately, comparing versions by playing back audio files on a computer media player and sound card would have a hard time conveying the differences.

I hear improvements the most when playing a medium-to-large registration on an organ sampled in a large acoustic, where there's less noise and distortion in HW 7 than in 6 to my ears. Caen and Nancy really show off HW 7 nicely at 96k on 20 speakers. But not as much when mixed down into stereo and played through headphones, in my opinion. I haven't tried out Salisbury in HW 7 yet, but I wouldn't expect to notice anything until the polyphony got above a couple thousand.
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TubaFan

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostSun Jan 30, 2022 8:17 pm

LukasT wrote:Thank you Iain for your report. This looks like a great update.

I'm a bit unsure about the improvement in sound quality. When I first started HW7, I thought it sounded amazing. However, I then did a blind listening test, using the same MIDI on both HW6 and HW7 recorded to WAV, and using ABX listening test software. I could not hear any difference.

Perhaps I just can't hear the fine details that more experienced organists hear. Or my ears are just tired today. Or I used the wrong organ for the test (I used Salisbury and the "Impromptu" MIDI file that comes with it).

Can someone share a test recording that illustrates the quality difference between HW6 and HW7? Would also appreciate some pointers what sounds to pay attention to, in order to notice the difference.


I saw your post on Facebook, and was wondering why you didn't test at 96kHz instead of 48kHz.

The only audio system I have to really test differences is on the Hauptwerk organ at my church, so I'm not sure I'll be able to hear a difference either until I upgrade, which I plan on doing in the next month.
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mdyde

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostMon Jan 31, 2022 4:46 am

Hello Lukas,

There's actually no need to use v6 itself for comparisons -- the two settings on the 'Organ settings | Organ preferences | Audio engine' screen tab will give exactly v6 quality if you set them as follows:

- 'Audio engine processing quality' = 'medium' (=v6 quality with the 'high definition pitch-shifting option on), or 'lower' (=v5 quality, or =v6 quality without the 'high definition pitch-shifting option), and:

- 'Tremulant/wind supply/swell box/relay model quality' = 'medium'.

To hear the audio quality of benefits of v7 above you need to set at least the first of those two preferences to 'higher'. Try setting both to 'higher' with St. Anne's, for example (and ideally also using 96 kHz for audio output), then compare with them both set to 'medium'. The differences are likely to be most obvious when the wind supply model is prominent, and/or when tremulants are active -- anything that causes the sound of pipes to vary dynamically. Here's a note from the v7 release notice about that:

The sonic benefits of the ‘higher’ modes for the two preferences may be particularly easy to hear on modeled tremulants (especially modeled deep tremulants, as found on some theatre organ sample sets) and on organs with very dynamic wind supplies.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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LukasT

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostMon Jan 31, 2022 7:37 am

Thanks Martin, will do some more experiments on that!
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mdyde

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostMon Jan 31, 2022 7:57 am

Thanks, Lukas.

You should, for example, be able to hear the benefits fairly easily if you just hold a single St. Anne's note which is strongly affected by a tremulant (e.g. find a deeply-tremulated one on the Swell Rohr Floute 8, or Flauto Magico 4, or Swell Trumpet 8).
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Romanos

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostFri Feb 04, 2022 2:36 pm

mdyde wrote:We do definitely want St. Anne's always to be installed, since the user guide, other documentation, Custom Organ Design Module organs, some third-party sample sets, and other things, depend upon its presence. Also, it's important for support, so that we can ask people to verify whether any problems that they might have can be reproduced with St. Anne's, which is a known-entity, and to explain how to do things using an organ that everybody has ready access to.

Fair enough. I hadn't thought of the trouble-shooting aspect, and I certainly had no idea other sample sets depended upon its existence. Mercifully, I've never had major issues; I've always been able to do my install and just 'go'. In fact, HW has been so stable for me lo these last few years that I can't think of a single crash. I've had to restart it every once in a while for an odd reason, but that's with umpteen sleep/wake cycles in between and other programs (audio and midi) also trying to borrow my audio devices, so I don't fault HW in the least.
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mdyde

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostFri Feb 04, 2022 3:21 pm

Thanks, James.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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martinus

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostWed Jul 13, 2022 8:15 pm

Hello All!

Finaly got time to upgrading Hauptwerk 6 advanced to Hauptwerk 7
Super happy , I got all sample sets on the highest quality settings , sounds incredible!
Thank You Martin , You have done it again :D

kind Greetings,
Mart c van Herk
Patience is a virtue

mcvanherk@gmail.com
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mdyde

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostThu Jul 14, 2022 3:12 am

Thanks very much, Mart. Splendid! Glad you like it.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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romcat

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostSun Aug 14, 2022 12:44 pm

Better late than never but I just got upgraded to Hauptwerk 7 a couple days ago, smooth install, and have recached all 12 of my sample sets, tested each with existing MIDIs, satisfied user here.

And thanks for having the MD5 checksum and expected file length posted here in the thread – I always like to verify my downloads.
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mdyde

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Re: Hauptwerk 7 Early user experience

PostSun Aug 14, 2022 1:08 pm

Thanks very much, romcat. Excellent. Hope you enjoy the new version.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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