I happened to have the lucky opportunity to capture a large pipe organ in Oakland, California just recently. We've just put the finishing touches on the newly completed multi-instrument library and I wanted to share it with you guys. The Lakeside Organ is part steel pipe/part electronic church organ that produces its sound by venting mechanically compressed air (wind) through resonant pipes. Each pipe produces a tone in one fixed pitch, so they are provided in sets with one pipe or more per note, each set or stop having a common timbre and loudness throughout. The Lakeside Organ has multiple sets of pipes of differing timbre, pitch and loudness which the player can employ singly or in combination. The actual organ is made from three keyboards, played by the hands, and a pedal board for bass notes, played by the feet, each of which controls its own group of stops. Although the tonal possibilities of this particular organ are very broad, our focus was on capturing just the sound of the real pipes and other mechanical-acoustic elements of this instrument. This includes the 15 ranks of 800 steel pipes, the wooden reed pipes, brass struck-bar concert chimes and a small bell-tree. We recorded five different pipe organ stop settings, which roughly translate to a range covering PP to FF. Each higher setting adds more stop combinations, such as additional octaves, super octaves, wood reed pipes and great pedal All settings recorded at two microphone positions (close/far), so user have ultimately flexibility between all of the different organ settings and capture positions. Additionally we realized that many other organ sample libraries use noise reduction, which gives a more polished/clinical or even watery sound. We decided to take the opposite approach and allow all the air sounds in the library, since the "noise" is actually a mixture of the air produced by the bellows that drive the air through the pipes. This means that the organ has a much more realistic, full and airy sound (especially in softer settings), which allows more emotional expression. We named our organ library after the church the actual organ lives in: "The Lakeside Temple of Practical Christianity". It's a big 350-seat A-frame church located just about a block from the south shore of Lake Merritt. The organ is played by master organist Donald Sears, who has served as the Musical Director for the church for over 30 years. Tonehammer Lakeside Organ info: *5 Different Organ Settings (Equivalent to PP, P, MP, MF, FF) *Close and Far microphone positions for all settings * All notes on organ sampled individually, all with release-trigger samples * Natural super-wide stereo recording without noise reduction * Additional great-pedal basses included in the forte patches * Additional bell/chimes included * Additional session recordings, FX, live organ demos and hall sounds * 15 instrument patches, 1,584 samples, 1,75 GB installed, 978 MB .rar download * Format(s): 100% DRM-free Kontakt 2 and .wav * Note: Native Instruments Kontakt 2.2.4 / 3 full stand-alone version required. * More details here Lakeside Organ Demo 1 featuring: Lakeside Organ Setting 2 (close mic) Composer: Bach: "Air" Demo by Troels Folmann Lakeside Organ Demo 2 Featuring: Lakeside Organ Setting 5 (far mic) Composer: Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor. BWV 565. Demo by Troels Folmann Lakeside Organ Demo 3 Featuring: Lakeside Organ Setting 3 (far mic) Composer: Bach: "Air" Demo by Troels Folmann Here's an mp3 interview with Don Sears, where he explains and demonstrates the features and history of the Lakeside Organ. We'll be adding a few more demos soon which should more clearly lay out the differences between each setting. In the meantime, here are some pics of the church and the organ to give you a little taste of the place behind our new library. We hope you dig it.