This is a complete 68 Stop, three (or four) manual modern organ based on a real instrument in Friesach, Austria. The original samples were recorded and processed by Piotr Grabowski in Poland. Piotr offers an excellent free 44 stop sample set which is faithful to the actual organ. This extended version manipulates his original samples in order to form a larger, more versatile instrument. It is a standard, AGO compliant, three manual virtual organ with Pedal, Swell, Great, and Choir divisions as well as the original Solo division which can be played from any other manual. There are three stop screens: a combined screen, as well as left and right versions.
Note: The Carillon stop borrows samples from the Ghent Belfry Carillon sample set. The Ghent Belfry set must be installed before loading the version 2 of FriesachExtend. It can be downloaded below.
Click the icons below to view the layouts of the three stop screens:
(Extensions are circled on the the first illustration)
Here is the installation file for the extended 68 stop version. The file is only about 17MB because it contains no new samples.
Friesach Extended version 2
The extended Friesach organ contains all the original stops grouped the same as Piotr's original sample set. This extension requires that the original Friesach sample set be already installed. It is available at: Piotr Grabowski Website
The extensions here are really just add-ons to the renamed divisions of original 44 stop sample set. There are more couplers and the Swell, Choir and Solo divisions are all under expression.
The Solo division is set up to be coupled to one of the other three manuals. However, it could be assigned to a fourth hardware manual if one is available.
Audio/Video Test - my arrangement of Komm Süsser Tod (Come Sweetest Death, Friesach Extended.
Yes, I know I play it too fast!)
Video test
The current version number appears at the bottom right of the console page.
Version 1.1 installed the exact voicing of the original sample set.
Version 1.2 adds the tracker noise to all manuals.
Version 1.32 (August 2018) fixes the low D of the Pedal Posaune16, 056g# of the Swell Bourdon16, and several other defective samples.
Version 2.0 (March 2019) adds the Ghent Belfry Carillon.
Version 2.1 (August 2020) corrects the organ ID to 2554 to ensure that it will not interfere with any other installation..
If you have no interest in the Carillon, or don't want to download it for some reason, here is version 1.33
It installs as organ number 2553 and will not interfere with any other installation.
Friesach Extended version 1.33
The Ghent Belfry Carillon:
This is not really an organ, but it can be played like one. The Ghent Belfry is located in Belgium and is quite famous. Belfry of Ghent.
Audio samples from the Ghent Carillon
(1) Simple Demo Ring
(2) In Memoriam - John Courter
The Carillon piece "In Memoriam" was written by John Courter to commemorate the 9/11 tragedy. This performance is courtesy of Johnathan Prince.
Note: This version of the carillon does not sound at the actual Belgium belfry pitch. It has been re-tuned to approximately A440 pitch.
The rank may thus be extracted and added to any Hauptwerk organ as a Chimes stop.
(This sample set must be loaded as the Carillon stop for the exended Friesach and Rosales organs. )
Walcker opus 1747 mod 2013:
This a small organ with a big sound. It has remarkable versatility owing, in part, to extensions that were added in 2013. The lush sound results from the spacious acoustics of the church, which is located in Wildervank, Netherlands. The big sound is aided by extra octaves on each rank which are utilized through the manual super couplers.
The original organ was installed in 1913 and was upgraded in 2013 with a nice Oboe and Vox Celeste. This sample set is quite faithful to the present 2013 implementation. I have resisted the temptation to add a lot of fake extensions since the organ is quite versatile without them.
Click the icons to view the stop layout:
Here is an audio sample using the Oboe for a solo voice. BWV-639
and some Handel using a variety of solo registrations. Silent Worship - Handel
and a Bach chorale (BWV 706) from page 73 of Clarence Dickinson's organ book. Liebster Jesu, wir sint hier
and another Bach chorale from page 88. Ah, What Shall I Poor Sinner Do?
and a grandiose parphrase of Sweelinck's "Ballo del Granduca" Ballo del Grancduca - Sweelinck
Here is the complete installation file. The file is about 1033MB and will require about 2.1 GB to fully load in Hauptwerk.
Walcker Organ opus 1737 mod 2013
The real organ does not have a modern combination action but does have dedicated pistons labled P, MF, F, and T (tutti). These are included with suggested settings which can be re-programmed. The real organ has a "VC" piston which can be programmed by special switches above each stop tab. I have instead included 8 General pistons. The real organ has a blind Crescendo pedal and I have incorporated one which is easily re-programmed on a separate Crescendo page.
This sample set is essentially a "rescue" of early samples recorded by Virtual-Organs.nl in the early days of HW-1. In those days multiple releases were not known and sample preparation was not up to modern standards. This sample set has true short releases prepared by a complex convolution process. There are also many repairs to the original HW-1 era samples and associated long releases. For example, hundreds of release points were set improperly when it was fashionable to let software guess where the sample release occurred. As a result, many releases began part way down the real release tail. This robbed early sample sets of reverberation fullness and also deleted the end transients, which are necessary to give pipes realistic definition.
This organ is free but not "freeware". The original samples were recorded by Virtual-Organs.nl and provided under a Creative Commons license. The license extends to my samples since they are derived from them. The license is included in the sample set and essentially means that the organ cannot be used for commercial use and that any derivations of it are also subject to the Creative Commons license.
Pitea School of Music Organ:
This is a complete 41 Stop, three manual modern organ which is located at a University in Sweden. The original samples were recorded in Hauptwerk-1 format by Lars Palo. He intended them to be used for open source organ software which did not support multiple releases. The original organ samples have less than 2 seconds reverberation time, but short releases still make a significant improvement to the overall sound. Various tweaks and corrections have been applied to the sustain samples as originally obtained.
There are now three versions of this organ for Hauptwerk:
Original 41 Stops,
Extended 48 Stops,
Extended 48 Stop Surround Sound.
All versions of the sample set contain two levels of short releases and require Hauptwerk-4 to load. The latest Extended and Surround Sound versions also include a programmable, reversible sFz button.
Click the three icons to view the layouts of the three versions:
Here is the installation file for the basic 41 stop version. The file is about 710MB and will require about 1.5 GB to fully load in Hauptwerk at 16 bits.
PiteaSchoolOfMusicOrgan
Extended Pitea Organ:
(version 2 now available)
The extended version has more stops, and a programmable Tutti button. Extended Version 2 has improved acoustics with almost 3 seconds reverberation and is a stand-alone sample set which is not dependant on the other versions. This is the preferable version for systems which do not have surround sound speakers. The acoustic is similar to that of the surround sound organ when the front and rear samples are mixed together, but the RAM and Polyphony requirements are about half. Only about 2.3GB is required to completely load this version.
Here is the extended download:
PiteaExtended
Pitea Surround Sound Organ:
The Surround version of the Pitea organ is a complete organ sample set and contains all the stop extensions.
The rear Surround Sound ranks add noticably more reverberation to the overall organ sound, but the organ remains quite crisp with a lot of "presence".
The complete extended surround sound installation file is about 1.2 GB. About 4.2GB of RAM is required to load both the front and rear ranks.
Here is an audio sample with the front and surround ranks mixed.
It is a Bach Chorale from page 88 on Clarence Dickenson's organ book. Ah What Shall I Poor Sinner Do?
And Handel's Silent Worship (Did you not hear my lady?) with the vocal part soloed. Silent Worship, Handel
Here is he download for the Pitea Surround sample set:
PiteaSurround
These organs are free but not "freeware". The original samples were recorded by Lars Palo and provided under a Creative Commons license. The license extends to my samples since they are derived from them. The license is included in the sample set and essentially means that the organ cannot be used for commercial use and that any derivations of it are also subject to the Creative Commons license.
Bureå Church Organ - Extended, Surround Sound:
This sample set is based on a 33 stop, three manual modern organ which is located in Bureå Sweden. The original samples were recorded in single-release Hauptwerk-1 format by Lars Palo. Multiple releases and extended acoustics have been added here. Three additional stops and two extra couplers are added in an optional screen page. The excellent graphics originally created for the single release version have been mostly retained.
This sample set can be used three ways: Moist, Wet, and Wet Surround. If only the front samples are loaded then a moist organ results that has less than 2 second reverberation time. If only the rear samples are loaded, a two channel wet organ results with about three seconds reverberation. Surround Sound requires all samples to be loaded.
All three versions of the sample set contain three release levels and require Hauptwerk-4 to load.
Click the two icons to view the photo-realistic layouts of the standard and extended screens:
Here is the installation file. The file is about 1.4GB and will require about 3.6 GB to fully load in Hauptwerk for Surround Sound. The two channel versions only require about half that.
BureaSurroundOrgan
This organ is free but not "freeware". The original samples were recorded by Lars Palo and provided under a Creative Commons license. The license extends to my samples since they are derived from them. The license is included in the sample set and essentially means that the organ cannot be used for commercial use and that any derivations of it are also subject to the Creative Commons license.
French Harmonium:
This organ is a fabrication composite based on free samples I found at various places on the internet. It is an attempt to simulate a 19th century Debain French harmonium. The stops bear little resemblance to the the original samples which were only used as "seeds" for the digital fabrication of new ranks by translation, filtering, and various revoicing tricks. I made this composite organ before there were properly made harmonium sample sets available. It is certainly inferior to the two commercial sample sets that have recently become available. But- it is free for anyone who wants to play with it. I have left the OrganID with it's CODM number since I don't think it warrants a unique, legal OrganID number. It therefore installs as organ 800694 and will interfere with any CODM organ that you may have assigned to that number.
Click on this icon to see the organ layout:
Here is the installation file. It only requires about 0.5 GB to fully load and works with any level of Hauptwerk 4 or 5.
French Harmonium InstallationFile
Since this is a CODM organ, the file that was used to generate the organ might be of interest. Here it is.
The CODM File
Aeolian Skinner Composite
This large 75 stop composite organ operates in Hauptwerk version 4 or later
Here is the installation file. It is a 9GB rar file and the organ requires about 15GB to fully load. It is not for the "faint-of-heart"
AOS Grand InstallationFile
Sound Effects:
This is not an organ, but it plays various sound effects through a Hauptwerk organ installation. Several of them provide useful background noise when I want to nap in the music room.
Here is the installation file. The file is about 122MB and requires about 412 MB to fully load in Hauptwerk.
Sound Effects "Organ"
Caution: this gizmo installs as organ ID 888885. I did not give it a unique Hauptwerk organ ID since it's not really an organ.
Calibration Organ:
This organ is useful for calibration of multichannel audio systems. It has exactly the same reference stop tones on each of it's five divisions.
The manuals may be directed to different speaker channels and played sequentially. The audio channels should then be adjusted such that their sounds are identical.
Click on this icon to see the organ layout:
The Sinewave stops have level volume and are useful to check the frequency response of the audio system. The Chorus842 stops are also level and useful as reference organ sound.
The noise stops are useful for speaker frequency calibration. They provide a white noise signal which can be broadcast and recorded. It is then easy to perform spectral analysis of the complete speaker installation and derive the proper compensation into be inserted in the audio chain.
Here is the installation file. It requires about 0.6 GB to fully load at 16 bits. The organ installs as organ number 888777.
Calibration Organ InstallationFile
Diagnostic Tools:
I sometimes need a pure sinewave stop to evaluate my audio system.
When a pure sinewave stop is loaded into a CODM organ you can quickly sort out the frequency response of your audio system as well as locate any gross peaks or valleys due to the audio system or the room acoustics.
I have two ranks of pure sinewaves: "Sine16", a 61 note rank at 16 foot pitch that can be used as a stop on a manual keyboard,
and "Sine32", a 32 note rank at 32 foot pitch for use with the pedals.
These diagnostic ranks are available for download as RAR files.
Reverberation Impulse Files:
Hauptwerk version 5 supplies some built-in reverberation choices.
It is easy to add custom impulse files for Hauptwerk's built-in convolution.
These files are available for normal installation in Hauptwerk version 5.
