Releasing resampled commercial set for free?

[Jay1]

Hey Lars,

Seeing as you're in good 'ol Sverige, any chance you can manage to sample the "North German Baroque Organ" in Göteborg some day? (as you might be able to tell, I'm a sucker for these vintage organs). That would really be something!

And BTW nice work on the Burea Sample Set. I've only just tried testing a few stops (haven't even dared to try the extended version yet). Very nice, clean, modern organ. I particularly enjoyed the stereo effects. A hot commodity for us GO users for sure!

Keep up the good work.

John

[L.Palo]

Hi!

I've played the big "North German Baroque" organ in Örgryte (as well as the small one in Haga) church. A very great instrument in every meaning of the word! The mechanics are quite heavy in touch, but the organ produces a wonderful sound indeed!

Unfortunately I think the chances of getting that instrument sampled are slim, but I have good alternatives much closer to where I live.

My next finished sampleset will be a small organ built by Per Zacharias Strand in 1839 that still survives in original state. (More or less, since a blower is introduced... but it's still possible to work the bellows by the old foot lever)

Kind regards

[Ghekorg7]

Thanks Panos!

I'll keep improving the site, and there will be more samplesets coming. I already have a few more organs recorded and another small one is in it's finishing stages!

I'll eventually rebuild the keyboard stack to make my setup even more organ-like. Now the distance between the manuals is too great to be ideal, but it works.

Kind regards

Lars P

You're welcome dear Lars,

Now you hit me hard... new sets are coming ?!
Can't wait...

Hey, drop me a line if you need assiatance with prerelease tests or even looping and in general handling the samples ! I'm in full if you need to.

My friend Spyro works in M-Audio dealer here as a manager, since I saw your kbd stack I'll go and try one keystation .......

best regards
Panos

[giwro]

Being one of those folk who have created a commercial set, I'll weigh in here on a few things....
Is it really "our" work, since it was originally created by an organbuilder?
- Yes. I probably spent somewhere between 300-400 hours on the creation of my set. It is not simply recording some notes, one literally has to "re-craft" the results into something that (hopefully) closely resembles the original. The closest analogy I have is that it is similar to a student copying a painting by a master...
Interestingly enough, now some organbuilders include a contract clause that prohibits sampling (although I doubt it could ever be enforced!)
The sets are too expensive!
- I can understand that... I've complained about it before also. It is a hard decision to come to a price as a sample producer. In many cases, the venue charges very high rental costs (I know of one set that required over $10,000 US in rental). Add travel and other costs, and you must realize this really is a risk on producers part. I chose to set my price lower, since I didn't have high rental costs...
Can I resample a commercial set and release for free?
- Absolutely not. Commercial is just that - something produced for profit. In fact, you are probably technically not even allowed to resample it even for your own private use (although if you use it privately, I doubt anyone would really care)
The evil sample producers don't really give some of the profits back to the church/venue, do they?
- Well, this one has. Really, we're not horrible people, and some of us are actually rather nice (even generous) folk. I know many of the HW sample producers, and I can assure you that if they say they are donating, they really are... I know it seems weird to some of you, but it is true.

Finally, I'd say this - especially as it relates to the price of the sets:
I know that costs near $700-$1000 range seem excessive, and I agree that it makes it difficult for some folks to buy. I think of it this way
- it is much cheaper (and easier) than a trip to the actual venue, plus I can KEEP playing the instrument through the years
- I have found that if I REALLY want something, I can find a way to sacrifice and get it. I may have to actually SAVE money rather than whip out the credit card (but then I appreciate it much more in the end!)
- considering the work (hundreds of hours and in some cases, several million lines of code for the organ definition) I think it is honorable to compensate the producers for their labor.

Cheers,

- G

[L.Palo]

I very much agree with Graham on this subject!

As a sampleset producer I know how much work goes into a finished product. Investements in both time, equipment and software. I don't see any problem that a producer wish to charge for their product. That's something one should respect and of course not violate by copying etc. Other people just make the choice of either paying for the product or say no thank you, I'll pass!

Personally though, I don't think I'll ever charge for any sampleset I make because:

• It's a hobby of mine, not something I need to earn any income from nor want to have the responsibility of unhappy customers complaining (I'll try to make the samplesets as good as possible and appreciate feedback, but I'll work on them when I have time for it)
• Most of the software I use is free (gnu/gpl or other). If the tools are free for me to use, then I can also share the product I've created with them. (seems fair to me)
• I want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy playing organ, and the vpo is one way of achieving it.
• As a professional organist I can choose to record instruments I'm interested in myself and where the owners also rather like the thought of having advertising for free! Thus my own costs are pretty low, and it's a hobby interest for me anyway!

Therefore I choose to support GrandOrgue as best I can. Part of that is providing good samplesets for use with the vpo software (for free)!

Kind regards

[Ghekorg7]

Hallo Lars, Giwro

Agree with both of you, these are the basics on producing and releasing sample sets, commercial or free.

I know how hard labour needed to produce one, for my jOrgan dispositions or models as we call them, hundred hours spent , with the difference I didn't take the samples of original pipes themselves. The rest of the work is the same.
But as I work with free stuff from A to Z, I cannot get any profit from my models , it would't be fair indeed. So I share them and even give some kinda support , changing some things or add one or two features and send patches, if someone asks for. I 've made some two or three sets for GO, still I haven't decide to share and here indeed the work is hard too.

My objection to the commercial side is the high prices. Guys, they are indeed high. Producers can come up with very low peices and get more money, as more buyers than expected will come in.
Example.
Independence Pro 2.5 (now 3.0) with basic library (20GB) was about 200euros. Yellow Tools started lowering the price from time to time, to 100 and lowering till they stoped at 40euros+tax9e= 49 euros !! Now they're talkin' business. I got this imediately. they also gave to these last customers the new 3.0 for free (!!).
See what I mean? I'm shure that with the lowest price they had a hit and more income. The same with EWQL. They now offer stuff for low pricess, still high, but low considering the 1st release(from 2.500$ to 500 0r 700$).

Dear Giwro, I know your set is one of the lowest priced (if not the lowest...) for HW3 format and this also helps my claim. I also happen to know some sets producers and indeed are great guys. We must consider that some of them give away some very high quality organ sets for free......

Now I heard about some church complain that didn't get anything from their sampled organ, but as Lars say, naming the set with the church's name and including photos and info (in my Oberhausbergen set I icluded two photos of Ste.Odile's church on the console!) is a great advertising of both the Church and the organ in the whole world.
Even if I visited Sweeden many times, I never heard of the Burea...
With Lars' set, Burea came to existance for many many people now. There.

But I got the opposite feedback from the curches themselves : they don't like it. No photos on, no samples....... (?!). What to say...

Best regards and merry Christmas to all
Panos

[Jay1]

TBH the prices of commercial sample sets are absolute robbery. It's all very good and well that you have the sampled organ at home to play whenever you like, but that doesn't mean you have the actual organ in your house. The comparison is a bit silly. At the end of the day it's just a bunch of digital sound samples. It's just bad business to charge that kind of money.