Beta 1 release of Bureå Church

[L.Palo]

A new free (Creative Commons) sampleset for GrandOrgue is available at www.familjenpalo.se/vpo/download of the 3 man + ped instrument (33 stops) of Bureå Church, Sweden. The sampleset (prepared by Lars Palo and Graham Goode) has it's first beta release now and we'd love to get feedback from users to be able to make it even better!

It's a .7z file of 798.9 MB so have patience while downloading. Have fun playing with it!

Kind regards

LarsP

[ggoode_sa]

Hi Guys,

This is a great NeoBaroque styled church organ. We have done the noise reduction, looping and release portion configurations and some adjustment of the amplitude/voicing of the notes within the ranks.

We need feedback the loops and releases, so listen out for notes that don't sound quite right. The samples have not been 'retuned' so what you're hearing is the organ as it sounded when recorded. If there are any notes that are noticeably out of tune, please also let us know. Also if a particular note is noticeably louder or softer than the rest of the rank, let us know.

Please use the Midi Note number and the note name when reporting on issues - for example,

036-C for low C, 060-C for middle C, etc.

This just helps us easily identify which note needs attention.

Thanks!

GrahamG

[ggoode_sa]

This organ was built in 1967 by Hammarbergs Orgelbyggeri AB for the church in Bureå, Sweden.

Pedal (30 notes, C-f1)
Subbas 16'
Principal 8'
Gedakt 8'
Oktava 4'
Nachthorn 2'
Rauschpfeife IV
Basun 16'
Trumpet 4'

Huvudverk (I) (56 notes, C-g3)
Principal 8'
Gedakt 8'
Oktava 4'
Rörflöjt 4'
Oktava 2'
Sesquialtera II
Mixtur V
Trumpet 8'

Svällverk (II)(56 notes, C-g3)
Rörflöjt 8'
Salicional 8'
Principal 4'
Hålflöjt 4'
Valdflöjt 2'
Ters 1 3/5'
Nasat 1 1/3'
Septima 1 1/7'
Scharf III
Skalmeja 8'
Tremulant

Bröstverk (III) (56 notes, C-g3)
Gedakt 8'
Koppelflöjt 4'
Rörkvint 2 2/3'
Principal 2'
Oktava 1'
Cymbel II
Krumhorn 8'

There is an organ definition file for the original specification, and a modified version included with 60 general combinations added as well as a GC.


If you download the sample set, check out the OrganInfo folder for this specification and some pictures of the organ console and church.

GrahamG

[mcjohnso]

Graham and Lars,

Thanks for this wonderful new virtual organ. I haven't tried all of the stops, but I tried a Bach prelude and fugue with Principals and mixture on great and almost a full registration on the swell (except for reeds) and it sounded great. It seemed to be in pretty good tune, volume levels seemed consistent across the range of notes I played, and the stops seemed well balanced with each other. It should be noted that I was playing it with Hauptwerk rather than Grand Orgue. Nevertheless, I did find three things that would increase the usability of the instrument:

1. I find that the modified disposition will not load in Hauptwerk & it gives the following error:

An invalid shortcut key number is specified for General001 - key 1226452 is reserved.

My main interest in the modified version was to get access to generals.

2. I find the depth of amplitude modulation of the tremulant, at least as rendered in Hauptwerk, to be excessive. It ends up sounding like the rapid pizzicato effect that you find on some old electronic organs. The tremulant rate is a little fast for my taste, but be true to the character of the organ.

3. A disposition with a 4x3 aspect ratio would be nice for non-wide screen monitors. On my 20" LCD, the stops and labels end up being rather small to read and there is a lot of empty space on the virtual console.

Mark

[ggoode_sa]

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your response. At the moment we are focusing on the GrandOrgue version because it is simpler to configure (and opensource). Once we have the Beta testing done we will be creating a HW3 native version, so I'll keep your request about screen size in mind

To fix the 'General001' error for your HW import, edit the burea_church_mod.organ file in notepad, and change the ShortcutKey= value. So find the following text in the file:

[General001]
Name=GC
Comments=
ShortcutKey=27
NumberOfStops=33

And change it to

[General001]
Name=GC
Comments=
ShortcutKey=
NumberOfStops=33

Then re-import it into Hauptwerk.

The Tremulant sounds good in GrandOrgue. You can experiment with changing the following values:

[Tremulant001]
Name=Tremulant
Comments=
Period=127
AmpModDepth=22
ShortcutKey=43
StartRate=8
StopRate=6

And let us know what values work well for you.

Hope that helps!

GrahamG

[mcjohnso]

Graham,

Thanks for the suggestions. The General001 fix works, as expected.

Regarding aspect ratio - even in GrandOrgue, the wide screen format of both the original and modified disposition doesn't fit my screen. The main problem I have with it is that the text on the stops ends up being rather small for me. I realize that if I am sufficiently motivated and make the time, I can edit the .organ file myself to get a more agreeable layout.

Regarding the Tremulant, here is what I found suited me:

The original Bureå settings certainly sounded a lot better in GrandOrgue, but it was still a bit deeper and faster than I like. I found the following to be a more agreeable setting.

[Tremulant001]
...
Period=180
AmpModDepth=15

In Hauptwerk v3.2.3, the AmpModDepth seems to control not only amplitude, but a little bit of frequency modulation and a lot of modulation of the spectral content of the sound. Furthermore, the same modulation depth specification seems to correspond to a vastly deeper level of modulation. The result is that the previous setting ends up producing something more like a very deep theater organ tremolo. However, scaling it back even further, I get what I think is a very nice and more realistic tremolo than the pure or almost pure amplitude modulation in GrandOrgue. The setting I am using now for Hauptwerk on v1 import is:

Period=180
AmpModDepth=4

thanks

Mark

[ggoode_sa]

Hi Mark, thanks for the response and for sharing what sounds good to you. This will help other users figure out how to get it sounding good to them as well.

All the best,

GrahamG

[mcjohnso]

Graham,

I have created a console layout that fits easily on a 4x3 ratio screen & has larger fonts on the stops for easier readability. The attached .zip file contains two versions of the .organ based on the burea_church_mod.organ file. One is intended for GreatOrgue and the other for v1 import to Hauptwerk. So far, I couldn't quite get the line wraps to come out the way I wanted for Hauptwerk but it's not bad.

regards,

Mark

[L.Palo]

Hi!

Thanks for the input. Looks good. But as we are adding quite a few stops, we'll have to see how we'll arrange them in the new extended version, but we can surely add such a version to the package (or try to rearrange the stops in a more 4x3 way). I've been thinking of a more english/ago version of stop arrangement for the new extended version anyway to have a more modern feel.

Kind regards

Lars P