This page shows the Hauptwerk virtual organs that can be used with version 4.0 or higher with the best sound quality for recording technique and sampling.

The Project:

The project aims to introduce, in the Community Hauptwerk, a number of organs built  according to the Italian tradition, which developed from the Middle Ages up to the 1700s.  Period in which almost all the churches in Italy were endowed with an organ. The old Italian organ, usually had only one keyboard with approximately 12 stops but  with high-quality features  sound, due to the low wind pressures. The double keyboard was not heard and when you began to realize it was resorted to stop broken. The most used  pedalboard was  in sixth or 'scavezza'  with  very short, inclined pedals  so that  the tip of the foot could be used and in general it was extended to nine pedals. The air pressure, distributed from cuneiform bellows, was extremely low and did not exceed 48 mm at the water column.

The Italian organ of this period  had these features because  it was primarily intended for liturgy and the accompaniment of  people singing in church and the pedal was used at the end of musical phrases. The peculiarities that were found in the ancient Italian organs, were the fusion of sound and composition filled with stops of the same family.

The modern Italian organ was influenced, in the early 1900s,  by the Cecilian  church reform. However, it was only in 1930, when the most important Italian organists gathered in Trento under the guidance of Bishop Raffaele Manari, that the guidelines were defined for the organbuilders in the construction of these instruments, so as not to lose the successful Italian tradition.

Recording Audio Samples:

It is well known that one of the most difficult instruments to register is the pipe organ, both for its dimension, for its location in the church and in the large environment in which it is placed. The quality of a good audio sample originates from its recording and, for that reason, MidiPipeOrgan, with over twenty years experience  has developed its own  recording technique of audio samples in order to maintain presence and vitality without sacrificing the environmental features of of the church where the organ is placed. With this technique, samples are natural, without sounding too close or too distant, giving the listener the impression of being in the best possible place in the church where the organ is placed. Particular attention has been given to the tail of release of the sample. All the noises produced by the organ are recorded, including the mechanical noise of the keys and stops that are reproduced in Hauptwerk when the instrument is played. In  Hauptwerk software the characteristics  of wind pressure of the organ are reproduced. All samples have been recorded stereo with a sampling frequency of 96Khz 24 Bit.