[HN Gopher] Play the Virtual Organ from Arp Schnitger
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       Play the Virtual Organ from Arp Schnitger
        
       Author : ohjeez
       Score  : 118 points
       Date   : 2025-03-23 18:31 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.orgelstadt-hamburg.de)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.orgelstadt-hamburg.de)
        
       | p0w3n3d wrote:
       | That's such a great project! But I'd love to see a proper VST
       | with it, that allows voice mixing. The power of organs lays in
       | the analog voice mixing (not simple on off, and not one voice
       | exclusively)
        
         | satiric wrote:
         | https://www.hauptwerk.com/ is paid software but has a few
         | Schnitger organs, although not the one shown off here.
        
           | tgv wrote:
           | There's also Sweelinq (https://sweelinq.com; subscription
           | model), and Grand Orgue (free, but cumbersome; only a few
           | worthwhile sample-sets), and there are some instruments for
           | Kontakt.
        
       | satiric wrote:
       | Sounds great, even from so limited a platform. One octave is
       | enough to have some fun with, if you're creative. Would have been
       | nice to be able to combine the stops, but the plenum at least
       | gives you a solid sound. You can really hear the character of the
       | organ.
        
       | tgv wrote:
       | You can play it with your ASCII keyboard as well, as if it were a
       | piano keyboard. It shows the German layout, but my Intl English
       | keyboard works just as well.
       | 
       | Should you be so inclined: (short) k u (long) k (short) u y g f
       | (long) d f.
        
         | DrSAR wrote:
         | very clever, thank you
        
       | josephernest wrote:
       | Oh something in my niche ! I produce French pipe organ sample
       | sets for a living : https://www.jeuxdorgues.com
       | 
       | It's an extroardinary journey to record an organ, process the
       | thousands of WAV files and design a virtual organ model.
        
         | tptacek wrote:
         | What! For a living? Say more!
        
           | HPsquared wrote:
           | People do that with pianos and other instruments too. Some of
           | these sample packs are very expensive. It is a small market
           | though, I suppose.
        
         | vunderba wrote:
         | Very cool! I'd be curious what you think of Modartt's recent
         | attempts at physical models of organs and how they compare to
         | more traditional sampler approaches.
         | 
         | https://www.modartt.com/organteq_physical_modeling
        
           | smj-edison wrote:
           | Not OP, but I've worked on programming my own organ software
           | before. I'd say physical modelling really cool tech, but the
           | question is whether it makes a significant auditory
           | difference.
           | 
           | The thing is organs are a lot easier to sample compared to
           | something like a violin. I'm oversimplifying, but it's mainly
           | just note on, note off, vs lots of articulations where
           | physical modelling is more beneficial. (Yes, there's wind
           | sag, and wind delay, and regulators, but most organs
           | specifically have things to avoid those artifacts so they'd
           | only show up on more niche organs imo.) I've had great
           | success simulating tremulants by just using FM demodulation
           | to reconstruct the pitch and volume effects from tremmed
           | samples[1]. Release samples are also difficult to match with
           | the current phase, but I was also able to mitigate that with
           | a single bin DFT + crossfaded.
           | 
           | Another issue with physical modelling is it's decently CPU
           | intensive, which is tricky when you have 700 simultaneous
           | notes on bigger organs. So, it's definitely cool, but the
           | question is whether it's significantly better than current
           | sample-based technology. It could potentially reproduce some
           | of the more strange interactions, but those interactions
           | aren't necessarily wanted in the first place.
           | 
           | EDIT: one thing that is nice about physical modelling is it's
           | a lot easier to voice (modify) a pipe to the sound one wants.
           | I think with some special filtering (comb filter for even
           | harmonic attenuation, shelf for augmenting the harmonic
           | series trajectory) voicing could also be satisfactory with
           | traditional sampling (hauptwerk does some of this, but I
           | think I could make it even more flexible).
           | 
           | [1] https://github.com/smj-edison/sample-analysis
        
             | HPsquared wrote:
             | From my experience with the piano one, the "tweaking the
             | sound" aspect is where I've got the most out of it. Even
             | just for awareness. But yeah, the physical modelling
             | approach is probably better suited to something like piano
             | with all its interacting resonances (and the way a tuner
             | can change things around on a real piano).
        
             | mattgreenrocks wrote:
             | Physical modeling seems to work really well for guitar/bass
             | amplifiers. The Fractal Audio products are all based around
             | simulating the various components of an amp and the ways
             | they interact with each other, often with very unexpected
             | results. They've been pushing in this direction for quite
             | awhile, but I think it is more promising than capture-based
             | tech ultimately.
             | 
             | The modeling is so accurate that it ends up replicating
             | even the unintended side effects of amps, such as ghost
             | notes (false notes being produced due to the power supply).
             | The tech note explains it better than I can:
             | https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/ghost-notes.126903/
        
           | tgv wrote:
           | Not the one you asked, but I have both Hauptwerk and
           | Organteq, and the former beats the latter on everything
           | expect cost, memory usage, start-up time. Organteq sounds
           | artificial, and its reverb doesn't make it any better. Ok,
           | you can tweak a lot, but the ensemble sound is unconvincing,
           | and the registration choices are too limited.
        
         | mock-possum wrote:
         | What?? That's such a specific thing to do!
        
         | wglb wrote:
         | Let's hear more!
        
           | josephernest wrote:
           | You can hear many MP3 examples here:
           | https://www.jeuxdorgues.com/jeux-d-orgues-4-lachaisedieu/
           | 
           | All are played with the virtual organ, what do you think?
           | 
           | I'll do a post soon with more stories about this project
           | itself (that I started long ago)!
        
         | isoprophlex wrote:
         | I know what a WAV file is, and I've even made some electronic
         | music myself.
         | 
         | Yet my brain errored out and for a while I thought you made
         | samples of pipe organs: little mini-organs to take home with
         | you, to try out before you buy the big one.
         | 
         | "Hello! Can I interest you in trying one of our sample organs?"
        
           | wlonkly wrote:
           | You've reinvented the portative!
        
         | pontusrehula wrote:
         | I'm interested in your choice to focus on French organs. Do you
         | specifically aim to focus on French organs and not those of
         | German type? Or is it more like a matter of convenience due to
         | geography?
        
       | smj-edison wrote:
       | This is super cool! I've advocated for spreading the organ to a
       | modern audience through websites before, so it's great to see
       | someone doing this.
       | 
       | In fact, I've been working off and on on my own virtual pipe
       | organ software[1], except based around modular synthesis. I've
       | found most modular synthesis engines don't have great support for
       | blended midi and audio nodes, and often don't have good resources
       | management, so I started from scratch.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/wwtos/mjuo
        
         | coldcode wrote:
         | Long ago I sometimes played the organ. There is nothing more
         | amazing than being alone in a large dark church, playing a pipe
         | organ at full volume, feeling the vibrations. It's the original
         | heavy metal. No other instrument can duplicate that feeling.
        
           | smj-edison wrote:
           | This is true--but that's something that's not very
           | discoverable. I think getting to mess around with an organ
           | online would pique someone's interest enough to seek out at
           | in-person concert when they find that inevitably their
           | speakers aren't good enough.
        
       | Metacelsus wrote:
       | At first I thought it was about the biologist Arp Schnittger:
       | https://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=tvLQFnwAAAAJ&hl=en
        
       | jll29 wrote:
       | Beautiful sound - could anyone here point me to a method to
       | upload such sounds onto standard keyboards (e.g. Yamaha PSR or
       | Casio CT series), please? Thanks i.a.
        
       | snickmy wrote:
       | Went to the demo, played some basic counterpoint, probably some
       | poorly recalled lines from Bach, and I always get surprised how
       | well the music of that time fits the instrument capabilities.
        
       | Eduard wrote:
       | my keyboard apparently only allows to press three keys
       | simultaneously. But when I switch browser tabs/windows while
       | pressing a key, the keyup event apparently is not send to the
       | previously focused window. For this virtual organ, this means it
       | keeps playing the tone and therefore allowing to play more than
       | three tones.
        
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