Dear all,

Over the past year and a half or so, I have been writing a virtual
pipe organ for the PC, which is finally complete.

If any of you are interested in pipe organs or have a use for one in tracks that you create, you may be interested in having a look at http://www.hauptwerk.co.uk/. It can be
downloaded from the site.

I had hoped to make it freeware, but the costs involved in making and hosting it, mean that I've opted for a small charge for the program.

All opinions will be gratefully received!

Martin Dyde.

P.S. If anyone wants the password for the ftp server to download it, please just send me an email.

Hello.............I downloaded the mp3 samples and they sound very good. I have been using a similar program called the Roland Sound Canvas Pipe Organ Project (SCPOP)and have been very pleased with the results. The SCPOP requires a Roland sound module......at least an SC55. I have a SC88 and have no problem running the latest release. After downloading your samples I went back to download the program, but couldn't link up. I'll try again later. I'm curious how your program will sound thru a generic Yamaha XG soundcard. I'm also curious how it will sound thru the SC88. What soundcard did your samples come from? I have 2 keyboards and a homemade midi pedalboard. Your site recommends a midi merger.........can a midi thru box work as well? Thanks.

SCPOP use the Roland Sound Canvas (an external hardware module) to produce the sounds. Hauptwerk does everything entirely in software, so it only requires a sound (or audio) card.

It largely doesn't matter what sound card you have except for the quality of the D-A converter and the latency. The XG should sound fine.

I believe that you wont need to (or be able to) play it through the SC88 because that can't output sound directly from software programs - it uses its own sounds. SCPOP just controls the SC88, where the sounds are stored and produced.

Hauptwerk's samples were recorded from a real pipe organ; one large sample for every pipe, hence the results are very realistic.

Your MIDI set-up sounds ideal. All you need to be able to do is connect the MIDI output from both keyboards and the pedalboard into the computer. If you can already do this (presumably you can for SCPOP), then Hauptwerk should work fine with your current wiring. A MIDI merge box is just a means by which you can join several MIDI ouptuts to a single MIDI input on the computer.

Let me know if you have problems downloading the program. The website seems to be fine at the moment.

Thanks,
Martin Dyde.

That's a great contribution sir! Sampled from an authentic source...that's fantastic. Its output is raw data or wav? I will see for myself. I will check it out ASAP.
Again...Thank you.
MORPH!

Hello........I downloaded the program and the largest organ file (thank goodness for DSL!) and got your program to work. My 400Mhz computer shows its age with this program.........now I have a real reason to upgrade! As long as I don't get greedy and choose to many stops the program works and sounds great. I noticed some latency in playing live, changed the settings, but could not find an optimum setting. Is there latency in playing a real pipe organ, all those linkages and such? I browsed into some of the organ folders and was totally impressed with the actual WAV samples.........THOUSANDS of them! It must have been very tedious collecting them all. I too support your efforts in aquiring a theatre organ soundset. I plan on trying your program on a faster machine, maybe I can increase the polyphony. If successful I will purchase a license. For now I will continue using the SCPOP with my Roland SC-88. Having heard your real organ sounds I won't be as pleased with the SCPOP's generated sounds! Thanks for your contribution.......It is truly a GREAT one.

Thank you very much indeed!

The latency is set by the audio buffer size (on the audio tab of the settings screen). On my PC I can safely get it down to 8K, which equates to about 93 ms of latency. The speed of the computer will govern this.

Real pipe organs produce sound pretty much immediately, except where the pipes are located a long way from the console, in which case there is the time for the sound to travel. It is possible that pneumatic-action organs may have a slight delay, but I'm not certain.

Martin.