Salisbury Cathedral Willis - Hauptwerk Information

The Salisbury Willis virtual instrument will be available in 3 volumes with each volume requiring the preceding volume(s) to run. Volumes 1 is now available and includes the virtual instrument on 3 DVD-Roms featuring over 12 GB of 24 bit 48kHz samples and the organ definition file. The Hauptwerk software is not included and must be purchased separately (may be purchased here). Please note that this set may be used with Hauptwerk v.3.2 and higher and requires the Basic or Advanced Edition of Hauptwerk to run.

Every pipe of each stop was sampled with long samples and multiple releases. All mechanical noises have also been sampled which may be disabled by the user if desired. The cathedral has acoustics of up to 5 seconds. The acoustical properties of the church have been carefully preserved in each sample and upon key release the pipe release will be triggered giving the authentic feeling of playing in the church. The virtual instrument samples contains multiple loops and multiple release samples (staccato, portato and full releases) which may only be found in the Hauptwerk sampling engine (No other professional sampler contains these features!). While these require extra memory the results are breathtakingly realistic and surpass any other virtual organ sampler on the market today. Please listen to our Demos to hear for yourself!

Volume I

This instrument features Original Sampled Tremulants (OST) for many of the virtual ranks. OST means taking recordings of the original pipes while the tremulant is engaged. This method allows a much more realistic simulation than synthetically applying tremulant effects through LFO waveforms. The OST method of recordings were done for all ranks on the Solo division, all reed ranks from the Swell and Choir and lastly the Swell Vox Angelica (a string celeste rank). Using real recorded tremulant ranks does take more memory, however we feel the benefits are well worth it.

The sample set is encrypted using the special Hauptwerk .hbw and .hbx file formatting and will not be accessible via any other hardware or software sample engine. Each user will receive a dongle license (USB key) update after purchase of this set. This set will not work with trial versions of Hauptwerk, users MUST own a licensed version of either the Basic or Advanced Editions of Hauptwerk. Using the Hauptwerk Advanced Edition, users have the ability to voice & balance the organ for their own listening environment. The sample set is not locked to the original organ definition file, therefore users may use the CODM provided with Hauptwerk. Please note that by doing so we cannot guarantee adequate results as this is effectively removing all included voicings, tremulant adjustments and user interface controls.

Hauptwerk is available for both the Mac and PC. This virtual instrument will work properly on either operating system (OS X 10.4 or higher and Windows XP/Vista 32 and 64 bit). We have tested the virtual instrument on Windows XP-64, Vista 64, Apple Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard). Please consult the Hauptwerk website for more information about which operating system may be right for you.

This virtual instrument allows using any temperament chosen within Hauptwerk. It comes with the original organ tuning leaving the samples at their original pitch as recorded during the sampling sessions (samples were not digitally corrected). The original tuning is A=446 Equal with the natural random tuning errors present. The organ file will add more random tuning deviations for any temperament chosen other than Original organ tuning, however these tuning errors may be entirely eliminated by using the Audio engine settings under General settings in Hauptwerk (Random pipe detuning adjustment and set to 0%).