Organteq 1.5 released!

[rjsilva]

Organteq v1.5 has been released. The main features in this update are support for 8 channels of audio, physically modelled configurable tremulant, adjustable C/C# separation, and adjustable stereo separation. Apparently there are some voicing changes as well although they aren't specified, but overall the quality of sound has improved.

I really like having the 8 audio channels (4 stereo divisions) and I think it really adds to the quality of sound. And I like having just a small amount of C/C# separation enabled to give a greater sense of motion without a hard separation along with minimum stereo width. The tremulant of course is very useful and the configurability is nice.

Here's a link to read about the features:

https://www.modartt.com/organteq#features

Or you may want to go right to the audio demos:

https://www.modartt.com/organteq#sound

Organteq is really coming along and apparently there was a lot of work put into Organteq to make this update possible. There is talk of having new organs and physical modelling controls but not for v1.5. I actually offered to create an organ in the American Classic/Aeolian Skinner style once their physical modelling is ready, though I don't know if Modartt will take me up on it :)

[Larason2]

I think this is an interesting development. I am most convinced by the flutes, which sound very realistic and lifelike. However, I think that the higher pitches and the reeds are still lagging behind sample based virtual organs. Like their piano offerings, I would expect them to continue to improve, however. This program would also benefit from having convolution reverb with real sampled spaces. I think it is interesting how far they've come with the flutes, and how much of a Cavaillé-Coll sound they have, and I'm looking forward to future developments.

[jbird604]

Interesting sounds. Some resonate more with me than others. It's been a while since we discussed this program, and perhaps I just don't remember much about it. Does this program let you modify each stop in various ways, such as tuning, tone color, scaling? As an example, in the demo of the celestes, I thought the beating seemed too pronounced, though of course there are real pipe organs that have that degree of beating, I just prefer less. But is it possible to narrow the tuning spread between the two ranks? Can you have more spread in the lower octaves and less in the higher octaves (i.e., a "tuning curve" rather than a fixed tuning offset)?

Also, I see references to "presets" and "combinations" -- by "presets" are they referring to various acoustical environments (reverb)? And they mention that the combinations come pre-loaded (unless I misunderstand something). I assume they are user-settable though, as on most any organ, correct?

[Admin]

For those who might be seeing this for the first time, my review of OrganTec version 1.0 can be found here:
https://organforum.com/forums/articl...organtec-1-0-0.

An addendum for version 1.5 is in the works; however, my first impression is that tuning, presets, and the combination system is essentially unchanged from what was described in the original review.

[rjsilva]

You can alter the tuning and volume per note, so yes you can alter the celeste in whatever way you want. You can also easily create a flute celeste if you want which sounds very nice. Or perhaps a reed celeste...? :)

You can't yet alter the tone of the stops. Although Modartt has said they know physical modelling controls are important to users, so I expect there will be something in the next release—although they didn't say that so I'm just guessing.

The presets are more complicated than just reverb. It is like being able to setup multiple organs with different settings (including different MIDI settings). It comes with a number of presets, though I haven't investigated them to really give an informed account of all the details—I just setup my own the way I like it. However, I can say that at least one of them has much more pronounced mechanical noises to sort of emulate sitting at a tracker organ (and maybe other things). Each built-in preset has its own characteristics.

[Admin]

A preset describes an entire organ configuration, including tuning, voicing, combination settings, stop configuration, reverb, etc. Keep in mind, that as described in my review, OrganTeq permits you to assign any rank to one or more divisions, and even multiple times to a single division. So even though there is currently only one set of ranks, those ranks can be configured and distributed to produce multiple instruments. For an extreme example, you could take the Gamba 8' rank an assign it to ten stops of a single division, tune each stop slightly differently, and wind up with a super celeste division. You could then save this super celeste organ as a preset for the next time you play Adagio For Strings.

[jbird604]

That sounds like fun!