Arnstadt - Bachorgel Sample Set

I am delighted to present the Arnstadt sample set to you. The New Church (now the Bachkirche) in Arnstadt is known as the place where the young Johann Sebastian Bach has got his first job as an organist at the age of 18! He served there from 1703 to 1707. The organ was brand new at that time, built by the Johann Friedrich Wender.

It was Johann Sebastian Bach himself who inspected and inaugurated this organ. Many of his organ compositions were composed during his Arnstadt sojourn. It is probable, that many of them were executed on the Wender organ first time publicly. My website provides a list of the Arnstadt Bach compositions (the list may be non-exhaustive).

The Wender instrument is a modest 2 manual organ, althogether 21 stops, plus some typical toys. It may seem rather limited organ for the great Bach. Nevertheless, it was the instrument he played regularly. If we want to hear his compositions in a way they sounded when he performed them in Arnstadt, the sample set of the Wender organ is the tool to taste the sound.

The organ was changed numerous times during the history. Today, only about 25 percent of pipes are original, and the facade of the organ is original. The rest of the instrument is a rigorous replica made in 2000 by Otto Hoffmann. Hoffmann's work was performed according to the original agreement of the church with Wender dated 1699, and his work was guided by the most advanced historical research.

Visit the web presentation of the the Bach organ sample set for more details, including the audio demo pieces. A free demo sample set is available from the same web page (order the vol.0 of the sample set for free).

A very interesting organ, congratulations! It sounds just right for Bach. Despite having such a strange disposition for the era, it really works, particularly in that space.

Colin Pykett has a very interesting article on this organ, worth reading if you’re interested in it:

https://www.colinpykett.org.uk/bach-org ... nstadt.htm

Thank you very much for the link to the Colin Pykett's article!

My pleasure!

I am a little confused by the download links for Volume 0. There are six links but some of them appear to be duplicates. Is this right? I have a very slow internet connection and I don't want to spend an extra day downloading something that isn't necessary.

The duplicates are not necessary. Sometimes, the server dupplicates the links displayed.

The demo sounds fantastic. Great work!

Colin Pykett now has a Youtube site! Even better, he demonstrates his own version of the Arnstadt organ, produced using his own “Prog Organ”. This might be considered an early forerunner of Hauptwerk, in that it can load different sample sets; but it doesn’t have Hauptwerk’s elaborate wind modelling, nor was every pipe sampled individually. I believe it used Sound Fonts, with one sample per octave.

https://www.colinpykett.org.uk/prog_organ.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwVCxpH2sKs

Colin's well-informed comments help set the instrument in its historical context. Be sure to listen through to the end of the Youtube video, as there’s a performance of a chorale by Gastoldi, which sounds splendidly authentic.

Thank-you Jiri. It is all downloaded now (volumes 1 and 2) so hopefully I will be able to install it today.

I have also recently installed Midwolda. It sounds rather odd to my ears, with the sound swelling as you hold the note. I have disabled velocity sensitivity on my keyboards, which has helped. Is this just the way this organ sounds (due to a combination of many pipes being slow to speak, starting transients not very pronounced and a fairly dry acoustic)? It reminds me slightly of the sound of a harmonium. So far I haven't spent much time with it, though my initial impression is that it sounds better with light registration e.g. choral preludes rather than the full plenum.

No, the organ does not sound swelling. Obviously, it is the MIDI velocity sensitivity which is unsuitable. Switching the MIDI velocity off solves the problem. I think I have described this somewhere on my web in past. It is a common issue. MIDI velocity sensitivity is safe in Hauptwerk only when used with MIDI velocity sensitive keyboards and with the correct slope (mid-point) set in Hauptwerk.

I have set velocity sensitivity to 0% and velocity mid-point to 80%, which I hope has disabled it. Should I have left it at 50%? The swelling effect is much better, but it hasn't gone completely.

If you set the sensitivity to 0, then, the mid-point can be anywhere. The velocity sensitivity is disabled.
Velocity sensitivity is good for sensitive keyboards, where you can mimic (to some extent) the pallet slower or faster opening. For this reason, I do not disable the velocity sensitivity in ODF and I leave the decision to the user.

I have CMK keyboards from MIDI Organ Works in Canada, which I think are made by Fatar originally. They feel quite nice under the fingers, but aren't very much like a tracker organ (at least none that I have tried), so although they are velocity sensitive I think it would be quite difficult for them to mimic the way a tracker responded to touch. I actually find tracker organs quite difficult to play as I am not used to the feel, so probably the CMK's aren't as good to practise on as I originally thought when I bought them.

I also have Midwolda and I also find it very unsatisfying. There are a few selections played on it at Contrebombarde which sound okay, but personally I have never gotten it to sound good on my system. There is definitely something weird with the attacks or releases. All of my other sample-sets sound just fine.

I also have Midiworks keyboards and find them very nice to play. I have a good deal of experience on tracker action instruments (modern only) as well as harpsichords and I find these keyboards perfectly acceptable to play. Tracker instruments are not always pleasant to play and can be very noisy and irregular.

There are a few Youtube recordings of the real organ at Midwolda. Some of them are quite strange. But apparently it is a well esteemed instrument! Mystery…

I'm intrigued with the comments about velocity sensitivity affecting the sound. I will have to try the adjustments on Midwolda to see if it makes a difference.

RS

RS,

I haven't played many tracker instruments, but from what I have tried they do seem to be very variable in touch, and some are awful. Even the best ones are very revealing of shortcomings in technique, and I don't feel that practising on the CMK keyboards is very good preparation in this regard as they are too forgiving.

I have now had a chance to play with the Arnstadt sample set. Like most of the recent Sonus Paradisi products it sounds very realistic in my system, with a good sense of presence. The disposition is very different from most other organs, with five different 8' flues on the Oberwerk and three 4' flues on the Brustpositiv but no 2' stops on the manuals at all, and only one manual reed. Despite this, I have had no trouble finding effective registration for the Bach pieces that I have tried so far, and it does seem to be very well-balanced and well thought-out. In particular, the counterpoint comes through very clearly. Over all I am delighted with it.

I have yet to make up my mind about Midwolda, but so far my impressions are less favourable. I will try to find some recordings of the actual instrument for comparison. Do you (or anybody else) know how it compares with the other Hinz sample sets that are available?