Samplesets

What is a sample set?

Generally speaking, a sample set is a collection of related sound recordings (samples).

In relation to a virtual pipe organ, Sampleset means the collection of sound recordings and organ definitions required to play a specific organ virtually. It therefore includes all sounds and also functional, logical connections that are necessary to represent an organ virtually. In today's common practice, the tones of each individual pipe and almost every noise, such as wind motors or keyboards, are recorded individually (sampled) and, after appropriate processing, combined in a sample set that can then be played as a virtual organ.

A component of each sample set is (at least) a so-called organ definition file (ODF). This describes the technical functional relationships between the individual works, pipes, windchests, keyboards, actions, etc. of an organ and is designed for the format of a specific virtual organ software (e.g. Hauptwerk-ODF or GrandOrgue-ODF).

There are now many sample sets of the most diverse original pipe organs of different styles and eras of organ building. Even very famous organs are currently available as sample sets, such as Silbermann, Cavaille Coll, Schnitger or Walcker organs.


Which sample sets are currently available?

The largest range of sample sets currently exists for the Hauptwerk program. But also for GrandOrgue there are already a lot of nice sample sets - for the most part even free of charge.


In the following, an attempt will be made over time to create an overview of the abundance of available sample sets:


What sample sets are there for Hauptwerk?

Here is a list of sample sets for Hauptwerk from the Dutch site PCorqan.com

own listing is to follow


What sample sets are there for GrandOrgue?

Click here for a list of free sample sets for GrandOrgue

own listing is to follow

Which sample set manufacturers are there?

Click here for al list of all Sample Set manufacturers

Is it possible to use Hauptwerk sample sets with GrandOrgue as well?

Basically, the GrandOrgue software is largely compatible with Hauptwerk when it comes to playing the individual samples. However, this only applies to unencrypted sample files in .wav format. Unfortunately, many samples for Hauptwerk are only available in the encrypted .hbw or .hbx file format. For legal reasons, this format may only be used by Hauptwerk. Therefore, using such encrypted sample sets with GrandOrgue is unfortunately not possible.

But there are numerous, also very large and beautiful sample sets that were made for Hauptwerk and do not use encrypted sample files. These can in principle be used with GrandOrgue. The prerequisite, however, is that there is a corresponding organ definition file (ODF) in GrandOrgue format. Since so far only a few manufacturers also include GrandOrgue ODF files with their sample sets, we have specialized in creating and distributing such organ definitions on our organ page. These are made available here in the download area for all members of the organ site free of charge.


Which Hauptwerk sample sets are unencrypted and could also be used with GrandOrgue with the appropriate ODF?

Our member OHRGANUM has given some thought to this and has made a list of it for us:

Many thanks to OHRGANUM for the effort :-thanks:

Unfortunately, the display of this list is a bit more confusing than it is in the original, since our software suppresses multiple spaces when formatting. We will consider converting the whole thing into a different table form.


to be continued