A place to share your Notion files
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So, I promised I would post an audio demo...

This is Notion driving Hauptwerk ( http://www.hauptwerk.com ) a software-based pipe organ software, the sampler was loaded with the Notre-Dame de Metz Mutin/Cavaille-Coll sampleset.

http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/29758

I made a custom rule set based on my setup (controllers and triggers are adjustable and specific to my setup, so not something that is useful to share, although I'd be happy to give pointers if anyone wants them)

I did a fair amount of note-length tweaking on the sequencer staff to make repeated notes and phrasing sound more idiomatic, and I "performed" the score with NTempo to craft my interpretation - that proved much quicker than trying to do it with tempo alterations.

What do you think?

- Jonathan

Jonathan Orwig
http://www.evensongmusic.net
Composer, organist, church musician
Twin Cities area MN, USA
Dual Xeon Mac Pro (2x4 cores) 12gb
i7 PC 24gb for Hauptwerk
GPO, Composer Cloud
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by michaelmyers1 on Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:52 pm
Sounds great! If I had to make one comment it seems a bit muffled. Maybe some EQ to push the high end a bit?

iMac (Retina 5K 27", 2019) 3.6 ghz I9 8-core 64 gb RAM Fusion Drive
with small AOC monitor for additional display
macOS Ventura 13.4
2 - 500 gb + 2 - 1 tb external SSD for sample libraries
M Audio AirHub audio interface
Nektar Panorama P1 control surface
Nektar Impact 49-key MIDI keyboard
Focal CMS40 near-field monitors
JBL LSR310S subwoofer
Notion 6 + Studio One 5 Pro

http://www.tensivity.com
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by jonathanorwig on Mon Apr 09, 2018 8:46 am
michaelmyers1 wroteSounds great! If I had to make one comment it seems a bit muffled. Maybe some EQ to push the high end a bit?


On a virtual instrument other than this, yes I might. However, this is really how a pipe organ of this design and manufacture sounds when choosing to use the stops I'm using. (I'm a classically trained organist, so I am probably a bit fussy about stuff like this :D )

Every pipe organ is unique - designed to work in the room for which it is built. And, there are a dizzying number of styles, philosophies, eras, etc. of organ building. So, pulling the same stops on one instrument is not going to sound exactly the same as on another. The stop names do give a general idea how they should sound, but when approaching an unfamiliar instrument and venue, it's basically "orchestrating on the fly" to get the sounds you have in your mind's ear. (Probably way more than you wanted to know) :reading:

Best,

- J

Jonathan Orwig
http://www.evensongmusic.net
Composer, organist, church musician
Twin Cities area MN, USA
Dual Xeon Mac Pro (2x4 cores) 12gb
i7 PC 24gb for Hauptwerk
GPO, Composer Cloud
User avatar
by michaelmyers1 on Mon Apr 09, 2018 10:10 pm
Interesting!

I've always been fascinated with pipe organs. I think it's the fact that I'm an architect, and a pipe organ is really about the closest thing to musical architecture as you can get.

I designed a church with a planned pipe organ from Orgelbau Klais in Bonn, but unfortunately it was never built. It was very interesting to work with them on the planning and design of the instrument and how it would fit the sanctuary.

How do you go about modeling the room in which the organ is placed with this instrument? Is there convolution reverb that emulates certain churches? I once downloaded a trial version but never really got too deeply into it, as it was a tremendous resource drag...

Best,

Michael

iMac (Retina 5K 27", 2019) 3.6 ghz I9 8-core 64 gb RAM Fusion Drive
with small AOC monitor for additional display
macOS Ventura 13.4
2 - 500 gb + 2 - 1 tb external SSD for sample libraries
M Audio AirHub audio interface
Nektar Panorama P1 control surface
Nektar Impact 49-key MIDI keyboard
Focal CMS40 near-field monitors
JBL LSR310S subwoofer
Notion 6 + Studio One 5 Pro

http://www.tensivity.com
User avatar
by jonathanorwig on Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:31 am
michaelmyers1 wroteInteresting!
How do you go about modeling the room in which the organ is placed with this instrument? Is there convolution reverb that emulates certain churches? I once downloaded a trial version but never really got too deeply into it, as it was a tremendous resource drag...

Best,

Michael


Well, the "room modeling" is a huge can of worms. :shock:
Organists are, as a breed very picky about digital recreations of their instrument. The one thing that sets Hauptwerk apart is the ability to record the sample sets in the space the organ is in, and (depending on the skill of the recording engineer) capture the acoustics of the room. Because the pipe organ can be thousands of sound sources all in slightly different places, getting a convincing sound with convolved reverb is difficult, and most organists can tell...

So, in this case, the organ you heard was played with the acoustics of the room, built into the set. The sampling process is labor-intensive to capture medium and short release tails as well as long notes. Then, add in the fact that now the purists are demanding 4 or 6 channel surround, and you have 3x the editing work. (I've sampled 3 complete organs so far for the software, so...)

HW is a resource hog, I'll admit. The reason is that for realism's sake (and needing to process so many samples with minimal latency) everything has to be loaded into RAM - no streaming whatsoever. My experience has been that if you want to use it as a virtual instrument, you almost have to have a separate machine to run it, especially if you are using a large instrument (some of the bigger organs need upwards of 64-80gb of ram to load, and a substantial processor - at least 8 cores)

The good news is that if you load an organ with a drier acoustic, the processing and RAM needs decrease significantly. And, for those of us who do virtual orchestrating, we want control of the acoustics anyway, so we can match the instruments to each other, and place them in the same "space".

Again, probably way more than you wanted to know, but....

:D

Jonathan Orwig
http://www.evensongmusic.net
Composer, organist, church musician
Twin Cities area MN, USA
Dual Xeon Mac Pro (2x4 cores) 12gb
i7 PC 24gb for Hauptwerk
GPO, Composer Cloud
User avatar
by Rudi_UK on Tue Jun 05, 2018 8:22 am
A beautiful piece. A good selection of stops. The organ sounds very warm and well balanced.
Your composition captures its colour very well.
It is interesting how organ sounds differ from country to country.
I closed my eyes for a moment and found myself transported into its space.
Thank you
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by axelchambily on Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:19 pm
Hi Jonathan, I own the same config and there is 3 things that I cannot reach to do :
1. recording the audio
2. sending program changes (stops & registration)
3. drive the expression pedal from Notion (midi CC ?)

Could you please help ?

Axel
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by simonholland2 on Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:26 am
Hi Jonathan

I too use Hauptwerk with the Hereford and Peterborough organs and control the stops by cc's on channels specific to the divisions. I would appreciate any guidance you can give as how to embed ccs into specific positions in a score I am developing in Notion 6 in order to set the appropriate stops.

Thank you.

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