Questions about Garritan CPO Pipe Organs

[OPMartin]

Hi, Garritan, and community, How are you?

At last! After four and a half years: I'm all over it! ! !

First of all, great job, everyone! Thank you for releasing Garritan Classic Pipe Organs. I really like that we can mix and match stops from all six organs at once.

So far I have only tried the standalone player. The VST's were not recognized by my DAW and I have to look into that. Maybe I have to upgrade something for "VST2"? Never mind, I just noticed that the VST folder path got reset somehow.

Is it true that the samples cannot be used with any other player? But at least it is good that if I switch to Mac I can download that player too, right? What is the upgrade policy?

There appears to be an eight-note limit per stop. This is probably the most important shortcoming for me right now. When I play, notes frequently stop sounding before they should, even when we are nowhere near the maximum 96 or 128 total voices of polyphony.

I was interested in the "chiff layer" but no matter how I tweak the CC12 knob, I never hear any difference when I play.

I'm not sure why we would want omni mode on all the stops in an ensemble. Thankfully, it is fairly easy to assign different receive channels on each stop, for those of us who have a multiple-keyboard and pedal organ setup. But you already said all that. So I can assign several stops to midi channel 1, and a few more to channel 2, etc. At least for the stand-alone. Now that I am just starting to play with this in my DAW, I am wondering how best to go about it. It may still be easier to use multiple instances of the Aria player when necessary rather than use omni.

Finally, I would also be interested in ways to rapidly switch registrations. I would like to press a program change button on my keyboard and have multiple stops turn on and off or maybe even switch ensembles...

Right now, I am viewing this mainly as an educational opportunity to learn about historical organs. Recording music is another goal further down the road. I placed some flute and diapason stops on one keyboard from the Modern 2 (American) organ, and on another keyboard a similar registration, but from the Renaissance organ, to really hear the difference. Then, to play them both together: wild!

Thanks again!

May the Lord bless you,
Philip

[chad]

Hi, Garritan, and community, How are you?

At last! After four and a half years: I'm all over it! ! !

First of all, great job, everyone! Thank you for releasing Garritan Classic Pipe Organs. I really like that we can mix and match stops from all six organs at once.

Hi Philip, thank you! We are glad to hear that you are enjoying GCPO.

Is it true that the samples cannot be used with any other player?

You wouldn't want to use the samples inside another player. You wouldn't be able to disk stream, and there are other complicated sample group interactions to keep track of. There are specific offsets used for the release decay samples that are offset to match the end of each note/sample layer being triggered. This also ties in with the new Convolution reverb inside of ARIA. It allows you to place the stops within any environment you choose on the Effects tab, and it will match the decay characteristics of that room/acoustic environment.

But at least it is good that if I switch to Mac I can download that player too, right? What is the upgrade policy?

It's very easy. Just download the OSX installers for the library and ARIA Player from your account. Then drag and drop the same keycard onto ARIA's interface. You can use both Win and OSX versions without any issues.

There appears to be an eight-note limit per stop. This is probably the most important shortcoming for me right now. When I play, notes frequently stop sounding before they should, even when we are nowhere near the maximum 96 or 128 total voices of polyphony.

Hmm. That doesn't sound right. You should at least get 32 polyphony by default per ARIA slot. You should contact Support here:

http://www.finalemusic.com/Support/Garritan.aspx

Use the "Generate Logs" utility application inside your Start | Garritan ARIA Player menu. Please include/mention this with your support ticket.

I'm not sure why we would want omni mode on all the stops in an ensemble. Thankfully, it is fairly easy to assign different receive channels on each stop, for those of us who have a multiple-keyboard and pedal organ setup. But you already said all that. So I can assign several stops to midi channel 1, and a few more to channel 2, etc. At least for the stand-alone. Now that I am just starting to play with this in my DAW, I am wondering how best to go about it. It may still be easier to use multiple instances of the Aria player when necessary rather than use omni.

Yes we left them as OMNI so you can hear the full organ by default. Then each user can re-arrange ARIA to a Multi-timbral setup based on their personal studio keyboard setup. Not everyone will have their keyboard manuals set to the same MIDI channel, so this was the most elegant solution. Simply re-save any of your customized ARIA Ensembles with your MIDI channel assignments.

Finally, I would also be interested in ways to rapidly switch registrations. I would like to press a program change button on my keyboard and have multiple stops turn on and off or maybe even switch ensembles...

Currently working on a small update that will allow switching stops/registrations via MIDI CC xxx messages. It's very powerful, and will be very handy.

Right now, I am viewing this mainly as an educational opportunity to learn about historical organs. Recording music is another goal further down the road. I placed some flute and diapason stops on one keyboard from the Modern 2 (American) organ, and on another keyboard a similar registration, but from the Renaissance organ, to really hear the difference. Then, to play them both together: wild!

Thanks again!

May the Lord bless you,
Philip

Take care Philip! Thank you for stopping by the Northern Sounds forum, talk more soon.

- Chad

[OPMartin]

Hi, Chad, How are you?

Thanks for the tips!

May the Lord bless you,
Philip

[sakari.lindhen]

I also have a question, might as well put it here rather than starting a new thread.

On the Sibelius forum, someone, a hauptwerkist, is bashing Garritan CPO, claiming that it is not a sample library, but synthetic physical modelling of a pipe organ and very artificial. And therefore is only 5GB or whatever it is in size.

Can someone who knows clarify this so that I have something to cut and paste in rebuttal?

cheers

Saku

[chad]

I also have a question, might as well put it here rather than starting a new thread.

On the Sibelius forum, someone, a hauptwerkist, is bashing Garritan CPO, claiming that it is not a sample library, but synthetic physical modelling of a pipe organ and very artificial. And therefore is only 5GB or whatever it is in size.

Can someone who knows clarify this so that I have something to cut and paste in rebuttal?

cheers

Saku

Hi Saku,

Thanks for your concern! I've been communicating with that poster via email. He was confused about how we could load 75 stops into 2GB of RAM. But he didn't realize that the ARIA Player has both disk streaming and RAM loading. Hauptwerk can only load samples into RAM.

After he heard that GCPO's Modern 2 Organ is Jonathan Orwig's FBC Riverside he seemed happier.

I've been busy, but was planning on still following up on the Sibelius threads.

Cheers,
Chad

[sakari.lindhen]

Hi Saku,

Thanks for your concern! I've been communicating with that poster via email. He was confused about how we could load 75 stops into 2GB of RAM. But he didn't realize that the ARIA Player has both disk streaming and RAM loading. Hauptwerk can only load samples into RAM.

After he heard that GCPO's Modern 2 Organ is Jonathan Orwig's FBC Riverside he seemed happier.

I've been busy, but was planning on still following up on the Sibelius threads.

Cheers,
Chad

Cool. I'll let you follow up then...just wanted Garritan to get the appreciation the product deserves ..

[passagio]

....someone, a hauptwerkist, is bashing Garritan CPO, claiming that it is not a sample library.....

I would say the main advantage of Hauptwerk is that the Hauptwerk interface is a closer duplicate of the pipe organ interface (a console) - stop knobs, couplers, pistons. (Touchscreens and tablets will make this even better.) GCPO uses the mixing board/midi patch model which has advantages for composing and recording, but also has some disadvantages. Thus Hauptwerk provides the option to activate a piston and instantly turn off some things, add some other things, keep the foundations on, and couple the swell to the great. (The swell isn't just a set of sounds, it's a separate division entirely.) GCPO doesn't do this natively. GCPO, however, provides extremely high quality samples of several organs, works smoothly with notation software, and in terms of memory / cpu consumption, is very lightweight. The Garritan genius means you will get a lot more out of a modest computer setup.

It would be interesting to hear something about the commitment to GCPO development: adding new instrument samples (personally, I would love to hear any or all of instruments by Willis, Klais, Fisk, E.M. Skinner, Rosales and Aeolian Skinner), perhaps some sampled modern organ pipework foundation and choruses to reduce CPU overhead in big passages, and to add some sort of piston/coupler functionality. (In Finale, I can do this after a fashion - I can create an expression, "Gt to Sw," and set it to adjust a channel assignment.)

Finally, the Hauptwerk emphasis is on replicating a playing environment. The Finale/GCPO/Aria connection is a different environment that provides tremendous versatility - and gives composers instant, one-click feedback on their composition from a notation score.

No point in bashing either one. they do different things, they do them well, and there is room in this world for both.

(update: in another post, it has been hinted that an updated version of GCPO will have some of this functionality, e.g., pistons and stop selectors; so stay tuned...to a 440.)

[Hilton Kean Jones]

I also have a question. Although I can control the tremulant for a stop, as soon as I hit play, it reverts to its default setting. How do I save the level of tremulant to the level (off!) that I want?

Other than that (so far...), I'm gradually figuring things out. I'm an experienced organist and except for the presence of tremulant on stops where it would never be used, I must say the quality of the samples and stop selections are terrific and thrill me!

Thanks,
Hilton

[rbowser-]

I also have a question. Although I can control the tremulant for a stop, as soon as I hit play, it reverts to its default setting...

Hilton, tell us what program you're using - Sounds like you must be using a DAW software program, since you refer to hitting "Play."

Trem is controlled by MIDI Controller #1. On the Controls window in ARIA, you can see the Trem knob which will move from 0% when there's CC1 data in your project. Apparently, somehow you managed to get CC1 in there when you didn't intend to - some value over 0%.

Randy

[Hilton Kean Jones]

Hi, Randy

I'm using Finale 2012 on a Mac.

Yes, that's my understanding: CC#1 controls it. But, nothing I can do in Finale (sending CC#1 as 0 or setting it to 0 in the score, changes this).

As I said, I can set them to 0 in Aria, but as soon as I call up any score, old or new, in Finale 2012--even an empty one!--Aria automatically reverts to 53% tremelo.

I'm not using any midi keyboard. I'm just using Finale scores generated completely within the computer environment. I have Aria player 1.5 and my Finale 2012 is the latest update.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Hilton

Hilton, tell us what program you're using - Sounds like you must be using a DAW software program, since you refer to hitting "Play."

Trem is controlled by MIDI Controller #1. On the Controls window in ARIA, you can see the Trem knob which will move from 0% when there's CC1 data in your project. Apparently, somehow you managed to get CC1 in there when you didn't intend to - some value over 0%.

Randy