Thu Feb 24, 2022 5:17 am
Hello Mark,
With the two organ preferences set to 'medium' Hauptwerk's audio processing will be exactly the same as v6's (with v6's 'high-definition pitch-shifting' on), as would its background models [with the very slight exception that on Windows specifically the background model processing intervals may have a bit les timing 'jitter' in v7 than v6, but that shouldn't affect the overall results from the wind model significantly, and would slightly reduce other distortions anyway].
However, given that you have a powerful PC, I'd definitely recommend setting the "Audio engine processing quality" organ preference to 'higher', since it will significantly/noticeably reduce distortions from the real-time filters (compared to 'medium' or any previous Hauptwerk version), especially when the filters are changing dynamically, as they do constantly as a result of the wind model, air flow randomisation models, etc. The same filter equations are used in all cases (so that the magnitude/phase responses will be the same), but the way they're applied in real-time gives much lower distortion in 'higher' mode.
96 kHz will generally reduce distortions, compared to 48 kHz, and especially so for aliasing distortion if samples' pitches are raised. I suppose it might conceivably make some other distortions more easily heard, due to them no longer being audibly 'masked' by other distortions. However, as long as "Audio engine processing quality" is set to 'higher' then distortions from the audio engine should be so low as to be inaudible anyway.
If anything, rather than being related to the sample rate, I'd suspect that the differences you mention (at medium/medium/96kHz on your new PC, compared to medium/medium/48kHz on your old PC) are more likely to be due to your new PC having higher per-core performance, which might affect the output of the wind supply model a bit. A quick test would be to try disabling the wind model entirely (on the "Organ settings | Organ preferences | Wind supply model" screen tab), and if that affects the harshness that you're referring to then you could re-enable it but experiment with turning down its depth and/or flow adjustments on that same screen tab.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.