During the COVID-19 pandemic, I took the opportunity to upgrade my home concert organ from an already-large 3-manual Rodgers 945 to a 1995 custom 4-manual Rodgers organ. Since this new (to me, at least) instrument has the equivalent of 129 ranks controlled by 113 stops, the Hauptwerk sample sets I had been using before were simply not going to suffice. I have spent considerable time creating sample sets that "fit" this console. Most of these use larger commercial Hauptwerk samples that I have reprogrammed to conform exactly to my console. However, I decided I should also create some that use freely-available Hauptwerk sample sets so that others in the Hauptwerk community can enjoy some of these much larger organs.

This Friesach-Cracow Composite sample set is my first foray into creating large "free" sample set for the community. It uses pipe samples from two organs by Piotr Grabowsky; his Eisenbarth organ from Friesach, Austria and his Siedlar organ from Cracow, Poland. I chose these two organs because they are both fairly large 3-manual organs, they have similar room acoustics, and they are both available for free from Piotr's web site.

Piotr's sample sets are of the highest quality. These two free sample sets are no exceptions. However, if you are looking for multiple sound perspectives or other more fancy features, you will be disappointed. These two sets come with a single recording perspective - but it is very well-chosen. The reverb is fairly long, but the samples are bright and clear. The effect is excellent.

I have added two additional samples to this organ. One is the same chimes sample I have used before (e.g. in my 945 Organ.) The second is new for this organ. It is a Zimbelstern sampled by my good friend Bob Primes. Bob and I did a Hauptwerk project together during the pandemic. This Zimbeltsern is a double-star design that is rich in bell sounds, providing an excellent extra-sparkly background effect.

This organ has an extra division, the Positiv. In fact, my console has two extra divisions, but there were not quite enough ranks in these two sample sets to recreate the Bombarde too! In any case, the Positive is meant to be played from the Choir manual. It has a Unison Off coupler to disable it from the Choir and it can couple to any of the other keyboards and the pedal independently. Hence, the Positive is a floating division with a home keyboard.

When I use my own console to run Hauptwerk sample sets, I use the Rodger's internal combination action rather than Hauptwerk's. However, I have provided Hauptwerk combination pistons in this sample set for the convenience of those who use them. I decided to provide the same number of pistons in each division as my console possesses. I did not create a crescendo pedal - you will have to use Hauptwerk's master crescendo mechanism instead.

The Friesach-Cracow Composite Organ works in all versions of Hauptwerk from v4.2 through the present v7.

The specification of my Friesach-Cracow Composite Organ is as follows.

Here are the console, left jamb, and right jamb views. This is my first organ to also include portrait screens for the left and right jambs. Click on each to see full size representations.

I have not prepared a custom display for the keyboards and expression pedals. I have used Hauptwerk's default display for this instead.

You will notice a few drawknobs are not in their expected positions. These are the 2 2/3' Nasat on the Choir, the 8' Flute Traversiere on the Solo, and the Harmonia Aethera IV on the Positiv. This is because these stops occupy drawknobs used for the Harp on the Choir, the French Horn on the Solo, and a 16' flute on the Positiv respectively. This composite organ is better served by the three ranks I have included - but the displays show them in the stop positions I use in my home organ installation.

You can read about the original pair of organs on Piotr’s web site. Here is what I did to create the composite organ:

In the Pedal, I used all the ranks I could form the Friesach organ and filled in the gaps using the Cracow organ. I created the two additional 32' stops by duplicating the two Friesach ranks and applying different voicing and filtering. The three-rank Mixture is a composite using three copies of the 4' diapason. Finally, the 2' flute is extended from the 4' flute.

The Great is essentially the Friesach's great division. I only needed to add a second, heavier diapason (the Montre) which I took from the Cracow with some revoicing. I created the 2' flute from a duplicate of the 4' flute. The 1 3/5' Terz is duplicated form the 2' octave. All these ranks are independent - there is no unification. The chimes is, as mentioned above, the one from my 945 Organ sample set.

The Swell is mostly from the Friesach Swell. The 16' Fagotto is duplicated from the 8' Hautbois. The Violoncelle Celeste is from the Cracow - using two copies of its Violincelle rank. The 8' Flute Celeste is from the Cracow's Flute Traversiere.

The Choir is mostly from the Cracow organ. Only the 1 1/3' Larigot and the 8' Trompete en Chamade are from the Friesach.

The Solo comes equally from the two Grabowski organs.

The Positiv is made up of ranks that were left over. They provide a full flue chorus and a solo "mounted" cornet.

I have included all the couplers that are on my console, as well as melody and bass couplers.

I have disabled the wind model - for historic reasons. Also, I have not incorporated any of the tracker, keyboard, expression, or stop noises from Piotr’s samples. In my own application, I like a clean organ without noises.

If you want to use this organ, be sure you have Hauptwerk v4.2 or higher (this organ does not require any special licenses) and have already installed both the Friesach and Cracow organs.

Then download the following:

Les_Fr-Cr_3.CompPkg.Hauptwerk.rar

This is a Hauptwerk standard installation package in rar format. Save it to your disk, start Hauptwerk, and then use its install feature to read the rar file as per the manual.

When you "wire" this to your physical organ, place the Choir, Great, Swell, and Solo on their own manuals. Wire the Positiv to the Choir manual. If you set things up this way, the Positive will work correctly as described above. Of course, if you do not have four manuals, you will be on your own to select how to wire my divisions to your keyboards.

The entire organ loads into 16 GB of RAM in Hauptwerk v4.2 on my development machine using 16-bit sample resolution, though it leaves the computer running rather slowly. My guess is that it will run very well in a 24 GB machine at 16-bit resolution in any version of Hauptwerk. It also loads trivially into my 64 GB machine at 24 bit resolution.

I have included the source code for the Hauptwerk CODM file so you can see how I did all this and get ideas for your own projects. Rememebr to strip off the ".txt" extension on this file before using it with Hauptwerk! For this particular project I have eliminated some individual sampled pipes and done considerable voicing and tuning. The instructions for others to reconstruct all of this would be too complex. Hence if you load the CODM file, the organ will not sound as intended – so use this only to see how the organ was constructed.

This organ is a great value. You get 127 ranks for free (I get nothing - but I have a great a day job). The reverb on the samples is ample, but the clarity of the samples still makes this a good instrument for practicing. I strongly suggest setting Hauptwerk V's internal reverb to zero for this organ.

Here are some demo recordings I have made using the Friesach-Cracow Compposite Organ. From the French baroque here are three short movements from Louis-Nicolas Clerambault's "Livre de Orgue:

Basse de Crommorne
Flutes
Caprice sur le Grands Jeux

I have made more registration changes than I normally would to show off more of the organ's colors. Here is one piece from the English Romantic composer, Scotson Clark: