The Steendam organ of Apeldoorn
Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 10:26 amIt is with pleasure that we wish to announce to the Hauptwerk Community the successful completion of our newest sample set of the Steendam organ of the Eben-Haezer church in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands.
Naturally you can found detailed information on the dedicated pages on our website
http://www.hauptwerk.nl/steendamapelden.php
(We have received complaints that this link does not work in Chile, Columbia, Peru and South Africa. In this case use http://blockedsiteaccess.com/ and type the address here, please contact info@hauptwerk.nl if the problem persists)
This organ was built in 1997 by Orgelmakerij Steendam http://www.orgelmakerijsteendam.nl/en/home_en.htm for the newly build Eben-Haezer church in Apeldoorn.
As requested by the congregation this instrument became a romantic instrument well suited to supporting congregational singing. A large part of the organ literature may also may be interpreted faithfully, in particular, romantic works, and not in the least because of the very effective swell.
The organs of C.G.F. Witte, his predecessor Bätz, and the organ builder Christiaan Müller stand centrally as inspiration for the organs of Orgelmakerij Steendam. The instrument in Apeldoorn has therefor quite some sound similarities with the famous Dutch organs in "De Oude Kerk Amsterdam" and "Grote Kerk Tiel".
We are very glad that mister Sicco Steendam himself gave his approval for the resulting sampleset of his instrument.
Unique 'tripple channel technology':
There are already some samplesets available with 'dual channel technic on the fly' however when beginning 'Hauptwerkers' (who do not have enough memory yet in their Hauptwerksystem) must then decide what to load. The choice would then be 1) very direct samples or 2) very indirect (wet) samples.
With that in mind we have chosen to record this organ with an extra 'middle' channel. Those who cannot load the entire set can load only the middle samples which gives a nice overall sound which is not too direct and not too distant.
Users who have 24 Gb or more can however load all channels and alter their listening point on the fly! For this reason there are 3 sliders on the virtual console so one can mix these three positions according to taste.
For practising one can use only the front channels which gives a very clear sound and accurate speech of the pipes. Normally you would add the rear(surround) samples for a more ambiant mix however we found that the 'middle' samples still add a lot in sound experience.
Real sampled tremulants:
The organ has 1 tremulant for its Swell so we recorded all stops of this manual with tremulant. Because combined tremulant samples are never in phase, we have recorded some frequently uses Tremulant-voice combinations as wel. One can choose to use this combinations by using little switches above the upper manual. See our website for more detailed information.
The tremulant also had some effect on the stops of the Great so we recorded them as well. Especially the Cornet is used very often so we also included a combinationstop for this one.
Prepared stops:
The organbuilder prepared more stops than are actually available at the moment due to financial possibilities at the time. The drawknobs are physically there on the real instrument and it is the wish of the congregation and organists to complete the organ in the near future. For this reason we will donate € 50 of every sold copy of this sampleset to the organfund and together with the congregation and organists we hope that this sampleset will help to complete this beautifull instrument as soon as possible.
We thought that it would be nice to virtually create the prepared stops already in Hauptwerk so one will have the idea how the finished organ will sound. The prepared stops have an underlined name so you can easily recognise them.
For even more flexibility we also added a 'Quintfluit 1 1/2' on the Swell and a 12 and 32 feet pedal stop.
Versatile:
Due to the tripple channel technic and the virtual added stops this sampleset has become very versatile. If you listen to the demo's on our website or Contrebombarde, you hear sometimes completely different sounding organs but this is how it sounds 'out of the box'.
Of course this sample set is very usable for the "Dutch Choral style" works of Feike Asma, Jan Zwart and others but Guilmant sounds very plausible also http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/12979, as well as the Baroc composers, especially when choosing one of the HW temperaments. http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/12982
We think that this sample set has something to offer for anyone and we hope you like this new sampleset from Sygsoft Holland and remember:
By ordering a copy you help in the completion of this instrument!
Kind regards
Fred de Jong, Rietje Raatgeep, Christian Boogaard and Johan van der Waal van Dijk
Naturally you can found detailed information on the dedicated pages on our website
http://www.hauptwerk.nl/steendamapelden.php
(We have received complaints that this link does not work in Chile, Columbia, Peru and South Africa. In this case use http://blockedsiteaccess.com/ and type the address here, please contact info@hauptwerk.nl if the problem persists)
This organ was built in 1997 by Orgelmakerij Steendam http://www.orgelmakerijsteendam.nl/en/home_en.htm for the newly build Eben-Haezer church in Apeldoorn.
As requested by the congregation this instrument became a romantic instrument well suited to supporting congregational singing. A large part of the organ literature may also may be interpreted faithfully, in particular, romantic works, and not in the least because of the very effective swell.
The organs of C.G.F. Witte, his predecessor Bätz, and the organ builder Christiaan Müller stand centrally as inspiration for the organs of Orgelmakerij Steendam. The instrument in Apeldoorn has therefor quite some sound similarities with the famous Dutch organs in "De Oude Kerk Amsterdam" and "Grote Kerk Tiel".
We are very glad that mister Sicco Steendam himself gave his approval for the resulting sampleset of his instrument.
Unique 'tripple channel technology':
There are already some samplesets available with 'dual channel technic on the fly' however when beginning 'Hauptwerkers' (who do not have enough memory yet in their Hauptwerksystem) must then decide what to load. The choice would then be 1) very direct samples or 2) very indirect (wet) samples.
With that in mind we have chosen to record this organ with an extra 'middle' channel. Those who cannot load the entire set can load only the middle samples which gives a nice overall sound which is not too direct and not too distant.
Users who have 24 Gb or more can however load all channels and alter their listening point on the fly! For this reason there are 3 sliders on the virtual console so one can mix these three positions according to taste.
For practising one can use only the front channels which gives a very clear sound and accurate speech of the pipes. Normally you would add the rear(surround) samples for a more ambiant mix however we found that the 'middle' samples still add a lot in sound experience.
Real sampled tremulants:
The organ has 1 tremulant for its Swell so we recorded all stops of this manual with tremulant. Because combined tremulant samples are never in phase, we have recorded some frequently uses Tremulant-voice combinations as wel. One can choose to use this combinations by using little switches above the upper manual. See our website for more detailed information.
The tremulant also had some effect on the stops of the Great so we recorded them as well. Especially the Cornet is used very often so we also included a combinationstop for this one.
Prepared stops:
The organbuilder prepared more stops than are actually available at the moment due to financial possibilities at the time. The drawknobs are physically there on the real instrument and it is the wish of the congregation and organists to complete the organ in the near future. For this reason we will donate € 50 of every sold copy of this sampleset to the organfund and together with the congregation and organists we hope that this sampleset will help to complete this beautifull instrument as soon as possible.
We thought that it would be nice to virtually create the prepared stops already in Hauptwerk so one will have the idea how the finished organ will sound. The prepared stops have an underlined name so you can easily recognise them.
For even more flexibility we also added a 'Quintfluit 1 1/2' on the Swell and a 12 and 32 feet pedal stop.
Versatile:
Due to the tripple channel technic and the virtual added stops this sampleset has become very versatile. If you listen to the demo's on our website or Contrebombarde, you hear sometimes completely different sounding organs but this is how it sounds 'out of the box'.
Of course this sample set is very usable for the "Dutch Choral style" works of Feike Asma, Jan Zwart and others but Guilmant sounds very plausible also http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/12979, as well as the Baroc composers, especially when choosing one of the HW temperaments. http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/12982
We think that this sample set has something to offer for anyone and we hope you like this new sampleset from Sygsoft Holland and remember:
By ordering a copy you help in the completion of this instrument!
Kind regards
Fred de Jong, Rietje Raatgeep, Christian Boogaard and Johan van der Waal van Dijk
