Tech Support

Many users prefer if the Caen anches stops default to on, so that the reeds start to sound immediately when they are engaged. For this reason, there is no Caen ODF version 2.51.
Continue reading →

The Dry sample sets are recorded close to the organ pipes, sometimes even inside the organ case. For this reason, the recording has captured all those small strange noises which sometimes accompany the pipe speech. Although amazingly natural, such sounds may not be pleasant to listen to. The resulting sound of the sample set is rough, sometimes ugly. As if you put your head  few centimeters from the pipes when the organ is played. You do not want to be inside the organ case when a pipe organ is played. Continue reading →

Many Sonus Paradisi sample sets are sold as surround, i.e. having 4 channels for each organ stop. Two front channels, plus two rear channels.
Sometimes, one may desire to load the sample set as a conventional two channel stereo sample set, so called wet sample set. This is good for the use in headphones, or with a single pair of speakers.
Continue reading →

Recent Sonus Paradisi sample sets have a specific feature: dual channel tremulants for improved (more convincing) artificial tremulant behavior. Dual channel tremulants require the Left and the Right channels of a conventional stereo file split, so that each of them may be manipulated independently by the Hauptwerk tremulant model. Continue reading →

Hauptwerk advanced is necessary for the multiple channel audio output. Front channels can be routed into the front (default) speakers, while the rear channels into the rear speakers.

The method to achieve this is the following: Continue reading →

Update: There is no audible aliasing in Hauptwerk 6 (published in 2020) or higher Hauptwerk versions due to the new quality of audio processing. The comparison of the audio quality of Hauptwerk 4.2, Hauptwerk 6 and Hauptwerk 7 is available separately.

What is written below, applies only to the older versions of Hauptwerk, and it was first published in 2013.

Hauptwerk v. 4.0 uses very sophisticated pitch control of the organ pipe sample. Repitching happens due to various circumstances: by tuning the instrument up or down, due to the wind fluctuations, due to the tremulant, due to changing temperaments, etc. Repitching has a lot of meaningful functions in Hauptwerk during performance even at the original organ tuning, unless the interpolation is switched off in the Organ Settings.

At the same time, Hauptwerk produces some harmonic distortion when the sample is repitched by more than few cents. When the base pitch of the sample is sufficiently high, the harmonic distortion manifests itself as aliasing - new sub-harmonics are produced and heard more or less prominent. In this indirect way, repitching contributes to the audio distortion which affects playback. Continue reading →

While working on the Utrecht update, I am getting a number of useful bug reports from users which help to improve the sample set. However, I have also got a "bug report" from a user who was demonstrating to me high amount of distortion and noise in the sample set. I started the investigation of the problem and this is the result: you should always try to load the sample set at least in 20-bit resolution. Continue reading →

It may be difficult to download sample sets from the Sonus Paradisi web pages, because they are very big files. The only reliable way how to download such huge files over internet is by using some download manager.  Continue reading →

Well, difficult job. I cannot say I am an expert on these questions, but I have some limited experience. Here some generic suggestions when placing a virtual organ into a real church. Continue reading →

The sample set is delivered in the form of Hauptwerk installation packages which are either downloaded or distributed on DVDs. These installation packages have to be installed into Hauptwerk prior to the use of the virtual organ. Continue reading →