Rotterdam Transeptorgel, 1959 [Hauptwerk]

The samples are offered in 48kHz/24bit resolution. The multiple releases have three levels: short, mid and long. The dry and the surround variants of the sample set are encrypted and dongle protected, which means that they can be used with Hauptwerk software exclusively. Hauptwerk v.5 and higher is required. Hauptwerk Advanced version is strongly recommended, the Lite version is not suitable to run the Surround variant of the sample set (memory limitations, audio channels limitations). There is no use of the sample set possible in any other software.

The wet variant of the sample set is avaliable in plain wave format. Hauptwerk v.4.2 and higher is supported (incl. HW5)

Sample set variants

The sample set is offered in three different variants: dry, wet, surround. Each of the variants is stand-alone.

Dry: samples are recorded with minimum reverberation close to the pipes. There is no reverberation present in the sample set. This variant is suitable for use in reverberant spaces, such as churches. It may also be used with a digital reverb added in postprocessing.

Wet: the "direct" approach. The samples are recorded from shorter distance of the instrument, using a stereo mic pair. A good sense of directness of the speech of pipes is achieved, nice to hear through headphones or a simple 2-channel stereo setup. The samples are proprietary to the wet variant, they are not used in the surround variant. Nevertheless, this variant may be considered a "lite" version compared to the surround variant, there is no blower or tracker noise included and the tremulant is disabled for the Borstwerk. (Tremulants on the Rugwerk are working normally using recorded tremulant waveforms).

Surround: the "moist" and "diffuse" approach. The samples are recorded in multichannel, offering three positions of the listener - close to the instrument ("moist"), in a distance from the instrument ("diffuse") and very far from the instrument ("rear"), allowing to virtually move the listening position in Hauptwerk (to move closer or farther from the instrument). See below for details. This variant of the sample set does not use the samples of the wet variant.

The recording positions of the Wet variant and that of the Surround variant were different. The direct approach (used in the Wet sample set) and the diffuse approach (used in the Surround variant) differ in the distance of the microphones from the organ, the microphones for the diffuse were situated farther away. Therefore, if the Surround variant is used in a simple 2-channel environment, the result would still offer a different audio perspective of the Rotterdam Transept instrument: the result would be more diffused (more reverberant) sound than when the genuine Wet variant is used in the same way. As the result, the sample set in its entirety (dry, wet, surround) offers an unusual flexibility in varying the listener's position.

Keyboards, pedalboard
The original compass of the keyboards is 56 keys. The original compass of the pedal division is 30 keys.

Tremulants
The tremulants are recorded for Rugwerk (except the Scherp). The tremulants for Borstwerk are modelled in the dry and the surround version, because the Borstwerk tremulant was not in function at the time of the recording. The Borstwerk tremulant is disabled in the wet variant of the sample set.

Surround format
The sample set is offered in the Surround variant (6 channels). In addition to the usual 4-channel surround, there are two more alternative front channels. In total, there are 4 front audio channels and 2 rear channels. The two pairs of the front ranks feature two different recording positions: direct (near to the pipes) and diffuse (distant from the instrument). These two pairs of the front ranks can either be mixed together freely to achieve any listening position between the two extremes, or used separately - depending on the prefererences of the user. A dedicated "mixing desk" is available in Hauptwerk to mix the sound to the desired level.