EOCS Virtual Organ Systems

VIRTUAL ORGAN PROJECTS

Various systems can be developed, some using free software and other using commercial software. The software for many of these systems is available free to members on a CD.

The word virtual, when applied to computers, means something that only exists in software. A virtual organ is software that runs on a PC and via keyboards and/or pedalboard equipped with a MIDI interface, can simulate a pipe organ.

This s a fairly new field for a home computer, as it is only recently that the increase in processing speed has made it possible to play a musical instrument in "real time" using a reasonably priced computer. Even so, latency, the time from when you press a key to the time the note starts to sound, can be an issue on some systems.

SOUND FONT SYSTEMS

For those of you who are not familiar with the SoundFont© concept, these are all organs that are designed to use the sound card in a PC to generate the various organ stops. SoundFont© is a trademark of Creative Technology™ who make the SoundBlaster© series of sound cards.

You will need one of their sound cards and the software that goes with it in order to implement one of these systems easily. You would normally use either a MIDI enabled organ, or separate MIDI enabled keyboards and pedalboard to control the system.

One of the best things about these systems is that they don't need a very high power computer or gigabytes of memory and in all of the three systems available, the software is FREE.

So why would you want to do such a thing anyway? Cost is one reason as some systems can be downloaded via the Internet at no charge, and provided you have a reasonably up to date and well specified computer, equipped with a suitable sound card, your only costs will be to upgrade the tiny (and tinny) little speakers that the computer came with and buy a MIDI keyboard.

5 octave keyboards from the likes of Yamaha™ and Casio™ can be obtained new for less than £100 and second hand, for much less.

A MIDI pedalboard is more difficult, but we're still talking less than £500. When you compare this with the £3,500+ of a new electronic organ, you can begin to see the point. If we look in detail at the systems available, they can be split into two groups.

jORGAN

jOrgan (the J stands for Java which is the programming language that has been used to design it) looks a bit like Miditzer at first glance, but is more adaptable. It comes with either theatre or classical sounds and you can change or even completely redesign either system. I found it quite hard to install. Its chief claim to fame is that it is the only one that will run under Linux or Mac.

MIDITZER

Miditzer is a theatre organ and is primarily designed to have the stops turned on and off from an on screen display. It is fairly simple to install. It is more or less fixed as what you download although you could tinker with the details.

HAUPTWERK

Hauptwerk™ does not need any particular sound card, indeed I have found it work very well with the on board sound facility provided on almost all computers. However it does have two factors which make it considerably more expensive to implement than a SoundFont system.

One is that it has to do all the necessary processing using the computer's CPU. This means you must have a fast modern computer. Secondly it has to have a sample for every note of each stop on the organ.

Although this does give very realistic results, the amount of memory (RAM) required is considerable. 1 gigabyte is the minimum and for a large organ, much more will be required. Still, if you have the money to spend on the computer system, the software itself is not too expensive (being around £300) and I have heard some remarkable results.

ARTISAN SOUND ENGINE

The Artisan Sound Engine™ is a commercial product, available from Artisan Organs Inc. and comes in two versions, software only or hardware with software. The software is designed to run on a very modest PC, requiring only 2GB memory, and requires exclusive use of the PC. Because the Artisan Sound Engine runs only under the Linux operating system, it is extremely reliable.

Artisan rank samples are available individually, which makes them highly affordable and allows you to 'compose' your own organ, rather than buying a complete ready-made set.

The hardware sound engine is a pre-installed, pre-configured PC, which runs the Artisan Sound Engine software. It can also be loaded with individual rank samples and has the advantage of 10 channels of high quality audio and a MIDI interface built in.