I have been collecting organ samples for over a year now (the free ones) as the commercial sets I really want (naturally) are all the ones that are close to $1K (doesn't that figure?) I still have the idea to either purchase Hauptwerk (if I can ever get it working totally right for me). I have MyOrgan, jorgan, Miditzer, Tocatta, Organ Assist and have even gone so far as to get loads of .gig files from the Miditzer/GSO and UGSF ranks. On giganews I found an old copy of Gigastudio 3 (can't find v4 of that program yet). But there is an interesting site for a VTPO here:
http://www.golfcap-rouge.qc.ca/mdz/intro.asp that has some downloads and also this site:
http://www.gino-midi.nl/EN/indexEngels.htm for some excellent ideas/sources, etc.
www.virtual-organs.com has a special during the month of April whereby they are selling a beautiful dutch organ sample set for $75 Euros. (Noorderkirk Reil HW1). They have downloadable mp3s to listen to the quality of the samples. Another great source for info/downloads is:
http://prosites-allmanmusic.homestead.com/JOrganinfo.html
It takes a lot of looking around, reading in just about every VPO/VTPO forum for links, but with all the free programmes out there, I'm hoping to be able to put together my own working organ if I can't get Hauptwerk to work for me. After all, it's a huge expense if it doesn't really work the way I can either use it or understand it. But, I am making progress.
One last note, I just purchased SampleLord, which plays SF2 files, gig files, and just about every sample type out there (other than Native Instruments, which BTW, also has some nice pipe organs if you do some searching). With the soundfonts, you can select the stops contained within the soundfonts. Very cool, actually. And for the most basic of setups, there is always organ tool and organizer (
www.organtool.nl). No virtual console, just select a soundfont, check off which stops you want, and play on whichever keyboard you have connected to your computer. Like I said, it's very basic, but free and gives the illusion at least.
I also just purchased a stand for 3 keyboards and have my Behringer foot control with 2 swell shoes and 10 "toe pistons" that I intend to utilize for my project. This will have to make do until I can find someone to help me gut/modify my Hammond for my VPO. If nothing else, at least I now have a 2 octave pedalboard which seems to be the most costly part of the setup, anyway.
Good luck with your project. Will keep you all informed on my progress. I'll also post more links to samples as I find them. I have to clean up my bookmarks so I can actually find what I have saved.