Topic: Church Organ Add-on?

Any chance we could see one someday? Or are the massiveness and complexity of such an instrument beyond modeling's current capabilities? Is it necessary to place the instrument in a sealed room in order to model it properly? Would Pianoteq's architecture even support details such as organ registrations and foot pedals?

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Hello Matthew,

There already exists a fairly mature program called "Hauptwerk" that allows third-party vendors to feature sampled real pipe organs.  They can be extremely "RAM consuming", because the entire organ's memory is loaded into RAM (not streamed from hard drive).

The enclosed URL features Yours Truly in my arrangement of Rachmaninov's transcription of Mendelssohn's Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

http://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/14671

There is at least one vendor from Italy who claims they have modeled pipes, but the results sound like many a common electronic church organ.

If anyone else were to model, say, a 50 rank pipe organ, they would have to model approximately 3000 sounds (50 ranks times 61 notes per rank), not including the interactions between pipes, and their incidental noises -- to say nothing of providing a GUI of the console.

Cheers,

Joe

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

I don't think it's beyond reach. Modartt could definitely do it. But it would have to be a different product. I don't see it in Pianoteq, it calls for a completely different GUI and parameter/feature set.

Last edited by EvilDragon (30-11-2014 15:19)
Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

EvilDragon wrote:

I don't think it's beyond reach. Modartt could definitely do it. But it would have to be a different product. I don't see it in Pianoteq, it calls for a completely different GUI and parameter/feature set.

That's right! Organteq.

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

That doesn't sound nearly as awesome as Pianoteq, I must say...

Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

I see Pianoteq as eventually adding a full blown synth section, and yes it would require a different interface.  Think Nord, or perhaps a Nord with the Pinaoteq  piano voice sold directly by Nord.  Perhaps Nord could develop a knob section that controlled Pianoteq piano parameters.  Actually perhaps the first dual layer Pianoteq should be a high quality string section that actually sounded real, and operated with velocity cross fade.

Last edited by GRB (30-11-2014 20:32)
Pianoteq Pro 7.x - Kubuntu Linux 19.10 - Plasma Desktop - Hamburg Steinway

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

No synths in Pianoteq, please. There are plenty of other plugin developers which are doing such a stellar job at it, there's no need to waste manhours in Modartt for that.

Last edited by EvilDragon (30-11-2014 21:30)
Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

EvilDragon wrote:

No synths in Pianoteq, please. There are plenty of other plugin developers which are doing such a stellar job at it, there's no need to waste manhours in Modartt for that.

I guess that's why Pianoteq will have to be the voice inside a Nord.

Pianoteq Pro 7.x - Kubuntu Linux 19.10 - Plasma Desktop - Hamburg Steinway

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

What about a simplified pipe organ? For example, instead of demanding the creation a whole new interface and product, the organ could just provide several presets of different registrations. There could still be some adjustable features, of course, and those which don't pertain to an organ could be disabled. Users might not be able to tweak everything as if it were a real organ, but they could choose from several tasteful presets. In my opinion, a good organ sound would really complete the Pianoteq offerings.

But I suppose my mistake lies in the fact that—as far as I know—all of the current Pianoteq instruments are technically "percussion" instruments, while a pipe organ would be a wind instrument, albeit controlled by keyboards.

Regardless, it just seems like since most digital pianos have an organ sound, it be nice if Pianoteq had one, too.

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

GRB wrote:
EvilDragon wrote:

No synths in Pianoteq, please. There are plenty of other plugin developers which are doing such a stellar job at it, there's no need to waste manhours in Modartt for that.

I guess that's why Pianoteq will have to be the voice inside a Nord.

Doubt it... Nord does its own thing.

Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

matthew wrote:

What about a simplified pipe organ? For example, instead of demanding the creation a whole new interface and product, the organ could just provide several presets of different registrations. There could still be some adjustable features, of course, and those which don't pertain to an organ could be disabled. Users might not be able to tweak everything as if it were a real organ, but they could choose from several tasteful presets. In my opinion, a good organ sound would really complete the Pianoteq offerings.

But I suppose my mistake lies in the fact that—as far as I know—all of the current Pianoteq instruments are technically "percussion" instruments, while a pipe organ would be a wind instrument, albeit controlled by keyboards.

Regardless, it just seems like since most digital pianos have an organ sound, it be nice if Pianoteq had one, too.

Well a pipe organ is not all that difficult to synthesize.  However getting ones that are playable is more of an issue.  The ones on the Casio PX-150 are horrible.  You have to have some way of limiting the pipes to their proper register.  One size does not fit all when it comes to Church Pipe organs.

Pianoteq Pro 7.x - Kubuntu Linux 19.10 - Plasma Desktop - Hamburg Steinway

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

EvilDragon wrote:
GRB wrote:
EvilDragon wrote:

No synths in Pianoteq, please. There are plenty of other plugin developers which are doing such a stellar job at it, there's no need to waste manhours in Modartt for that.

I guess that's why Pianoteq will have to be the voice inside a Nord.

Doubt it... Nord does its own thing.

Since I do consider you an expert on modern synthesis, do you think the Nord is a great synthesizer?  I don't find the strings on the Nord to be particularly pleasing.  On the other hand it seems to mimic the B3 rather well.  Best strings I ever had were generated  from a Roland Super JX-10.  Many synths can do pipe organs with ease.  I don't see it as something that would be a valuable augmentation of Pianoteq.  Nord seems best suited for Techno Music.

Last edited by GRB (30-11-2014 23:13)
Pianoteq Pro 7.x - Kubuntu Linux 19.10 - Plasma Desktop - Hamburg Steinway

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Depends which Nord. Lead is nice, but at times limited (NL3 is the best one of the bunch as far as features are concerned, IMHO). Nord Modular is a whole other ballgame, of course, since it's modular, and can do a lot of things that Lead can't. Everything found on Electro, Stage, etc., are trimmed versions of what Lead offers, so IMHO not that great. Other than that, there are much, much better synths out there than Nord...

Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

just in case...
http://www.virtualorgancompany.com/virt...plugin.asp
not bad at all.
Forgot: there is a trial version as well.

Last edited by Luc Henrion (01-12-2014 10:44)

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Not bad, but not terrific either... Sounds quite synthy. I'm sure Modartt could do much better! SynthEdit creations, so no 64-bit nor AU/AAX support, which might be bummer for some.

Last edited by EvilDragon (01-12-2014 11:13)
Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

It's not Hauptwerk of course, but it's modelling, not sampling. So it might evolve well :-)

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Might, but I still think Modartt could do much better.

Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Most probably. :-) But I'm not sure modelling an organ is such a good idea either: since the sound is, by definition, much more "static", here, sampling feels more "at home" in my humble opinion. And also, there is no such thing as a "Steinway D" equivalent in the organ world. Each instrument is very, very different, hence I think that Hauptwerk did maybe the right job, their collection is really very rich... I just wished they didn't include 2 harpsichords, that's Pianoteq's territory !!! And then of course there is the price ... some "add-on's" are horribly expensive: nearly 1000 € for a "cinema organ" ??? Come on !!! It must be a joke !!!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Organ sound might be static when you look at a single pipe in vacuum space, but there's at least some interaction between the pipes, and the air and the surrounding space (space definitely plays a big role in the resulting sound, so modeling the space as closely as possible could also mean a lot - convolution is too static for this), mechanical and other sporadic noises, etc... it's not really something that samples would do good.

I'm envisioning something like an "organ rank generator", where you could choose the length, material (metal, wood, glass, stone, plastic?), shape (cyllindrical, conic, rectangular, custom shape?), flue/reed/diaphone pipe type, etc...

Last edited by EvilDragon (01-12-2014 15:59)
Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

this is probably what "virtual organ company" has done, but I agree that there is still work to be done. Remember Pianoteq 1.0 ? ;-)

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Probably, but they didn't give the user options to make their own ranks, they hardcoded them.

Anyways, I am not really interested in SynthEdit creations that won't be 64-bit for who knows how long...

Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Of course Joe replied this already, as I expected, as he is also a long time HW user. Like myself.

I have the (virutal) piano standing next to the - virtual - organ console.

These are two different worlds....both need a lot of experience and time dedicated to it, to produce anything with the quality we find normal these days.

Even a small organ.....like Anloo or so, is a lot of work to construct.

So, as soon as with Moddart they are ready with making virtual pianos, perhaps then..........and indeed it would be nice if in the future someone succeeded in a good viertual modelling organ setup.

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

No organs or synths in Pianoteq please.
That's my opinion.

BTW: My favorite virtual pipe organ is Aeolus
http://kokkinizita.linuxaudio.org/linuxaudio/aeolus/

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

There is a 50/50 (piano/organ) on pianoteq. See D4 Hybrid preset.

Sounds fine and beautiful, but could be nicer to also a version with a little more organ sound than piano.

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

m.tarenskeen wrote:

BTW: My favorite virtual pipe organ is Aeolus
http://kokkinizita.linuxaudio.org/linuxaudio/aeolus/

Neat! Sounds more convincing to me than VOC products. But... it's not a VST at all, eh?

Last edited by EvilDragon (02-12-2014 09:42)
Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

+1 to NO organ/synth in Pianoteq. I think it's better to develop new piano models (modern and historical) and improving existing.

"Do one thing but do it well."

Last edited by Ross (02-12-2014 10:08)
Combine velocity curves: http://output.jsbin.com/cukeme/9

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Thanks for sharing this link to the Aeolus.....

But, alais, none can convince me. It is so synthetic......not only the pipe speaking, but also the lack of things happening during the sounding of the pipe, wind noise, irregularities...

As a means for studying its excellent, but in no way can it be a substitue for HW, GO, or some jOrgan soundsets.

Bu it would be nice, if this could evolve further, as  these huge samplesets, which sometimes need 32 Gig or more memory, is not very elegant.

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

I think it's ridiculous that Hauptwerk doesn't use direct-from-disk streaming considering how huge its samplesets are...

Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Ross wrote:

+1 to NO organ/synth in Pianoteq. I think it's better to develop new piano models (modern and historical) and improving existing.

"Do one thing but do it well."

They're already doing lots of things (hand drums, harpsichords, modern grand pianos, electric instruments). Once they get to a certain point, I think there will just be too many pianos (I'm sure I'll get crap for this!).

With the pianos that come with the software, the KiVir instruments, the add-on pianos, not to mention the two sets of Kremsegg, you basically can play a different piano every day for THREE weeks straight (excluding harpsichords and other instruments). After determining your piano for the day, you have to determine your preset or create your own. Soon users will be overburdened with choice, and some great instruments will be necessarily neglected.

In my opinion, it is better to have a handful of great pianos, which are constantly being made better, along with a small handful of harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos, etc. So I partially agree—but just make them better instead of adding a bunch of new ones.

An organ, on the other hand, would be a new offering that would fill a particular niche. More pianos would perhaps fill some niche, but it would really just add to the burden of choice (a hotly described topic in psychology these days).

These days, sometimes I just switch on my DP and use the onboard sounds. That way I don't have to even think about which Pianoteq instrument to play.

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

matthew
Historical pianos have not great sound (I mean not the pianoteq model, but the pianos itself), I think. It's useful sometimes for old classical compositions, but not for everyday use.

IMHO, the current set of mainstream pianos (D4, Bluthner, K2, YC5, U4) are pretty full set. I personally need no more. But I need that these pianos become better. Especially, K2. For now, it has too synthetic sound in small velocities. I would like it to be more dark and more brilliant at the same time, to use it as ideal piano for heavy and dark music.

If you need many non-piano sounds, download/buy many non-piano VSTs. There are many (look AAS products, for example). Currently Pianoteq is the best software piano, it's better than all sampled and hybrid pianos I used. But time flows, software pianos evolve, there is tough competition. So, it's not too smart to waste manhours for synths, organs and other sub-sounds. In my opinion, it's better to develop existing pianos. As I said they are not ideal yet (except Bluthner .

P.S. My English is awful, it's not my native language. Sorry me please.

Last edited by Ross (02-12-2014 20:41)
Combine velocity curves: http://output.jsbin.com/cukeme/9

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Do you mind to record a mp3 example of problematic aspect and also a example of the desirable sound you refer?

Ross wrote:

matthew
But I need that these pianos become better. Especially, K2. For now, it has too synthetic sound in small velocities. I would like it to be more dark and more brilliant at the same time, to use it as ideal piano for heavy and dark music.

Last edited by Beto-Music (03-12-2014 18:44)

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

I must admit that this request for a Church organ Add-on (or an organ of any kind, for that matter) leaves me somewhat perplexed.
All the add-ons (at least, so far ) make use of the current GUI and (sometimes slight variants of) its existing editing parameters.
In what way would that be of any use if you want to try emulating an organ?.. there's hardly a single editing parameter that would make the slightest sense for an organ.
And how would you expect to play the thing with anything resembling organ technique? Even if you decided on a particular organ to emulate, how would you control its registers?
If on the other hand, you are requesting a completely new Pianoteq instrument (specifically for organ), then that is another matter altogether . (If you have any experience of Hauptwerk, you'd know what I mean. Now, it would make more sense to request Hauptwerk to make a modeled version rather than a sampled one, but the basic user interface wouldn't need to change at all )
The whole beauty of Pianoteq, is that you can play it like a real piano. it's what it was designed for. And all the current "non-piano" add-ons do at least make practical use of its existing parameters.
To me, I'm afraid, this request is about as relevant as asking for a trombone add-on

(o.k. bring it on! )

Mac Pro Quad-Core (2009) 2.66 GHz | 16GB RAM | MOTU PCI-424/2408mk3|MOTU Midi Timepiece AV | Mac OS X 10.9.5 | Cubase 9.0.30.266| and others ;)

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Hi

Interesting reading. As often – for and against.
No organs, no synths in Pianoteq. There are so many already out there. That is my opinion(but who knows what the future will bring). I do not see myself as an expert at all on things in this forum,  so, instead I am reading and learning. But, I have the  experiences in my life. - When I want to play church organ/pipe organ, I connect my keyboard to iPad mini with usb-to-lightning connector and use Jeux d'orgues by Markus Sigg, Organ for iPad (The Organ in church Romanswiller, Wasselonne, Alsace, France, the style of Stiehr-Mockers). Fabulous! When young, I was stand-in  six months for an organist on sundays(church service, marriage,funeral, choirs etc.), and I think these Sigg apps sounds quite like those old church organs at that time. Not synthesizerlike - like real.  And, by the way, I like the possibility to have different piano sounds every day. For me, Pianoteq is still as fresh, as one year ago, when I bought it. Thank you, Modartt.

Best regards

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

The toypiano have unison adjust in pianoteq.  In real world this is impossible since it's just a metal patê for each nore, but pianoteq made possible.
So I don't see lots of troubles in interface, in case they decide to built a organ add-on.  It's more a matter of time, money, market etc...

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Here and Organteq has ripened)

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Very cool...just got it... thank you!!

Pianoteq 8, most pianos, Studiologic 73 Piano, Casio Px-560M, PX-S 3000, PX-S 1100, PX-S 7000, Mac i27 and MacBook Pro M3, SS Logic SSL 2

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

I am loathe to discourage someone from pursuing their dreams, but as a consumer, a modeled pipe organ is the last thing I'd be interested in. Furthermore, how do you manually change the flutes while you're playing?

I think that the Pianoteq pianos, while excellent, need improvement. I would rather Modartt concentrate on a perfect piano - and electric piano. Out of all of the models, I think that the R1 and R2 need the most improvement. I think AAS created a modeled digital piano with a lot of versatility that Pianoteq doesn't have.

A few more piano models would be welcome.

Pianoteq 6 Std, Bluthner, Model B, Grotian, YC5, Hohner, Kremsegg #1, Electric Pianos. Roland FP-90, Windows 10 quad core, Xenyx Q802USB, Yamaha HS8 monitors, Audio Technica
ATH-M50x headphones.

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Electric pianos already had a bunch of improvements for version 6 (so did all other pianos).

beakybird wrote:

Furthermore, how do you manually change the flutes while you're playing?

Quite easily, lowest available E key switches from 8' flute to 4' flute - Organteq Alpha only has two stops. We'll see how the more elaborate version of Organteq handles this... sometime in 2018.


By the way, Organteq is coded by a new developer, seems separate from the core Pianoteq team. So what's wrong in diversifying a bit, then?

Last edited by EvilDragon (07-12-2017 18:22)
Hard work and guts!

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

EvilDragon wrote:

By the way, Organteq is coded by a new developer, seems separate from the core Pianoteq team. So what's wrong in diversifying a bit, then?

Nothing wrong with that. I hope it's a successful venture, and I hope that much is learned that can be applied to the Pianoteq instruments that I play.

Pianoteq 6 Std, Bluthner, Model B, Grotian, YC5, Hohner, Kremsegg #1, Electric Pianos. Roland FP-90, Windows 10 quad core, Xenyx Q802USB, Yamaha HS8 monitors, Audio Technica
ATH-M50x headphones.

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Beakybird: "I am loathe to discourage someone from pursuing their dreams, but as a consumer, a modeled pipe organ is the last thing I'd be interested in. Furthermore, how do you manually change the flutes while you're playing?"

Well, consider:  88 less 61 = 27 keys left over to control presets.  13 notes above the 61 note range and 13 notes above the 61 note range ... and 1 left over for a cancel.  This, of course is just an example ... not even counting that those 27 keys could be programmable just like the thumb pistons on a classic pipe organ or like the preset keys on a Hammond XB-3M.

I am fascinated that Mordartt is doing this.

And all the while, I will be enjoying playing the great piano models.

Kudos to all,

Lanny

Re: Church Organ Add-on?

Hauptwerk software have a option magnification of some controls  for users who have a touch screen monitor, to control the stops. It's a good idea to implement the same on organteq.

On web there are some DIY projects to use 3 cheap 66 keys midi keyboards, and adapt pedal boards from very old elretronic organs, to create a midi organ controller with pedalboards midi controller.

People go to DIY cause the MIDI controller devices for sale are very expansive. Some people direct buy the digital organs, but who intent to buy a complete digital organ in general is not thinking about buy a digital ogan software.

LTECpiano wrote:

Beakybird: "I am loathe to discourage someone from pursuing their dreams, but as a consumer, a modeled pipe organ is the last thing I'd be interested in. Furthermore, how do you manually change the flutes while you're playing?"

Well, consider:  88 less 61 = 27 keys left over to control presets.  13 notes above the 61 note range and 13 notes above the 61 note range ... and 1 left over for a cancel.  This, of course is just an example ... not even counting that those 27 keys could be programmable just like the thumb pistons on a classic pipe organ or like the preset keys on a Hammond XB-3M.

I am fascinated that Mordartt is doing this.

And all the while, I will be enjoying playing the great piano models.

Kudos to all,

Lanny

Last edited by Beto-Music (08-12-2017 15:33)