Silver Octopus Studios
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Silver Octopus Studios
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FREE DOWNLOAD OF STUDIO 24 (12 STOPS) NOW AVAILABLE FROM THE HW WEBSITE THE STUDIO 24 IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THE STUDIO 40 IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THE STUDIO 50 IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THE STUDIO 70 IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THE LARGER STUDIO LIBRARIES WILL BE AVAILABLE IN THE NEAR FUTURE. THE 80 AND 100 STANDARD LIBRARIES SHOULD BE AVAILABLE BY LATE 2011 FOR THE 80 AND EARLY 2012 FOR THE 100 THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE FATHER WILLIS SERIES LIBRARIES The Father Willis series of libraries are based on samples taken from original Father Willis instruments including those in St George's Hall, Liverpool, Huddersfield Town Hall and other smaller church instruments. With the exception of a few stops that have been introduced on the larger instruments so that the models presented are more in keeping with the requirements of today's instruments, most stops remain at their original pitch and compass. An enormous amount of care has been taken to ensure that all stops no matter from where sourced, blend together as if they were from the same instrument. Where possible, unaltered and original Father Willis (FW) pipework of the same period has been used but it is not always easy to find a stop in complete balance (or indeed, satisfactory working order throughout) on some of the instruments that were sampled. Therefore, it has been necessary to substitute carefully matched ranks or parts of ranks from other sources in one or two stops in order to provide more comprehensive and playable specifications where this has been found to be the case. Where pipework from other sources has been used, it has been carefully analysed directly against original Father Willis samples and edited to match. This is not dissimilar to what a pipe organ builder will do when restoring or rebuilding an instrument with replacement pipes where they are damaged or beyond repair. There are two types of set available, the STANDARD dry sets are devoid of any reverberation and have been sampled very close up. They are suitable for those who wish to add their own reverberation or for those wishing to install a Hauptwerk system in a suitable acoustic either to blend with existing pipes or as a standalone instrument. The STUDIO wet sets have been recorded with a moderate but usable reverberation tail and at a greater distance away from the pipes. They are therefore more suited to home installations or churches with a very dry acoustic. At the bottom of the page can be found further details about some of the instruments used in the sample sets. The two series consists of a number of differently sized instruments which are designed to be representative of typical instruments found throughout the United Kingdom. In each case they are presented as complete instruments and not as unfinished parts of an instrument (excluding the 12 stop free trial). In some cases, extra stops that would not have been included in the original specification from the last half of the 19th Century have been provided (they don't have to be used). The reason for this is that almost every original Father Willis instrument with very rare exceptions, will have had these extra stops added as a matter of course during rebuilding either by later generations of the Willis family or other builders in order to satisfy the changing fashions and needs over the last 100 - 160 years. Although the organs presented are not specific existing instruments as such they have been carefully modeled on real instruments. Many instruments exhibit almost identical specifications and indeed, identical scales, pressure and voicing and it is often only the acoustics of the building together with the balancing and regulation for the building that they are situated in that gives them their unique sound. Thanks to the flexibility of HAUPTWERK and these sample sets, it is possible to recreate almost any organ ever built by Father Willis (either existing or no longer in existence) by careful balancing and regulation together with added reverberation modeled on the building in question. The Father Willis Studio (Wet) and Standard (Dry) series instruments are shown below. Please click on the relevant link for further details of specifications etc. 1. SMALL CHAPEL ORGAN: 12 stops, 2 Manuals & Pedal - Free Download available from the Hauptwerk web site on the instrument downloads page. (Suggested contribution of £50.00 if you want to continue using it after a reasonable trial period). AVAILABLE NOW - SEE ABOVE 2. SMALL CHURCH ORGAN: 24 Stops 2 Manuals & Pedal - £100 AVAILABLE NOW - CLICK TO THE LEFT 3. MEDIUM CHURCH ORGAN: 32 Stops, 2 or 3 Manuals & Pedal - £150 RELEASE SUBJECT TO DEMAND 4. LARGE CHURCH ORGAN: 40 Stops, 3 Manuals & Pedal - £175 AVAILABLE NOW - CLICK TO THE LEFT 5. MEDIUM CATHEDRAL / TOWN HALL ORGAN: 50 Stops, 3 or 4 Manual & Pedal - £225 AVAILABLE NOW * * * * * THE FOLLOWING SETS ARE DOWNLOADABLE TRIALS FROM THE HAUPTWERK WEBSITE. THEY ARE FULLY PLAYABLE, FULL COMPASS, COMPLETE INSTRUMENTS BUT HAVE A CUT OUT AFTER 30 SECONDS WHICH RESETS AFTER SEVERAL SECONDS. ONCE A DECISION HAS BEEN MADE TO PURCHASE ANY SET AND PAYMENT HAS BEEN MADE, AN UNLOCK KEY FILE IS SENT TO ENABLE THE SETS TO BE PLAYED AS NORMAL. PLEASE EMAIL NEIL CRAIG AT craigworld@gmail.com WITH YOUR PROOF OF PAYMENT AND HE WILL THEN SEND ON THE NECESSARY KEY FILE. 6. LARGE CATHEDRAL / TOWN HALL ORGAN: 70 Stops, 4 Manual & Pedal - £325 AVAILABLE NOW 7. CONCERT HALL ORGAN: 80 Stops, 4 Manuals& Pedal - £425 AVAILABLE XMAS 2001 8. MEDIUM CONCERT HALL ORGAN: 100 Stops, 4 and 5 Manuals & Pedal - £525 AVAILABLE EARLY 2012 9. LARGE CONCERT HALL ORGAN: 120 Stops, 4 and 5 Manuals and Pedal - £700 TO BE FINALISED Upgrade path = For instruments up to 50 stops, the upgrade cost is the difference in price between any set plus £25 to cover our costs. This is made up of the dongle upgrade fee as charged by MDA together with the several disks required plus printing, packaging and postage to anywhere in the world. Upgrades can be supplied on other hardware such as HD if required, please contact us for details if you are interested. FOR THE 70 STOP AND ABOVE, THE UPGRADE PRICE IS MERELY THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE LOWER SET AND WHICHEVER MODEL IS CHOSEN. THESE LARGER SETS ARE AVAILABLE AS DOWNLOADS BUT SHOULD A HARD COPY BE REQUIRED, THERE IS A CHARGE OF £10 TO COVER POSTAGE, MANUFACTURE ETC. * * * * * N.B. THE STANDARD SERIES UP TO THE 64 STOP, ARE AVAILABLE NOW. THE 80 & 100 STOP MODELS SHOULD BE AVAILABLE END 2011 OR EARLY 2012 The Father Willis Dry series is as follows:- 1. EVALUATION SET 10 stops, 2 Manual & Pedal - £50 2. 24 STOP: 2 Manuals & Pedal - £100 3. 30 STOP: 2 Manuals & Pedal - £125 4. 36 STOP: 2 and 3 Manuals & Pedal - £150 5. 48 STOP: 3 Manual & Pedal - £250 6. 64 STOP: 3 and 4 Manual & Pedal - £350 7. 80 STOP: 4 Manual & Pedal - £550 8. 100 STOP: 4 and 5 Manual & Pedal - £650 9. 125 STOP: 4 and 5 Manual & Pedal - £750 Upgrade path = Difference in cost between any set plus £10 to cover our costs. This includes the several disks required plus printing, packaging and postage to anywhere in the world. There is no dongle fee. STANDARD SET DEMOS The following demos have been recorded directly from Hauptwerk. No alterations have been made via the voicing tools in Hauptwerk. For the wet demos, conventional soundcard reverberation has been used as opposed to any specialist convolution reverberation software. Some demos use a slightly stretched temperament as an alternative to the standard A440 Equal Temperament. 1. Cook Fanfare MP3 (Wet) MP3. 48 Stop and above. Cook Fanfare (Dry) MP3. 48 Stop and above. 2. Bonnet; Elves (Wet) MP3. 48 Stop and above except Orchestral Oboe in one phrase Bonnet; Elves (Dry) MP3. As above 3. Javier de SanJose: Qui pascitur inter lilia (Wet) MP3. 36 Stop and above and minus one Celeste on the other lesser spec instruments. Javier de SanJose: Qui pascitur inter lilia (Dry) MP3. As above 4. Maleingreau: Toccata from Suite for Organ Dry MP3. 48 Stop and above minus the strings. 5. ASZ Excert MP3 (Wet) 80 or 100 Stop 6. Prelude in C MP3 (Wet) All Models 7. A Minor Fugue BWV 543 MP3 (Wet) 30 Stop and all larger specs. A Minor Fugue BWV 543 MP3 (Dry) As above * * * * * * * UPGRADE PATH Any purchaser of one of the smaller sets in this series can upgrade to a larger set for the difference in the price between the two plus £10.00 for administration. CUSTOM INSTRUMENTS It is also possible to have an instrument based on the series tailored to individual needs. Please contact us for further details. In most cases, the difference in cost is that of the extra stops plus a small fee for the creation of a new ODF / CODM file if it is required. COUPLERS etc. A very full selection of couplers is provided for each model. However, in order to keep the aesthetics of some of the consoles within sensible bounds, some couplers and controls may not be shown in the single screen or split screen graphics. They are of course available in the controls screen and can be set up under the combination pistons as desired. Due to the nature of the CODM and the sample sets in general, any extra couplers or controls can be added or subtracted quite easily by adjusting the CODM for individual tastes. Likewise, the layouts or stop nomenclature of each console can be changed in the same way. ABOUT THE INSTRUMENTS USED The organ at St George's Hall Liverpool is still considered to be one of the finest organs in the world albeit in poor condition but gradually improving as funds become available. Although the pipework has been rescaled at various times over the years, it has always remained 100% Willis. The organ at Huddersfield Town Hall started life in Wales before moving to Huddersfield and it is difficult to tell what is from the two different Conacher (Con) firms - James or Peter - involved in its history and what is Father Willis. certainly, all of the Conacher pipework where used would have been extensively revoiced along Willis lines. It is still a fine and famous concert organ and was fully rebuilt in 1980 by Harrison and Harrison who made few specific tonal changes in the main but did add a new Positive division. Conacher was eventually amalgamated into the Willis company. Apart from the mixtures which I believe were most likely remodeled from the standard Tierce mixtures to Quint mixtures** at some time, the 1894 Willis is otherwise a tonally untouched 3 manual and pedal instrument in an English country parish church. There are a few of these gems left and they provide perhaps the most accurate idea of what an original Father Willis would have sounded like. It is typical of many Father Willis church instruments of medium size - sufficient for the purpose but lacking some of the "fancies" of the larger concert and cathedral instruments. ** The original 17:19:22 became 15:19:22. The Brindley and Foster ? instrument also started life in Wales. It is very difficult to categorise the pipework and recent maintenance work on the instrument has shown that it is not what was originally thought. Despite the somewhat unknown origins of the instrument, some of the stops are exceptionally fine. More recent research has shown that it is only the casework that is Brindley and Foster and that the String stops were actually made by Hill. A considerable amount of the remaining pipework is by Griffen and Stroud. The Conacher (Con) is a very fine and untouched (though sadly un-maintained) 3 manual instrument in Derbyshire. The pipework is of superb quality with high tin content made by Zimmerman of Paris. The Almeuza is a 2 manual instrument in Sanguesa (Zangoza), Navarra, Spain built in 1956 for the historic church of Santa Maria. The Basque builder Almeuza has been responsible for work in most of the Spanish instruments both in churches and cathedrals at some time or another and the quality of their pipework is generally good. If there is such a thing as a Spanish Romantic organ then Almeuza can certainly be described as working to this school of voicing. Finally, one or two stops come from the Kenneth Jones / Nicholson instrument featured in the TRIO series with some revoicing to make them blend in with the other Romantic stops of this series. The remaining pipework samples were recorded directly from the voicing machine using various stock pipework at George Sixsmith & Son organ builders. Some of the pipework sampled is from the former St. Lawrence Jewry Church in London. Our thanks go to all of those who have allowed us access to their instruments for this project. Prices for the series are based on the amount of ranks rather than the amount of stops and work out at approximately £5 per rank.
The samples are accurately tuned throughout to A440. Users wanting a more natural detuning can adjust this to taste for each stop using the voicing tools included with Hauptwerk. Alternatively, an overall detune either equally or scaled across the stop can be achieved by altering the relevant parameter in each stop via the CODM. There is also the additional possibility of using an alternative temperament such as a stretched one but this will affect all stops equally. The Standard sets samples are designed for use in a building with considerable reverberation where distance allows the samples to develop their character within the building. Playing these samples without reverberation tends to be quite up front and personal as though sitting in the organ but it is also ideal for practice. No artificial reverb has been added so that users can introduce their own or allow the building in which it is played to take care of this aspect. As and when Hauptwerk IV is released, this software will provide convolution reverberation and many other features. Unlike many of the other libraries available, there is no limitation as to the use of the STANDARD libraries in either a domestic situation or in a church or similar building. Users have permission to alter the various parameters of the stops in order to obtain a balance and sound suited to their particular preferences. The files are presented in wav. format unencrypted in order to allw editing via third party software such as AUDIGY, COOLEDIT etc. However, the recording of sounds produced in this library is limited to performances of musical pieces only. It is not permissible to record or re-record individual notes in any way for the purpose of creating a new library or stop except by prior permission from Silver Octopus.
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