Melbourne Town Hall Pipe Organ Samples

Key features

• The real pipe organ
  • the 1929/2001 Hill, Norman & Beard - Schantz pipe organ of the Melbourne Town Hall, Australia
  • 175 speaking stops, 4 manuals (with 61 keys) and pedal (with 32 keys)
  • 5 tremulants (tremolos)
• The recording
  • All stops were sampled chromatically
  • Advanced Pipe Organ Measurements (APM)
• The sample set
  • 48 kHz / 24-bit format, 2-channel stereo samples
  • Natural sound image — the samples authentically preserve all spatial information
  • Multiple loops and releases per sample/key stroke
  • Sampled Tremulants
  • One-click assignable keyboards to divisions supporting your console configuration
  • Optional organ engine sounds and noises
  • Touch sensitive keyboard noises
  • Multiple pages and touchscreen-optimized for 4:3 landscape displays
    • 4K resolution landscape and FHD portrait graphical interface included for 16:9 displays
• Shipping
  • download

Details

Melbourne Town Hall (MTH) Pipe Organ Samples is a fully playable, freely configurable, intuitively manageable and MIDI-controllable virtual pipe organ for the Hauptwerk™ virtual pipe organ software, for PC and Macintosh computers, delivering the sound of the 175-stop Hill, Norman & Beard - Schantz symphonic pipe organ of the Melbourne Town Hall, Australia, to your computer.

The sample set

The real pipe organ has been entirely virtualized, including all sounds of all of its pipes, all functions including the original tracker sounds are provided, allowing realistically sounding repetitive notes. With the KeyboardMass functionality, the inertia of the mechanics of the key action is modeled. By providing the additional feature of adjustability the response speed of the pipe speech when a key is released can be changed to your taste. Thus you can make the keyboards feel very heavy by increasing the slider values, or extremely responsive by decreasing.

Sample format

The final sample set has been made available in 48 kHz / 24-bit 2-channel stereo. Multiple lengthy loops were carefully selected for each sound sample.

Acoustics

The natural room acoustics representing the recording conditions are embedded in the samples with multiple release sample layers; the acoustics heard in the sample set corresponds to the sound heard in the Main Hall of the Melbourne Town Hall. The sample set is recorded in a way that it is also fully compatible with dry acoustic spaces and additional convolution reverberation.

Multiple release samples and multiple loops

Multiple loops and release samples are provided for each sample. Triggered to play back randomly, this elaborate looping results in sustained notes of unmatched realism. The loops were calculated in a well-planned way, yielding both shorter and longer loops for each sample. Multiple release samples provide realistic, note-off-triggered pre-recorded reverberation for different lengths of notes. For example, a short note, with sound not fully developed will produce a different reverberation than a long sustained note. This quality is preserved in the sample library by providing multiple release sample layers.

Sampled tremulants

Stops with the tremulant engaged were recorded separately on this pipe organ. This model is providing the real tremulant sound of the Grand Organ.

Advanced Graphical User Interface (GUI)

The graphical interface of this organ was carefully modeled by employing hundreds of photographs and measurement in full 3D and the interface was implemented in a non-orthographical, perspective console view that is fully photo-realistic and operational at the same time. The keys move while you play, and every button responds appropriately to your actions. Both multiple- and single-screen operation is possible: the large number of stops can be operated conveniently from a wide choice of interface pages displayable on multiple touchscreens. Alternatively, 4K resolution landscape and FHD portrait graphical interface provided for 16:9 displays.

Availability and shipping

Melbourne Town Hall Pipe Organ Samples is available from 28 February 2018 in download delivery.

Editions

Feature type	Feature	Professional Trial Edition	Professional Edition
General features	Stops	175	175
	Keyboard compass (manual/pedal)	61/32	61/32
Acoustics	Multichannel format	stereo 2.0	stereo 2.0
	Available acoustics	original	original
Samples	Chromatically sampled
	Multiple loops
	Multiple releases
	Tremulants	sampled	sampled
	Engine noise optional
	Touch sensitive tracker noise
Graphics	Single touch screen support
	Multiple touch screen support
	Portrait screen support
	High resolution support (4K landscape, FHD portrait)
	Neutral view support
	All functions MIDI & GUI controllable
On-screen combination actions	General combinations
	General combination memory frames	128	128
	Divisional combinations
	Divisional combination memory frames	64	64
	PerformanceSequencer™, a combination action for organ settings
	Remembering sliders
Advanced features and helpers	Single-click keyboard to division assignment
	Additive crescendo and EasyCrescendo™ programming
	Programmable crescendo banks	4	4
	Dynamic KeyboardMass™ feature
	Pedal split
Couplers	All coupler combinations with sub, super and unison off
	Pedal to manual couplers and splits
Swell	Swellboxes	4	4
	Swell pedals	4	4
	All divisions enclosed
	Swell pedal couplers
Voicing	Advanced on-screen voicing
	Tracker noise volume sliders
Size	Download size (GB)	49.5	49.5
Delivery	Product delivery options	Download	Download

The free Trial Edition has a time-limited license.

The organ and the town hall

Melbourne Town Hall

Melbourne Town Hall, built in the heart of the City of Melbourne, was designed by architect Joseph Reed and Barnes in neoclassical style, and completed in 1870. The additional front portico was connected to the building in 1887, and the foundation of the administrative annex building was laid on 27 August 1908.

In 1925, the large part of the Town Hall was destroyed in fire, including the main auditorium with the Grand Organ. During reconstruction it was enlarged, but lost some of Reed’s original flourishes.

The Town Hall is topped by Prince Alfred’s Tower, which includes a grand clock, functioning from 31 August 1874.

The Grand Organ

The first pipe organ of Melbourne Town Hall was uncompleted in the time for the official opening of the Town Hall on 1870. Till the opening of the Grand Organ on 1872, a 17-stop organ was borrowed and used instead.

The original Grand Organ was built and installed by Willian Hill and Son of London. This organ contained four manuals and pedal, 66 speaking stops and 4373 pipes. The organ had a major reconstruction in 1906 when a number of new stops were installed.

On 1 February, 1925 the organ and a large part of the Main Hall were destroyed by fire.

The Grand Organ of today’s Town Hall was originaly built by Hill & Son and Norman & Beard of London in 1929. The organ stands at 9.75 metres high. The casework is made of Queensland maple with coin-bronze grilles. The organ has 6024 pipes, the largest being the ‘Tibia Profunda’. The smallest pipe is the top note of the Tierce and is 9.3 mm in length with a diameter of 11.11 mm. The organ is blown by two electric motors. The console has four manuals from top to bottom being: Solo, Swell, Great and Choir. There are still 4 divisions: Orchestral, Bombarde (mostly played on Solo), Fanfare (played on Solo) and Echo. The Orchestral is a floating division and is playable on all manuals. The Echo organ was originally located at the rear of the Main Hall, but has been dismantled for some time.

The Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ was fully refurbished and enlarged in 2001 by Schantz Organ Company of the USA. After the enlargement, the Grand Organ cointains 175 speaking stops, 147 ranks, 9568 pipes, on 5 divisions and 3 sub-divisions. The Echo organ was not restored at this stage, it was left for a future project.

Specification of the Hill, Norman & Beard - Schantz organ at Melbourne Town Hall, Australia

Pedal	I. Choir	II. Great Unenclosed
196 Gravissima [Tibia] 64'	77 Contra Salicional 16'	1 Tibia Profunda 16'	Couplers: almost every possible coupler, including 4' and 16' couplers and Unison off Swellboxes: all division enclosed with 4 assignable swell pedals in the virtual version Tremulants: on divisions I-V Crescendo wheel: 37-stage, 4 programs Gray - Yet to be built, not yet available.
197 Double Open Diapason 32'	78 Horn Diapason 8'	2 Double Open Diapason 16'
198 Tibia Profunda [Great] 32'	79 Corno Flute 8'	3 Tibia Plena 8'
199 Contra Bourdon Acoustic 32'	80 Lieblich Gedeckt 8'	4 Diapason Phonon 8'
200 Contra Violone [Swell] 32'	81 Salicional 8'	5 Open Diapason I 8'
201 Great Bass 16'	82 Voix Celeste 8'	6 Harmonic Flute 8'
202 Open Diapason [Go Dbl. Open 16] 16'	83 Flute Celeste II 8'	7 Tibia Octave 4'
203 Tibia Profunda [Great] 16'	84 Gemshorn 4'	8 Octave Phonon 4'
204 Contra Bass [Go Dbl. Open] 16'	85 Lieblich Flöte 4'	9 Octave Diapason 4'
205 Geigen [Great] 16'	86 Echo Viola 4'	10 Octave Quint 3'
206 Violone [Swell] 16'	87 Celestina 4'	11 Super Octave 2'
207 String Bass [Orchestral] 16'	88 Harmonic Piccolo 2'	12 Mixture IV 1-1/3'
208 Bourdon 16'	89 Dulciana Cornet III 2-2/3'	II. Great Enclosed
209 Lieblich Bourdon [Swell] 16'	90 Bass Cremona 16'	13 Contra Geigen 16'
210 Contra Salicional [Choir] 16'	91 Closed Horn 8'	14 Open Diapason II 8'
211 Quint [Tibia] 10-2/3'	92 Cor Anglais 8'	15 Gamba Major 8'
212 Flute Major [GreatBass] 8'	93 Cremona 8'	16 Hohl Flöte 8'
213 Principal [Diap.] 8'	94 Tremulant	17 Rohr Flöte 8'
214 Prestant 8'	95 Tuba Mirabilis [Fanfare] 8'	18 Principal 4'
215 Geigen Principal [Great 16] 8'	96 Tuba Sonora [Fanfare] 8'	19 Wald Flöte 4'
216 Cello [Swell 16] 8'	97 Harp	20 Stopped Quint 3'
217 Bass Flute 8'	98 Side Drum Roll	21 Fifteenth 2'
218 Stopped Flute [Bdn.] 8'	99 Octave	22 Tierce 1-3/5'
219 Lieblich Bourdon [Swell 16] 8'	100 Sub Octave	23 Chorus Mixture V 2'
220 Super Octave [Diap.] 4'	101 Unison Off	24 Grand Fourniture VI-VII 2-2/3'
221 Fifteenth 4'	102 Enclosed Great Flues to Choir	25 Harp [Choir]
222 Open Flute [Bass Flute] 4'	103 Great Reeds to Choir	26 Carillon [Solo]
223 Fourniture IV [Great] 2-2/3'		27 Tremulant
224 Grand Fourniture VI [Great] 5-1/3'		28 Contra Trombone 32'
225 Contra Fagotto [Great] 32'		29 Trombone 16'
226 Bassoon [Swell] 16'		30 Fagotto 16'
227 Schalmei [Solo] 16'		31 Tromba 8'
228 Bassoon [Swell 16] 8'		32 Harmonic Trumpet 8'
229 Double Ophicleide 32'		33 Clarion 4'
230 Tuba [Solo] 16'		34 Trumpet Victoria[Fanfare] 8'
231 Ophicleide 16'		35 Octave
232 Posaune [Solo] 16'		36 Sub Octave
233 Trombone [Great] 16'		37 Unison Off
234 Tuba [Solo] 8'
235 Trumpet 8'
236 Clarion [Tmpt.] 4'
237 Diaphone 32'
238 Octave Diaphone 16'
239 Tuba Mirabilis [Fanfare] 8'
240 Trumpet Victoria [Fanfare] 8'
241 Pedal Off
242 Pedal Divide
243 Bass Drum Tap
244 Bass Drum Roll
245 Side Drum Tap
246 Side Drum Roll

System requirements and recommendations

It is intended (and required) that the Melbourne Town Hall Pipe Organ Samples be operated within Hauptwerk, a virtual pipe organ host software application (purchased separately). The Melbourne Town Hall Pipe Organ Samples work with Hauptwerk V and later, and a valid license for Hauptwerk is required to load the organ.

For further information, please refer to Hauptwerk's detailed requirements on Hauptwerk's website.

Detailed RAM and polyphony guidelines

Hauptwerk loads all samples in the computer's RAM, with several loading options available according to your computer's specification. For wet sample sets offering built-in long reverberation, most of the RAM usage is due to the release samples. If you have convolution or other reverberation technology available, less RAM and polyphony will allow you to load and play the full organ. If you have more RAM, you can load the full organ with the release samples and enjoy the original sound. We recommend using Hauptwerk's built-in lossless memory compression to reduce the loading size. Below we have summarised the RAM requirements with their corresponding quality options.

*The Required RAM column above is the memory requirement that also includes Hauptwerk™'s own memory consumption, so this represents the RAM the sample set and Hauptwerk™ together will use, but some additional RAM may be required for the operating system itself, (not included in these figures). The measures were obtained on a Windows-based computer. The Computer RAM column shows a recommendation on the amount of RAM your computer should have as a minimum for a given loading setup assuming that some additional RAM is used by the operating system. This value might be different for each case so we recommend the maximum possible amount of RAM installable in your computer for this sample set, except if you are working with external reverberation or in a dry acoustic environment. Also note that on the Mac you may require more RAM in the computer than the value indicated above, due to the Mac OSX RAM allocation behaviour. Also note that Windows is capable of loading more content than your available RAM, loading (paging) the additional sample data to your hard drive, and reading it once the sound is needed (played). In some cases, this will cause glitches in the sound when played in real-time since the hard drive is slower to access than the computer's RAM, but makes the full library usable in offline music composition and recording even if you do not have the required amount of RAM.

Licensing

Hauptwerk V platform

• iLok account and license is required for the operation of the sample set
• Internet connection required for license activation (one-time only)
• Activation Code issued by Inspired Acoustics upon your purchase to redeem and activate the sample set license via the PACE iLok License Manager software
• Downloading and installing the latest licensing package file from Milan Digital Audio

This sample set comes in an encrypted format compatible with Hauptwerk v5 and later and requires a PACE iLok license for the operation of the sample set.

For download delivery products, Inspired Acoustics will automatically and instantly set up the download access to your product after your purchase, and assign you a unique Activation Code that you can locate under My Products. Enter this Activation Code to the PACE iLok License Manager to redeem your license.

For retail box deliveries Inspired Acoustics will provide you with a unique Activation Code allowing you to access the downloads and updates to this product. The Activation Code can be found in the box in a printed form. This Activation Code is a unique license voucher for your product identifying your purchase and legitimate use, so please store it in a secure location.

Read more about the license update procedure for Hauptwerk v5 sample sets.

For migrations from previous Hauptwerk versions a one-time sample set migration procedure needs to be done once the previous version of Hauptwerk is upgraded to Hauptwerk V. An Activation Code is not required in this case since the license will automatically be downloaded to your iLok account during the migration process.

Modifications and customization

If you are planning a custom or commercial application that requires a different setup what this sample set offers out-of-the-box, please contact us for making a customized version for you. 

Modification or disassembling the contents of this sample set through the CODM interface of Hauptwerk is not supported since the variety of functions and the availability of the sample set's certain special features already offers most of the functions the CODM interface may offer. The complexity of the Organ Definition File shipping with this sample set is uniquely high and building custom variants requires a certain amount of special expertise. Legally, the end-user license of this sample set is permitting using the samples as a whole, as they ship.

Melbourne Town Hall Professional Edition

Melbourne Town Hall Essential Edition

Melbourne Town Hall Upgrades to Professional Edition