The upgrade from HW 6.0.2 was very straightforward. All settings were preserved, no instruments need to be upgraded or reinstalled. It took less than 15 minutes, including the time to take the backup of the settings.
All instruments had to be recached after the upgrade. (You may need to allow time for this when you plan your upgrade.)
HW 7 has been in regular use for a little more than a month with no problems on my Windows 10 system.
HW 7 includes further improvements to the sound quality. (Can it really sound any better?)
My system uses 5 stereo channels for the front perspective, one for the rear and one for the subwoofer. For smaller instruments I’ve used the Higher option, but for most instrument I’ve used the medium option. The sound quality is excellent.
The new “Organ MIDI assignments override global?" option allows midi settings for operating master registration and other functions which may be assigned to operate with all organs (since HW 6) to be overridden by settings made for individual instruments. I auto detected some pistons on the console to be HW master general pistons “for all organs”, these pistons operate as Master Generals for all instruments I load, without having to auto detect them again. However, with this option enabled, for specific sample sets, I assign these pistons to other functions more appropriate for the sample set. In HW 6, I found the global facility less useful than I had hoped because there was no override option and In practice I found it best if a “switch” was either assigned globally or per sample set and not both. In my view this option makes the global facilities introduced in HW 6 much more usable, and simplifies the customisation of a particular sample set to your console. I have also used this for the sequencer and divisional pistons (using scoped master pistons).
HW 7 includes more “large control panels” and changes to some existing large control panels. There are two new mini control panels “Show/hide large floating control panels 1” and “... 2”, these provide improved access to the large control panels. These improvements to the player interface make the system more accessible through touch screens. HW 7 does seem to be trying to make important improvements to the user interface, moving away from having to use the traditional computer menu line; most functions can be accessed through control panels, and there are more computer keyboard shortcuts to functions as well. I think these changes will help those who find the existing menu system too fiddly.
There are improvements to the piston toolbars. These can have additional functions assigned to them and the labels for each “piston” can be customised. I’ve not made much use of piston toolbars. I have sufficient real pistons not to need them for combination or stepper pistons, but may make more use of them to customise other aspects of my user interface. As these can be located on the second console window, unlike control panels which may only be docked on the first console window, with the HW 7 improvements, I think they offer some potential which I’ve not previously exploited.
In the advanced edition, the interface to the audio mixer has undergone a major revision (and improvement). Whilst the principles of its operation have not changed, it is now clearer to see the relevant settings for a particular audio profile, and there are now a possible 128 audio profiles available. Functions to copy, rename, export, import audio profiles are not included in this release. I found the improvements provided valuable and welcome - It is now easier to see what is going on.
There are other (minor) changes, including an option to reset the transposed when loading an organ, an option to reset the combination frame number to zero, or not when loading a combination file and so on. I like the change which shows “advanced” items when viewing lists of functions.
Windows 11 and MacOS 12 are formally supported.
The HW 7 iLOK licence is accepted as a valid licence for 6.0.2. This means that if you buy a licence for HW 7 and redeem the code (and surrender your previous licence if you purchased an upgrade) in iLOK manager, you can run either HW 7 or HW 6.0.2. This would enable you to use HW 6 on one computer (or partition) or HW 7 on another computer (or partition). You could buy HW 7 during any special offer period, activate the licence and then upgrade from 6.0.2 at a time which is more convenient to you. Note: you can still only have one version of HW installed on a computer(or partition) at anytime, and one licence only allows one copy of HW (7 or 6.0.2) at any time.
As ever, the release notes provide complete details of the changes (Hauptwerk website | support | documentation).
I am most grateful for having had the opportunity to try out this release and would like to thank Martin for his fine work on this outstanding product.
Iain
All instruments had to be recached after the upgrade. (You may need to allow time for this when you plan your upgrade.)
HW 7 has been in regular use for a little more than a month with no problems on my Windows 10 system.
HW 7 includes further improvements to the sound quality. (Can it really sound any better?)
The “Real-time audio pitch-shifting quality” organ preference has been renamed to “Audio engine processing quality”, and now offers the following three choices:
o “Lower (maximum polyphony; legacy v2-v5 quality)”.
o “Medium (about 50% less polyphony; legacy v6 'HD pitch-shifting' quality)”.
o “Higher (recommended; lower distortion, about 60% less polyphony than ‘lower’)”.
It controls the time resolution at which Hauptwerk's tremulant, wind supply, swell box, and relay models are processed, and thus their quality, accuracy, smoothness, realism, and response. Higher settings are more CPU-intensive.
My system uses 5 stereo channels for the front perspective, one for the rear and one for the subwoofer. For smaller instruments I’ve used the Higher option, but for most instrument I’ve used the medium option. The sound quality is excellent.
The new “Organ MIDI assignments override global?" option allows midi settings for operating master registration and other functions which may be assigned to operate with all organs (since HW 6) to be overridden by settings made for individual instruments. I auto detected some pistons on the console to be HW master general pistons “for all organs”, these pistons operate as Master Generals for all instruments I load, without having to auto detect them again. However, with this option enabled, for specific sample sets, I assign these pistons to other functions more appropriate for the sample set. In HW 6, I found the global facility less useful than I had hoped because there was no override option and In practice I found it best if a “switch” was either assigned globally or per sample set and not both. In my view this option makes the global facilities introduced in HW 6 much more usable, and simplifies the customisation of a particular sample set to your console. I have also used this for the sequencer and divisional pistons (using scoped master pistons).
HW 7 includes more “large control panels” and changes to some existing large control panels. There are two new mini control panels “Show/hide large floating control panels 1” and “... 2”, these provide improved access to the large control panels. These improvements to the player interface make the system more accessible through touch screens. HW 7 does seem to be trying to make important improvements to the user interface, moving away from having to use the traditional computer menu line; most functions can be accessed through control panels, and there are more computer keyboard shortcuts to functions as well. I think these changes will help those who find the existing menu system too fiddly.
There are improvements to the piston toolbars. These can have additional functions assigned to them and the labels for each “piston” can be customised. I’ve not made much use of piston toolbars. I have sufficient real pistons not to need them for combination or stepper pistons, but may make more use of them to customise other aspects of my user interface. As these can be located on the second console window, unlike control panels which may only be docked on the first console window, with the HW 7 improvements, I think they offer some potential which I’ve not previously exploited.
In the advanced edition, the interface to the audio mixer has undergone a major revision (and improvement). Whilst the principles of its operation have not changed, it is now clearer to see the relevant settings for a particular audio profile, and there are now a possible 128 audio profiles available. Functions to copy, rename, export, import audio profiles are not included in this release. I found the improvements provided valuable and welcome - It is now easier to see what is going on.
There are other (minor) changes, including an option to reset the transposed when loading an organ, an option to reset the combination frame number to zero, or not when loading a combination file and so on. I like the change which shows “advanced” items when viewing lists of functions.
Windows 11 and MacOS 12 are formally supported.
The HW 7 iLOK licence is accepted as a valid licence for 6.0.2. This means that if you buy a licence for HW 7 and redeem the code (and surrender your previous licence if you purchased an upgrade) in iLOK manager, you can run either HW 7 or HW 6.0.2. This would enable you to use HW 6 on one computer (or partition) or HW 7 on another computer (or partition). You could buy HW 7 during any special offer period, activate the licence and then upgrade from 6.0.2 at a time which is more convenient to you. Note: you can still only have one version of HW installed on a computer(or partition) at anytime, and one licence only allows one copy of HW (7 or 6.0.2) at any time.
As ever, the release notes provide complete details of the changes (Hauptwerk website | support | documentation).
I am most grateful for having had the opportunity to try out this release and would like to thank Martin for his fine work on this outstanding product.
Iain
Last edited by IainStinson on Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.