Features and Requirements

The sample set which you can acquire can be played back using a software sampler. There are many different commercial samplers on the market. What you get on the DVD from us when ordering a sample set is a set of wav files distributed in subdirectories which correspond to individual ranks of the original organ. You can use these files to feed your software sampler. However, the definition file present on the DVD is provided for the Hauptwerk software only. Hauptwerk in its version 2 has many advantages over the other software samplers. Here, you find the list of  the most important ones only:

Increased sound realism due to:

• release sample scaling, the release tail of the sample is scaled in volume to fit the attack sample, so the performance of staccato or short notes is natural, without the need to supply multiple release samples (extra for short notes, extra for long notes).

• release sample phasing, the release tail of the sample is aligned to the attack to fit the phase, so that the transition between the attack and the release is smooth and realistic,

• multiple loop support, many loops in one sample are supported which are playing back in a complex scheme, so that a human ear does not recognize where the loop points are,

• multiple sample support, more than one sample can be attached to a single key of a single rank. Each time the key is pressed a randomly chosen sample is played back so that the sound of the organ is more alive.

• wind modelling, pipes respond to the variations in the wind pressure of the windchest, so that they speak as in the real world (slight detuning occurs under heavy wind load, wind fluctuations in pipe are well rendered, etc.).

• attack control, with a MIDI velocity sensitive keyboard you can control the initial 'chiff' of the pipe, the pipe speaks differently each time the key is pressed - like in the real world.

• tremulant samples, complex volume, pitch and harmonic filtering is applied to tremulant modell so that tremulants are very realistic,

• swell box filters, complex volume and harmonic filters are applied to each pipe when the swell box is opening and closing so that the result is very realistic,

• harmonic filters for the control of pipe speaking (initial 'chiff', wind fluctuation, swell box crescendo ...)

Better user control of the sample set:

• voicing (intonation): available in two forms. Either native per-pipe voicing, or my own voicing screens on a per-stop basis. You can revoice easily entire stop to reinforce its harmonics or to suppress them. In this way you can revoice a Principal to Gamba of to a Flute by simple dragging its slider. Even if the native voicing screen is disabled in the Studio Edition of Hauptwerk 2 (called Basic Edition of Hauptwerk 3), you can still use my own voicing screen to voice your sample set!

• beating controll: you can adjust the amount of beaing in the celeste stops using my own voicing page.

• keys, pedals and other user controls on the screens are now clickable.

• All the controls may be controlled by a MIDI signals.

• Temperament (Equal, Meantone, Werckmeister ... and many others) may be chosen on-the-fly.

• Retuning of the whole organ is available, either by semitones or by cents.

• With the use of the Custom Organ Module, the user can build his own organs from the sample material he has.

• Subset loading. If you do not want to use the full sample set for some reason, there are ways how to load only a subset:

  • by muting selected ranks. Load the sample set via Design Tools, select "Load organ with design options" and on the "Load organ design Options" card which will appear make sure that the option "Show rank audio output screen" is enabled. Then a dialog will appear where you can select which ranks will load and which will not.

  • By creating a user organ using the Custom Organ Design Module in Hauptwerk. Please, refer to the Hautpwerk manual to learn how to use the CODM.

  • If you still need former Hauptwerk 1 subsets, you can load the Hautpwerk 1 sample set or subset into Hautpwerk 2. Go to the File menu and select the Import Hautpwerk 1 sample set.

Special features of the Sonus Paradisi sample sets

Voicing

The Hauptwerk voicing capabilities are limited to the expensive Concert edition. In the Studio edition, the voicing capabilities are disabled. However, Sonus Paradisi sample sets are equipped with proprietary Voicing pages which work even in the Studio edition of Hauptwerk.
The Tone slider is designed as a MIDI controller with 73 steps (36 up, 36 down, middle 0).
If you feel that a particular stop has another timbre that you would like, feel free to adjust its voicing on per rank basis to achieve the desired timbre. This function is very powerful so that you can change the "style" of the organ completely. However, adjusting the color of the tone too much will drastically change the original timbre of the organ, so it is recommended to keep the changes as small as possible.

On the other hand, it is possible that you want to change only the volume of a particular stop but not its color (timbre). You can do it using my voicing sliders, but in this case you will have to disable the harmonic-shaping filters in the General settings of Hauptwerk. How this works? My voicing slider works by adjusting the volume and the brilliance of the tone simultaneously. You can disable brilliance adjustment by disabling the Harmonic-shaping filters in Hauptwerk. To do this, you have to go to the General settings, Audio Engine tab and find corresponding check-box. So, the voicing slider will keep adjusting the volume but not the brilliance of the stop.
 

Multiple sampling

Sonus Paradisi project often records single pipe of the organ more than once. So, there are multiple samples of the same pipe. In this way the sound of the sample set is more rich and variable, since each time you press the same key, the pipe may sound a bit different - the initial "chiff" can vary, the fluctuation of the pipe sound may vary and so on. Usually, only the most demanding stops are equipped with this feature, but there are sample sets which provide at least 2 samples for each tone of the organ. An example of such a sample set is Hruby Rohozec and  the Italian Antegnati St. Carlo sample set.

Open wave format samples

The sample sets of Sonus Paradisi are distributed in "open" wave format (*.wav files). We do not use the Hauptwerk proprietary encryption so you have full access to the source files. This is good if you intend to use the sample set outside Hauptwerk with other software synthesisers. In fact, we have Kontakt, Halion, Giga users as well as some MyOrgan users. Please note, that we usually do not provide proprietary ODFs for the software synthesisers other than Hauptwerk!

Denoising

The extraneous noise and hiss is the biggest problem when recording an organ. Our primary target when creating the sample set is to preserve the original sound as much as possible while removing the disturbing extrinsic noise as much as completely. We developed over the years a dedicated technique (a multi-step procedure) of denoising the samples which we call virtually "noiseless" so that our sample sets have pristine and at the same time very clean sound. This essentially mean, that you will not be disturbed excessively by hiss when playing the sample set and at the same time you will not get the impression that the sound of the virtual organ is dull.

Detuning

Since there is no perfectly tuned organ in the world, the Sonus Paradisi sample sets are equipped with a sophisticated automatic detuning function. This results in a "chorus" effect which gives real feel to the organ. If you feel that the virtual organ is too much out of tune to your taste, lower the random detuning value in the General options of Hauptwerk.

Beating ranks

If there is a beating rank present called also a "celest" rank, you will find a "detune" slider on the Sonus Paradisi voicing tab corresponding to that stop. Sometimes, also other stops have this slider to allow for deliberate mistuning of that particular stop. You can achieve further "chorus" effect, or Italian "Voce umana" effect in this way. The second Flautat of the St. Agusti sample set of Palma is a typical example where you can meet this feature. Also, this slider can be used to lessen or to extinguish any beating of the originally beating stop.
In the Sonus Paradisi design, the detune slider has 72 steps (36 up, 36 down, middle 0), each corresponding to 0.2 cents. So, the pitch of each pipe (the cause of the beating) in the rank can be adjusted approximatelly in the range of -7 to +7 cents. However, the middle 0 value does not mean no beating, but it means the default beating which is set to correspond to the beating of the stop original instrument. In this case, the beat cancellation (no beating level) can still be fine tuned by ear by dragging the detune slider up or down. In addition to mouse dragging, the slider may be controlled also by hardware MIDI continuous controllers.

Proprietary tuning charts

Practically, every historical organ has its proprietary tuning. Not only the temperament changes (various kinds of modified meantone tunings for the oldest organs, various kinds of tempered or well-temepered temperaments for more recent ones) but also the absolute height of the base pitch changes. Tthe organs are likely to be tuned higher than "normal" pitch or considerably lower than the current "concert" pitch set to a = 440 Hz. Most Sonus Paradisi virtual organs have proprietary tuning charts which are installed together with the sample set. You will find new entries among the Temperaments in your Hauptwerk Temperament menu. Although you can combine any temperament with any sample set, it is recommended to use the proprietary tuning charts with the corresponding sample sets, i.e. St. Maximin tuning chart with the St. Maximin sample set, Santanyi tuning chart with the Santanyi sample set and so on.
If a Sonus Paradisi tuning chart is marked with a word "stretched", it means that towards the heights the relative pitch of the intervals is stretched several cents (1-3) above the pure interval value to give an additional chorus effect. If you feel that a particular tuning chart sounds too out of tune for your ears, use another one.

Velocity sensitivity

Some musical instruments are capable of the key velocity sensitivity. An example of such an instrument is a piano. The stronger or (to speak in MIDI terms) the quicker you press the key, the louder the instrument sounds. This is not the case of organs, since the strength of the pressing the key has no effect on the loudness of the resulting tone. However, in the case of the organs with the traditional wooden tracker, the velocity with which the key is pressed makes a difference. The pallet under the pipe is opened either quickly - abruptly - which makes the pipe to speak very promptly, usually resulting in an expressive "chiff" which is very prominent and admired especially on the historical organs. On the other hand, if you press the key gently (slowly), the pallet opens slowly as well, which results in less "chiffy" tone. Also, the pitch of the pipe starts too low if the key is pressed extremely gently, because initially the pallet opens only partially, letting small amount of air to flow into the pipe, giving lower tone for the first milliseconds. This natural phenomena can be reproduced faithfully in Hauptwerk using MIDI velocity sensitivity feature of your keyboard. While the first effect (less chiffy tone) of slow pallet opening is nice since the pipe speaks differently each time you press the key with a different velocity, the second described effect is generally unwanted, since the sound is "pitch bend" like, "hammondish", not very nice and is to be avoided. Therefore, the Sonus Paradisi sample sets are designed so, that only the first described effect is supported. The slower you press the key, the less chiff you will get. The second effect, although natural, has been deliberatelly suppressed not to disturb the performance. However, if your physical keyboard is not equipped with velocity sensitivity, be sure to SWITCH THE VELOCITY SENSITIVITY OFF in Hauptwerk general settings!!!

Disabling a rank to safe memory

You can disable any stop (rank) to save memory if your computer is equipped with less RAM than required by a particular sample set. To do this, load the organ via the Design options menu of Hauptwerk, and on the rank selection screen choose the ranks which you want to disable and leave those which you want to load. This technique can be used to load only a subset of any given sample set, which gives the same result as the dedicated subset ODFs in Hauptwerk 1.

A note on multiple release samples

This is the issue referred to as the "staccato effect" or the "bell effect" or even "harp effect". The substance of this effect is that in reality, short (staccato) notes or the notes in quick passages have different reverb than long and steady tone. Therefore, one should supply different reverb tails for tones of short duration and long tones. The answer is: In spite of the fact, that Sonus Paradisi will employ multiple releases in future (also for some of its older virtual instruments), I do not think the multiple release tails are necessary for a good organ model. There are several reasons:

• the problem does not appear at all with the sample set with shorter reverberation (Peruc, Smecno, Doksy-Kruh, Doksy-Rieger, Palma, Hruby Rohozec). Only the sample set with longer reverberation (very wet) are potentially affected by the problem.

• It is argued that the multiple release samples improve the "realism" of the sound of the sample set. First of all, Sonus Paradisi sample sets offer already a great degree of realism and they would be improved only a tiny bit by adding the multiple release samples. This is proved by the results of the recording authenticity quiz which show that the bell effect is not a relevant criterion for the discernment of the virtual/authentic recording (read the analysis of the test results). Moreover, the concept of "reality" is very vague and the ideal to which the sample set should be directed to is uncertain. Usually, it is so that the virtual organs sound much better than their real counterparts. At the same time, there are qualities of the real instruments which cannot be reproduced faithfully at all in the digital world (Read my notes on digital versus original. Furthermore, my ideas about a "degree of realism" of a sample set might be helpful).

• As the information in the digital world is "quanticised", you would have to have not only one reverb for short tone and one for long, but you would have to capture all the intermediate states during the first 100-2500 ms approximately (depending on the pipe and the room acoustics) to achieve really accurate response. One short and one long release would seem to be too "grainy" result. Even 3-4 various release tails offer only an approximation and the result is still grainy, i.e. the crossover durations of notes offer jumps in reverberation. Nevertheless, from the perspective of performers, the native release scaling offered by Hauptwerk is sufficient for a high quality organ model and if there are some multiple releases in addition to that, it is even better.

• High quality multiple releases increase enormously the demands on the RAM of the computer. The releases of the short notes are not shorter, they have in many cases about the same duration as the reverberation tails of the long notes, but their harmonic composition is different. The reverberation of the short notes tend to be less harmonious and similar to a noise event (more a "clang" than a tone) as the harmonics are not fully developed. The steady tone reverberation is harmonious as there is a predominance of decaying (fully developed) harmonics in the reverberation.

• The side effects referred to as "bell" or "harp" effect are also connected with the denoising of the reverberation tails. If rough denoising is applied to the sample set, artifacts are introduced (burbly effects) which produce the "harp"-like sound in background. If the denoising is done carefully, then the amount of artifacts introduced is negligible and it does not disturb the audition. Especially, St. Maximin and St. Carlo sample sets are denoised so that there is no disturbance in the release parts.

• When listening to the music made with the sample sets, one should learn to distinguish between the unwanted disturbances and wanted tracker noise. When playing staccato or quick notes, the amount of tracker noise increases as the wooden conducts are moving quickly. This is absolutely natural phenomenon. However, if you do not like these noises, there is always the possibility to reduce its volume in Hauptwerk or to disable it completely.

• The only valid comparison would be provided when the same music is performed on the real instrument and then on the Hauptwerk sample set (with and without the multiple releases), provided that the microphones and other technical features are the same for all the recordings. Unfortunately, the discussions about this topic is almost always lead by people who do not have direct experience with the sample sets (they are not customers of Sonus Paradisi) and they do not have the experience with the real instrument either, so their judgments lack the right foundation. The recording authenticity quiz shows that even the single-release sample sets offer high degree of realism and it is extremely difficult to discern the authentic from the virtual recording.

Requirements:

The demands on the PC used to run Hauptwerk is described in the description of individual sample sets. Please, see the dedicated web pages for that. Also, follow the instructions given by the author of Hauptwerk. In addition, if you want to perform live, you will need a MIDI capable keyboard and perhaps even PedalBoard. The MIDI OUT of these keyboards has to be directed to the computer MIDI IN (game) port with a special cable. Then you can perform music live. By redirecting the midi note on/off messages of a certain channel to Hauptwerk you may even remotely controll the drawstops and other mechanisms of Hauptwerk. There is a number of organ keyboards and pedal boards on the market, you might visit one shop here. If you are capable of building it itself you may have a look here for an idea how to start.