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A free virtual organ

el_supremo

New member
While I was googling for stuff related to "midi" I came upon a site which has a free virtual organ. The file is 600+MB and over 1GB when decompressed. It is only available via bittorrent so you have to have a program like Azureus/Vuse to get it. When I downloaded it there was only one site seeding the file. I will try to remember to keep Vuse running on my computer so that I will also seed the file, which should speed up the download for others.
http://www.appletonit.com.au/nickspage/organsamplesets_index.html

Pete
 

ggoode.sa

New member
Hi Pete,
This is a great church organ for use with MyOrgan. For those that don't know this one - it is from the Anglican St Stephens Church in Penrith, Australia. The set creator, Nick Appleton, is currently working on another free set which will hopfully be ready in the next few months.
Enjoy!
GrahamG
 

greatcyber

New member
There's really no need to go that torrent route as that is a good way to open your computer up to all sorts of nasties if you are not careful. The same sample set (among a whole mess of others) are available at Crumhorn-Labs. http://www.crumhorn-labs.com/Hauptwerk-SampleSets.shtml

You can download all of the free samples and put together a nice organ of your own, which if I'm not mistaken, is just what our illustrious Jean-Paul has done with MyOrgan.

BTW, anything that can be downloaded as a torrent is also available as an NZB file from news groups (i.e. giganews.com) and you can download a gig in 20 minutes. (at least with DSL).

Just thought you might like the extra offerings here.

Check 'em out. I love the Ghent Carillon.
 

el_supremo

New member
The same sample set (among a whole mess of others) are available at Crumhorn-Labs. http://www.crumhorn-labs.com/Hauptwerk-SampleSets.shtml
Don't know how I missed that one. It is the same thing as the one available via bittorrent but it is only about half the size of the torrent file.


You can download all of the free samples and put together a nice organ of your own, which if I'm not mistaken, is just what our illustrious Jean-Paul has done with MyOrgan.
Yep, I bought the Kitchener sample sets and then added all the pedal stops from the Jeux d'Orgues set which gives it more oooomph. I've also added JPV's Quintaton 8' which, with Flute 4', sounds good (to my ears) in Vierne's Berceuse.

Pete
 

greatcyber

New member
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.
 
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el_supremo

New member
the commercial sets I really want (naturally) are all the ones that are close to $1K (doesn't that figure?)
No kidding. I made the mistake of listening to the Mulet Carillon Sortie demo of the Notre Dame de Metz set from Milan Digital. I fell in love. It is a staggering sound, especially when I blast it through my stereo speakers - I can *feel* the music!
But, unfortunately, it also has a staggering price - about $1350US for the sound set with HW3 AE bundled in. Even then I wouldn't be finished because my current computer hasn't got the oomph to do that set justice so I'd have to get a new computer and a decent sound card.
I can probably afford it, but I really can't justify it to myself when I can't play well. I only had two years of piano lessons when I was young and have done very little practice since. I've promised myself that if I practice and can play a few pieces decently by next summer, I'll allow myself to go mad and buy HW3 and that set. With any luck, by that time this computer will have died and I will have had to buy a new, bigger one :grin:

Thanks for those additional links. I'll check them out.

Pete
 

greatcyber

New member
The Ghent Carillon is a free sample set and sounds wonderful. It sounds like we're in the same boat when it comes to taste in samples. I don't even have a sound card, just a stac 9200 sigmatel HD sound chip. It produces awesome sound. I did buy an external usb Creative 5.1 surround sound card, but the sound breaks up and I uninstalled it and my sound is much better just using the chipset onboard. I have harman/kardon desk sticks with a subwoofer attached to my earphone jack and they produce a very nice sound. My laptop is only 2 years old and I had it built for multimedia, but more for video processing and at that time had never heard of VPO/VTPO or I would have had it built a little differently. So I'll be listing my Audigy surround sound usb sound card on Craig's List soon and most likely will get an audigy card that fits into one of the card reader slots for better sound.

What I can tell you, however, is that the more forums you join, the better your chances of getting your hands on some uploaded samples by members who are only too happy to share their finds as well as samples they have put together. All perfectly legal. Of course, as you live in Canada, there isn't any problem with using P2P file sharing services anyway. I believe we are the only country in the west where this is still legal and it is so nice to be able to try things out to see if they fill your needs. Then you have the choice of either purchasing a licensed copy so you are entitled to free updates. It has saved me money in the past when I have tried a program and found out it wasn't really what I wanted, I just delete the programme and I'm not out any money.

To see some of the hundreds of categories of what is available on my particular newsgroup, visit www.binsearch.info and then seach newsgroups. I think you will be amazed. But, just as with torrents, make sure you have a good anti virus programme as some people intentionally like to add some nasties. As long as you verify a program before you run an executable file, you're good to go. And, as in the case of gigastudio - a programme that was wonderful but development stopped a few years ago and there is no longer support, some of the newsgroups have these old programmes. But I did just read that Garritan (makers of Garritan Person Orchestra, etc.) bought the rights to gigastudio and it will be making an appearance again (hopefully) not too far off in the future. I'll be right in line to buy it as any sample of .gig ilk that I have heard to date sounds magnificent. I would say that now I have about 600 gig of samples sounds - even a stradivari violin programme that you can see on youtube. Simply wonderful.

Happy searching.
 
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greatcyber

New member
Error in Link

I just saw that this link was not working in the above thread, so let me try again. http://virtual-organs.com/

This is the site for the organ samples of the Reil organ, plus the extension. I downloaded it and it sounds fabulous. The pedal sound so real I can hardly believe it.

FYI.
 
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