What is a sample set?

What is a sample set?

A sample set is generally considered a collection of related audio recordings (samples).

With respect to a virtual pipe organ sample set entails the integration of sound recordings and organ definitions that are required to be able to play a specific organ virtually. It includes all sounds and also functional, logical connections that are necessary to represent a virtual organ. In today's common practice, are mostly the sounds of any pipe and almost any noise, such as wind engine or Keyboards, recorded separately (sampled) and summarized after appropriate workup in a sample set, which can then be played as a virtual organ.

Part of each sample set is (min.) a so-called organ definition file (ODF). This describes the technical functional relationships between individual works, pipes, wind chests, keyboards, tracker Actions etc. of an organ and is designed in each case for the format of a particular virtual organ software (eg. Hauptwerk-ODF or GrandOrgue-ODF).

There are now a large number of sample sets of different original pipe organs of different styles and epochs of organ building. Also very famous organs are there already as sample sets, such as by Silbermann, Cavaillé Coll, Schnitger or Walcker organs.