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Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - new

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takatsa

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Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - new

PostMon Aug 02, 2021 3:20 am

I am happy to inform everyone that completed my new sample set of Organ of the Holy Guardian Angels Church from Magyarkanizsa) . The organ has two manuals and pedal and 15 original and 3 extended stops.

Magyarkanizsa (Kanjiža) a small town in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. It has a population of 9,800, 87% of whom are of Hungarian nationality.
In the middle of the suburbs is the Catholic Church of the Holy Guardian Angels. The church was built in 1768. During the War of Independence in 1848, the city was besieged and the church burned down. It was rebuilt in 1857 in the late Baroque-Classicist style. The church was later expanded. The interior of the church was renovated in 1992, and from 2002 the exterior facade was renovated. The church functions as a parish church, with a parish priest and a chaplain. Every day there is Mass and a lively community life. The language of the Masses is Hungarian.

The organ of the church was built around 1790 and became the property of Banská Bystrica. Although no written memory of it has survived, based on the characteristic features, the one-manual positive could have been made by Ádám Mertz. After the expansion of the church, the sound of the organ proved to be low, so it was expanded several times, most recently by Milan Majdak from Zagreb in 1934. László Varga, an organ builder from Taksony, reconstructed the organ in 2019. He removed the unstylish extensions and reconstructed the original organ positiv, then built a second manual and pedal work in matching baroque style.

The sample sets are available in wave format 48kHz/24bit, stereo, multiple loops (1-8) and multiple releases (3 levels). Equal, a=438 Hz. The reverb 2.5 s, reflects the original acoustics of the church. Hauptwerk v4.2 and v5 and v6 supported for the Organ Definition Files.
The sample sets made in several forms.
Original and extended versions: stereo near (semidry), stereo far (wet) and six-channels surround.
In the surround versions you can adjust the perspective by setting the volume of the near, far and rear recordings.
For the near (semidry) versions, the IR reverb file of the temple is available for use with Hauptwerk v5-6.

Screenshots
Audio demos
More information

Acknowledgements:
The following friends helped me to make and publish the sample set (in alphabetical order): Dominique Dantand, Gérard Lefranc, Nagy István and Jean-Pierre Silvestre. If something's done well, it's thanks to them.
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larason2

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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostFri Aug 13, 2021 9:43 am

I haven't seen any reviews for this sample set, so I thought I would add one! I purchased this set as soon as I found out it was released, and am very happy with it. It is a small but very lovely set, and very suitable for baroque literature. The stops are low pressure, and many have a very nice chiff. The Portunal on the Hauptwerk is a very nice example of this stop, suitably dark and with nice character. The main chorus builds up very nicely, and has plenty of power even without reeds. The Gedackt 8' and Flute 4' on the Positiv also have lovely character, and are quite distinct from the flutes on the Hauptwerk. The Postiv chorus builds up to a lovely "Cornet decomposée," that adds a good foil to the great. The Subbass 16 in the pedal is quite nice, and pairs well with the Flautbass 8 in the pedal for many baroque works.

I'm a big fan of Augustine's extended celestes, and the extended Vox Humana and Vox Angelica are lovely (they appear to be a celeste made from the 8' principal rank and a flute for each, which sounds very nice in my opinion). The 4' choral bass also appears to be a celeste, which in my opinion doesn't sound quite right to me in the pedal, though it does add weight at times. For this reason, I usually just couple one of the other divisions to the pedal if I need a 16', 8', 4' in the pedal. I don't usually use super octave and sub octave couplers, but this organ really does well with those couplers activated, giving it a much bigger sound than would be expected for a small organ. Augustine has a generous complement of these couplers in the extended version, and it is quite fun to use them!

So overall, a worthy sampleset, particularly for the price. As usual, I usually only use the Far perspective, but there are 3 perspectives available. In many ways the disposition reminds me of a medium sized Silbermann, such as the St. Georgenkirche, which I also own. Some of the flutes and principal ranks remind me a bit more of Schnitger though, which I think is a good thing. The sampling and presentation is top notch, which I have come to expect from Augustine. Congratulations on a great set!
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vpo-organist

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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostFri Aug 13, 2021 10:24 am

The many praises unfortunately do not match the demos I hear in the playlist linked by takatsa.
Take for example the "Brande Champanje". There I hear unpleasant among other things bell-like sound and too short releases. For me this is a sound quality like from the times of the first sample sets for Hauptwerk. Sorry, but this is a terrible sound to my ears. You really can't make this sound sample pretty. It just sounds awful. I wouldn't even install that if the set didn't cost anything.
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larason2

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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostFri Aug 13, 2021 1:25 pm

I’m afraid I have to disagree. In the recording you reference, there is no evidence of the recording tails being too short. This would cause clipping, which has a different sound than what is heard, and would be clearly visible on the waveform of the recording (which I have looked at). Perhaps you find the chiff of some of the pipes unpleasant, but that is not the fault of the sample set creator. As for the bell like sound, I’m not aware of any on the recording you mention. Some mixtures are voiced and tuned to sound like bells, which in my opinion is a good thing.
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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostMon Aug 16, 2021 1:05 am

I think that this discussion is useless. Tastes and demands are very different. What is bad for the trained ear, someone else feels as excellent. If I play myself in the service, no one notices that either, because the knowledge is missing.
It is the same with the sample sets. If you have little experience, you will like a lot of things. And in the low-price sector, the sets from Augustine are a good addition.

Thomas
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scottherbert

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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostMon Aug 16, 2021 8:32 am

I have followed Augustine's work almost from the beginning. He has a talent for bringing interesting organs to the public. To his credit, his techniques of sample set production have improved over the years.

It is always true, in any field, that not everyone will like everything you do. I find it distressing that a very few try to publicly shame Augustine or his work. Online anonimity can make anyone bolder, and the urge to say inappropriate things can get out of hand. Often things that should be said to a person directly are posted in a public forum. Truly helpful criticism should be told to the person and not aired to the public.

The fact is that Augustine offers (and encourages) a free trial so a samplle set can be tried prior to buying on your own system. No attempts are made to fool someone into buying his sets. I am proud to say that I have a number of his sample sets, and enjoy them immensely. He has worked hard at improving his techniques as well as his equipment over the years I have known him. His ethics prevent him from putting out sub standard products and has even re-done older sets that he himself was unsatisfied with! A competitor trying to discredit his work in a public forum, or criticizing a set because of how a recording sounds is just bad form.

As with anything, try it out (the free trial) and if you like it, buy it. If not, then pass. He does very good work!

~Scott
"Life is just a dream, it is in death that we truly awaken!"
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vpo-organist

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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostMon Aug 16, 2021 9:22 am

Not everyone can take criticism, that is well known. Especially when someone criticizes something that another finds good. But you can't explain away mistakes.

Thomas, your contribution said in other words: The doctor tells you, you have 20 kg overweight.
You say you feel very well and buy a new scale to check your weight.
The scale has a flaw - it usually shows your ideal weight and only sometimes +20 kg.
You say to yourself, the scale was cheap and if it shows me my ideal weight, then I feel good.
The doctor knows the negative consequences of being overweight, but you don't - you just want to feel good.
That sounds strange, doesn't it? That's how you argue in your post though.

Scott, I heard the sample set and I don't like it because of some artifacts. I didn't post that at first.
But if someone posts that the set is great, then I must be allowed to argue against it.
If no criticism were allowed here, then you can close the forum and only allow sample makers on a blog to post news.

Edit:
I am not a competitor manufacturer, I have criticized other manufacturers, including OAM. But there already his fans make sure that you are immediately muzzled ;-)
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takatsa

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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostWed Sep 22, 2021 7:43 am

First of all, I apologize for not responding to the posts for so long. This is not my habit, I just pause the sampling a bit now because I couldn’t find an organ that I could record from. And that’s why I did other things and forgot about the hauptwerk forum.
First of all, I would like to thank Larason2 and Scottherbert for their appreciation. Praise always goes well, and I’m very happy to have someone who uses my voice samples with satisfaction. Thanks also for Thomas344's post, I agree with him.
All I want to say to a Vpo organist is that I accept criticism as well, and everyone can have an opinion that they are free to describe. I would like to add to this that the vast majority of audio demos are made with the beta sample set. I have some organist friends who test the sample, make some recordings, and share their opinions, based on which I can make even minor improvements to the sample. Audio demos usually show the possibilities of the organ, but I definitely recommend downloading and trying the free demo sample set because it’s more authoritative than just listening to the audio demos.
Of course, there will be many who don’t like my sound samples. There may be several reasons for this. On the one hand, I am not an absolute professional, although I try very hard. The other is that most of the organs I get for recording are not in perfect condition and may not be at the forefront of the world. So I have more interesting and less interesting, more successful and less successful sample sets.
My primary goal is to present the organs of my immediate environment and bring news to the world about Hungary, and about Hungarian organ production, Hungarian churches, and a little bit about the environment and conditions in which Christian communities live in Hungary today.
Augustine
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vpo-organist

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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostWed Sep 22, 2021 2:39 pm

Hello Augustine,

I am not criticizing without reason and I would be very happy if you could see and hear for yourself what I mean.
It's not the quality of the individual samples I'm criticizing, it's probably just inconvenient release times for the short-midle-long releases. I think if you change these a bit, the problems are eliminated.
For example, if you have chosen release times of 100ms, 250ms, 400ms (short-mid-long) for a sample set and problems occur frequently, then maybe 90ms, 200ms, 390ms would be the solution. Maybe the artifacts disappeared with such a small shift of the values.
The given values are invented and should only facilitate the understanding. In your demos the releases sound too short in some places. So I guess it's such small changes that might eliminate the audible artifacts. I would be really happy if you can solve the problem.

But if I am the only one who hears the artifacts, then please ignore my criticism. I won't say anything more about it then - I promise. I also don't want to be right ;-)

Best regards
vpo
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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostWed Sep 22, 2021 9:03 pm

I feel I must say something to balance these criticisms of Augustine.
Let's just listen to one stop ... the Gedackt 8. This is one of the best ranks I have heard in an Hauptwerk organ. In the Extend page a derived (I guess) sop ... the Vox Angelica 8 is just as beautiful.
Perhaps Augustine can make a comment about these 2 stops, and did he do anything special to get such an exquisite flute sound.
Thank you, Augustine.

Stephen
Australia
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CyrilCouten

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Re: Baroque Organ from Magyarkanizsa (Serbia) 15+3/II+P - n

PostThu Sep 23, 2021 3:39 am

I do have the same bell effect on some AVO samples. VPO, I agree with your statement. The way I "fixed" it in some samples is simply not load the rear (sometime also the middle) and use convolution. This happened also with Nancy which was somehow fixed (not totally) with a subsequent patch by Piotr G.
Hope this can be fixed one way or the other ...

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