OK, I come in here as an organist who's used viscount consoles (Regent 356) at a church I worked for and installed the consle, in fact recommended it based on owning a previous viscount prestige 3 manual years back.
Organteq is a unique piece of software and ideal to run on some older systems but more suited to systems like Intel NUC's or systems like that. Organteq itself has a beautiful sound for the most part, although some voices do feel a bit awkward in a mixture. Trumpets don't have that grand feel and this is based on a professional audio interface and monitors / adam HS5 monitoring headphones as well a blind organist's ears.
I agree with the statement that organ stops are shared across the 3 manuals sounding the same, the issue here is that the software is as such a routable setup, It doesn't yet provide a full voicing toolbox like you'd find on the Viscount Regent, Envoy, etc series consoles, Now Viscount uses Physis technology which allows full physical / mathematical design of each stop, as such, elements such as chiff, overtone, overblowing, windchest behaviours, wind noise, etc, these are all part of the experience behind Physis. Maybe Organteq could look at some of the behaviours of Physis and expand upon this. If you go to the swell of say a regent 356 and set up a diapason mixture, do similar to the great, the voicing is completely different and should be with Organteq.
I will openly and willingly declare my love for this software and willingly persuade anyone to try and buy it. no question at all. I took this on out of initially, DESPERATION! being away from church for over a year as an organist really depresses me, I miss the consoles I work with more than you'd know, that tactile experience. So, when I started getting comfortable with Organteq, at first I couldn't get my head around certain things, but within a short time, and making Organteq work for some parts with VoiceOver with custom scripting (I advise not to do this), it works for me as best it can.
I have become addicted to tremulants. 4 trems on this system, NICE! the thought of adjustable depth and rate over MIDI CC and engaging them / disengaging on the fly, heaven. It's taken me a while to try and get as near an English spec organ together, although it's missing some crucial stops and certain stops don't sound right at all, that's from a blind organist's ears, Trumpets aren't the trumpets I work with, certain reeds differ heavily, but are usable all the same. But that said, I have a usable, warm sounding church organ with a nice long tail reverb.
word of warning, if recording with reverb, be advised, the reverb tail has a noticeable drop off and not a smooth clean end point, you can hear the stop point. example, 5 second reverb tail, will roll off, then you'll hear the stop, not a gentle end fade to silence.
That said, my answer to this issue is as follows:
Expand the ranks of Organteq to match that of a decent 80 stop 4 manual console, like a Viscount Regent 476, Rodgers Cathedral specification, Johannus Ecclesia D570 etc.
For me, I love this software and I have immense hopes for the evolution of the software, but here are some of the issues I face with the software...
1: lack of a set button, midi consoles have SET buttons to write a divisional or general piston by holding the set button down and then pressing a divisional or general piston..
2: Lack of divisional pistons per manual. It is all well and good having General pistons, but divisional pistons open up the scope of performance to church organists especially when performing, recording, rehearsing, etc. I come from an English Church Choral standard, as an organist and former choir director, so, for me, divisional pistons are a huge help in running through material.
3:The lack of a 4th "solo" manual. OK, 3 manuals is great, but what if you work with a 4 manual console or are working on material where there's a 4th division to the piece? Solo manuals really do offer some unique stops and character to an organ.
4: Lack of 32' stops and pipe ranks. Even a 32' resultant would be nice! The sound pallet of Organteq for the pedal division needs to be expanded upon.
5: A useful instrument would be appreciated as an optional. a Carillon either to the choir or solo manual if a solo manual were to be introduced.
6: Certain ranks are missing, such as Oboe, etc. As this is modelled on a French romantic spec, it is a consideration that a more international voicing series is offered, English specification, French, German, italian, etc, including symphonic, baroque, classical, etc specifications.
7: Expand the UI, maybe change the UI to a more European console spec. Give as an example, a console UI with say, 20 stops per manual with trems per manual, so the console UI would be 2 jambs with 2 sets of 20 stops per jamb for a 3 manual and 3 sets per jamb for a 4 manual (this includes couplers and trems.) Keep the keyboards visible, but include under each manual the piston rails for general and divisional pistons, as well as sequencer functions. designing the UI in such a way to be more like a larger cathedral organ spec, Like Liverpool Cathedral, salisbury Cathedral, York Minster, etc.
8: (for organists who have sight impairment or sight loss) The inclusion of screen reader support without custom end user programming, so that screen readers like JAWS for Windows or VoiceOver for the mac, can allow a user to navigate around the entire software. Also, for headless systems, the ability for the Speech UI of the given OS, to announce button pushes such as "16' principle Swell On", "General Piston 1", etc if you get where I'm coming from. this function can make a huge change to organists who like me are fully blind, where lit tab stops aren't a help, For me, a tactile console is that of motorised stops and a tactile, logical layout. so Organteq with this feature set, would provide a game changing experience for today's new organists. I go to different organs quite a bit and with that, some organs are new, I don't know the layouts, so sighted help is needed, well, until recently, the OrCam ReadSmart Text reader helps with that now and reads out stop names, displays, etc. but that is purely for tactile consoles with draw stops. lit tab stops aren't detectable when all you see is black. so, Organteq as an engine could interact with a system speech engine, like the same concept used with Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol.
9: I would say that in order to enhance how organteq behaves, we do need better voicing tools, it's all well and good just volume and detune, but how can you design a custom rank? you can't. So, we need a voicing solution in organteq similar to Physis or better, we also need to work on how audio is routed as regards C / C# behaviour, so as an example, a console's pipe chambers / galleries could be spread between different sections of a cathedral as an example, or could be a church single location where the console is below the entire chamber and as to whether the pipes are apexed to centre or done as sloped inverse patterns,. Windchest modelling and blower behaviour / sound / blower characteristics to bellows and how ranks demand different levels of wind, etc. these make the experience of playing an organ as authentic as possible.
Blind Music Producer, Composer, pianist and Church Organist. Accessibility development specialist for MacOS. Developing a solution for blind organists to have an accessible digital organ solution.
