# Good organ library?



## nik (Jun 26, 2018)

hey guys,
any recommendation on a nice organ library?
thx
best regards
nik


----------



## kimarnesen (Jun 26, 2018)

Spitfire’s organ is very nice and reasonably priced. Not as complex as some of more advanced ones but should work for a lot of things.


----------



## JeffvR (Jun 26, 2018)

Hammond or church organ? This Hammond is very good https://gg-audio.com/


----------



## SoNowWhat? (Jun 26, 2018)

There is another thread discussing many pipe organs. I’ll find a link.
Free Leeds Town Hall Organ is great if your looking for pipes. And our very own @bigcat1969 and @Nils Neumann have some nice free pipes too.

Edit - here it is. https://vi-control.net/community/threads/pipe-organ-library-suggestions.67393/


----------



## fretti (Jun 26, 2018)

kimarnesen said:


> Spitfire’s organ is very nice and reasonably priced. Not as complex as some of more advanced ones but should work for a lot of things.


If you mean that one (has Spitfire even another organ library?!):
https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/instruments/pianos-and-keys/union-chapel-organ/

then +1, have my eyes on that one for a longer time now; couldn't quite convince me yet due to no real need of an organ though
But those demos sound amazing


----------



## pfmusic (Jun 26, 2018)

Spitfire Audios Union Chapel Organ is simply brilliant - I love the sound from this organ. 

The Leeds Town Hall Organ is a great freebie 

https://www.samplephonics.com/products/free/sampler-instruments/the-leeds-town-hall-organ#


----------



## Wally Garten (Jun 26, 2018)

Also worth a look:

https://www.kontakthub.com/product/italian-concert-organ/

If you scroll down, there's also a link to their lite version, called something like "Pipe Festival."


----------



## Quasar (Jun 26, 2018)

SoNowWhat? said:


> There is another thread discussing many pipe organs. I’ll find a link.
> Free Leeds Town Hall Organ is great if your looking for pipes. And our very own @bigcat1969 and @Nils Neumann have some nice free pipes too.
> 
> Edit - here it is. https://vi-control.net/community/threads/pipe-organ-library-suggestions.67393/


+1 on the Leeds Town Hall. Stellar freeware!

If you're looking for Hammond-ishy type organs, Sound Dust's Hammr + for full Kontakt is unique and utterly superb.


----------



## kimarnesen (Jun 26, 2018)

fretti said:


> If you mean that one (has Spitfire even another organ library?!):
> https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/instruments/pianos-and-keys/union-chapel-organ/
> 
> then +1, have my eyes on that one for a longer time now; couldn't quite convince me yet due to no real need of an organ though
> But those demos sound amazing



That's the one. I just could not remember its name


----------



## Mike Fox (Jun 26, 2018)

The Lakeside from Soundiron is great.


----------



## bigcat1969 (Jun 26, 2018)

If you have Kontakt and don't mind free you could try a couple from this thread (scroll down a bit)

http://bigcatinstruments.blogspot.com/2015/09/all-keyboard-instruments.html


----------



## kimarnesen (Jun 26, 2018)

Btw, I can sell you the Lakeside organ very cheap. I have a license and it's for sale.


----------



## nik (Jun 26, 2018)

kimarnesen said:


> Btw, I can sell you the Lakeside organ very cheap. I have a license and it's for sale.


great thanks,let me take a look at some of the recommendations,i will decide soon!


----------



## nik (Jun 26, 2018)

thaanks so much guys,really appreciate every comment!!
best regards
nik


----------



## Fleer (Jun 26, 2018)

Also check GG-Audio’s Blue3.


----------



## SoNowWhat? (Jun 26, 2018)

Fleer said:


> Also check GG-Audio’s Blue3.


If you want draw bars then ooooh yeah. There’s a free demo to try out.


----------



## ashtongleckman (Jun 26, 2018)

Hawptwerk is really great. They've sampled organs from all around the world, and it gives you all the controls you get on a real organ. It does run standalone and operates through a linking application. So you can't have multiple instances in the DAW (you need to render to audio). But if you want a crazy realistic and powerful sound, thats your way to go. I also use the Union Chapel from SF, great stuff.


----------



## CT (Jun 26, 2018)

The Spitfire organ sounds nice, but I don't have it. 

I actually just discovered Grand Orgue, which is an open source alternative to Hauptwerk, a few days ago. There are some incredible free sample sets to go along with it, too. It's awesome, but like Ashton said, it has the same limitation in that it's a standalone application and I can't run it inside of Logic. 

I'm still figuring out how best to integrate it into my workflow, which is proving a little tough, but it sounds fantastic.


----------



## bigcat1969 (Jun 26, 2018)

Its easy, just make Kontakt instruments out of the Grand Orgue samples, then they are easy to use.


----------



## Fleer (Jun 27, 2018)

And Pianoteq will be bringing Organteq. 
There’s a free version available as well.


----------



## nik (Jun 27, 2018)

thanks a lot guys, since hauptwerk and even spitfire are too pricey for me i decided on lakeside.
@kimarnesen sent u pm


----------



## kavinsky (Jun 27, 2018)

be aware that spitfire is traditionally a bit too wet when it comes to room decay. sometimes it just doesnt work for me personally


----------



## nik (Jun 28, 2018)

so thanks everybody, got the lakeside from @kimarnesen . Great contact and everything worked smoothly and fast.Thaanks a lot!


----------



## Craig Peters (Jul 20, 2018)

Over at Soundiron we actually just gave Lakeside Pipe Organ a facelift with a new GUI and tone shaping controls as well as custom FX presets. It's on sale now for $39! 

You can watch the full walkthrough here!
​


----------



## SoundChris (Jul 22, 2018)

Hm well the problem that I personally have with the Lakeside (purchased it years ago) is that you cant combine the registers just how you need them which is crucial for what I personally wanted to do with an organ VST. In the end I think that the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Hr7gHMjdc (Hauptwerk) stil is the best option out there. What´s also great is that you can use it will with these 3 manual organ keyboard setups (Examples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVKZA4r5Vng (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6MPquYmRnI (2)) and touch displays - maybe that also witks with other VSTis but i never saw something like that before. Btw: Hans Zimmer used Hauptwerk for Interstellar - just as a sidenote. If you dont want to invest a lot of money (Hauptwerk is expensive - especially If you want special additional organs!) then you could go for alternatives like the Sonokinetic Toccata or the Organum Venezia (own them both, too).

The advantage of the Bestservice Organum Venezia IMO is that it sounds awesome in the quieter registers. The tutti feels a little bit undefined for my taste (maybe thats just my personal impression. Stil a good library which I use from time to time because of its flexibility in tone. Like I said: Great library for the calmer and more quiet registers. Just listen to the demos here - I especially love the Bach - Fantasie in c min BWC 562.

As for the Sonokinetic - Toccata I can say that it is very flexible, has a tiny ram footprint and data size and you have full control over the registers. It´s main problem is that there are no round robins. But you can do great things with it. Here is a track that I wrote years ago to test it. I stil save for the Hauptwerk - it´s wet sampled sound just is so lush, powerful and convincing ... need it. Until I get that I will use the Toccata next to the Organum Venezia.


P.s.: Also the organs included in Logic Pro are not that bad. Here is a short track that I have written in 2012 or something to test out EWQL Symphonic Choirs. Plz excuse the bad quality. This was maybe my third or fourth track that I have written in my life. So the production is horrible. No production at all, just the midi-programming without any cc´s (didnt know what that is at all at that time and also not that you can do tempo editing :D ). No effects were used on this one (I didnt even know what a reverb is back then ...  ) :


----------



## nathantboler (Jul 22, 2018)

SoundChris said:


> Hm well the problem that I personally have with the Lakeside (purchased it years ago) is that you cant combine the registers just how you need them which is crucial for what I personally wanted to do with an organ VST.


Our newly launched upgrade changed that so you can blend registers, and existing owners can purchase it for $5.


----------



## Robert_G (Dec 2, 2019)

Just got Soundiron Lakeside Pipe Organ for 29$. Don't think I'll ever want to buy another organ again. The sound sculpting you can do with the stops alone is perfect. I looked at the Spitfire Union Chapel Organ (4x more money), but between the demos and the interface....the Lakeside Pipe Organ is a winner.


----------



## CT (Dec 2, 2019)

As someone who's spent a lot of time around these instruments, Spitfire's two organs are really the most authentic and satisfying options out there, short of Hauptwerk. Easy recommendation from me.


----------



## DSmolken (Dec 2, 2019)

Organteq is now out, isn't it?

Also, insert obligatory "kidney or liver" joke.


----------



## CT (Dec 2, 2019)

Interesting. I'll need to take a look at that.

...and now I have. Some of the flue stops are convincing, but the reeds are weak and I don't think modeling works well at all with the mixtures. Trying to synthesize those complex harmonics just sounds... synthesized. 

I'll stand by my earlier endorsement.


----------



## David Kudell (Dec 3, 2019)

I have Spitire Union Chapel...great sound but bogs down my system if I want to turn on all the stops and a few mics...even on my iMac Pro with 128GB RAM.


----------



## SoundChris (Apr 13, 2020)

Ok - I finally had the time during the Lockdown this easter to test out the Organum Venezia by @Best Service Wolfgang and V3Sound. Just an awesome piece of software which doesn´t even get nearly as much of attention as it deserved in my opinion. The french organ tone is just breathtaking, the different registers which can be played separately also sound superb. Something you would not expect buying a product under 100 bucks. Any organ fan out there should give this a closer look - it´s really worth it!

The piece is a church-song that I have written yesterday for a friend who told me, that he feels very sad about the fact that the lockdown doesn´t allow him to listen to his beloved sacred music this year. That gave me the inspiration to write something by my own. The piece´s title is "So seid Euch auch in finst´rer Stunde" (engl. something like "Be aware that even within the darkest hour ..."). It is a piece about darkness, hope and resurrection. There will be a version with choir in the near future, but it will take a lot of time to excessively finetune the lyrics with Hollywood Choirs Diamond and layer it with other libraries and my own singing to make it reasistic ... but ok ... I am nerd enough to do nonsense like that 



Happy Easter Everyone! Enjoy and keep healthy. And again: Give this organ a try. For this astonishing quality the price is just hilarious IMO. Really a great and unique instrument!


----------



## pianistje (Apr 13, 2020)

Sounds really good. The full / tutti registers have a beautiful majestic bark !!!


----------



## JPQ (Apr 13, 2020)

JeffvR said:


> Hammond or church organ? This Hammond is very good https://gg-audio.com/


or even for Farfisa,Vox or Yamaha electones etc. organs is so wide thing. i like these and church organ but no much hammond and i mean for my own music.


----------



## Scalms (Apr 13, 2020)

SoundChris said:


> Ok - I finally had the time during the Lockdown this easter to test out the Organum Venezia by @Best Service Wolfgang and V3Sound. Just an awesome piece of software which doesn´t even get nearly as much of attention as it deserved in my opinion. The french organ tone is just breathtaking, the different registers which can be played separately also sound superb. Something you would not expect buying a product under 100 bucks. Any organ fan out there should give this a closer look - it´s really worth it!
> 
> The piece is a church-song that I have written yesterday for a friend who told me, that he feels very sad about the fact that the lockdown doesn´t allow him to listen to his beloved sacred music this year. That gave me the inspiration to write something by my own. The piece´s title is "So seid Euch auch in finst´rer Stunde" (engl. something like "Be aware that even within the darkest hour ..."). It is a piece about darkness, hope and resurrection. There will be a version with choir in the near future, but it will take a lot of time to excessively finetune the lyrics with Hollywood Choirs Diamond and layer it with other libraries and my own singing to make it reasistic ... but ok ... I am nerd enough to do nonsense like that
> 
> ...





Excellent piece! really enjoyed it


----------



## doctoremmet (Apr 13, 2020)

SoundChris said:


> Enjoy and keep healthy.


Wow what a beautiful piece! Great sound as well. Thanks for this. I absolutely did enjoy it. Stay safe yourself and kudos for writing such a positive contribution and this piece of music. I missed the usual Bach easter concerts, but you made up for it!


----------



## Geomir (Apr 13, 2020)

"To my eyes and ears the organ will ever be the King of Instruments." - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I would like to add 3 more choices here:

1) Garritan Classic Pipe Organs:








Classic Pipe Organ Software Instrument - Garritan


Garritan Classic Pipe Organs offers six different pipe organs and 75 different stops, this is the first collection to offer a variety of pipe organs.




www.garritan.com




An older library, not very well respected among professional musicians here, but I think the value for money is very good, as it offers 6 real historic pipe organs for any taste, from Classical and Baroque, up to modern big-sounding symphonic organs.

2) One of the newest additions, the Alpha Organ from Soundiron:








Alpha Organ


Alpha Organ is a beautifully sampled pipe organ recorded at St. Paul's Church in SF. It has an open, lush sound with plenty of bass and includes a variety of organ presets, mic positions, tonal options, custom FX and very intuitive and flexible GUI control features for NI's free Kontakt Player...




soundiron.com




Not too small, not too huge, it's very nicely priced (as it's compatible with the free Kontakt Player).

3) I am surprised no one mentioned it here yet! Behold a monstrous in size pipe organ, the one that can make your walls rattle, Spitfire Symphonic Organ:








Spitfire Audio — Symphonic Organ






www.spitfireaudio.com




For anyone wanting a big powerful cinematic sound I think it's one of the best options. It's not the cheapest of options, but the sound it really huge (and it also runs in the free Kontakt Player, so at least you don't need to spend any more money to fully enjoy it).


----------



## Lode_Runner (Apr 14, 2020)

Something I like to do with Pipe Organ libraries, which would likely horrify organ purists who want dry samples and individual stops etc, is to layer several pipe organ libraries together, and even add in some synth patches.



Geomir said:


> 3) I am surprised no one mentioned it here yet! Behold a monstrous in size pipe organ, the one that can make your walls rattle, Spitfire Symphonic Organ:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think the reason no one mentioned it was that the majority of this thread is older than Spitfire Symphonic Organ itself. There was a fair bit of discussion about the Union Chapel Organ earlier in the thread though.

I have Union Chapel Organ and think it's very nice. I do want to get this one as well. It sounds amazing, it's exactly the organ sound I've been looking for and haven't been able to find anywhere else actually.


----------



## Glagoliath (Apr 14, 2020)

Well, someone can use some additive synth/synthesis to make convincing church/hammond type of sounds if he spends more than 10 minutes I did and to EQ things (I didn't EQ anything, just slapped reverb onto pure, dry waveform coming out of synth) and stuff if he takes some sound as a reference, some church organ. Because with additive synthesis by adding just few harmonics you can get to a basic organ sound and then if you go into more details and use another oscillator and start adding more harmonics and overtones you can get to a convincing church organ.
But the thing is that you can sit entire day and dick around in harmonics editor:


Sytrus - Instrument



because by just moving things a little, you get a different sound and you get lost and you can make 50 presets in half an hour.
I fell into that trap hundreds of times, that's why I stopped after 10 minutes and 4-5 presets.


----------



## Vardaro (Dec 2, 2020)

Can I add Xsample's Concert Organ: dry, clear, beautifully recorded. €67.
I shall use it with Voices of Prague (bundled with soloists and boys choir for €99!)


----------



## doctoremmet (Dec 2, 2020)

Vardaro said:


> Can I add Xsample's Concert Organ: dry, clear, beautifully recorded. 60-something Euros.
> I shall use it with Voices of Prague (bundled with soloists and boys choir fo €99!)


I have that same organ, it is the only one I have as I am really a piano guy and don't know that much about organs. I have to say to my layman's ears it does indeed sound pretty good.


----------



## Vardaro (Dec 2, 2020)

For a more "churchy" sound, another vote for the free Leeds Town Hall.
Both have nice presets for us "piano guys"..

Xsample has a demo with the score annotated with the registrations.


----------



## CT (Dec 2, 2020)

The Xsamples one does sound nice!


----------



## doctoremmet (Dec 2, 2020)

Mike T said:


> The Xsamples one does sound nice!


Absolutely


----------



## Billy Palmer (Dec 2, 2020)

RE freebies,
I used this one recently, it's great.





Requiem – pianobook







www.pianobook.co.uk





Leeds townhall is also excellent, as others have mentioned.


----------



## Illico (Dec 2, 2020)

Another





"Crucible" - Church Organ Freebie


Hey Composers out there, this is my first attempt to create a VI, a Church Organ. This is a free Kontakt instrument, if you are not interested in the background story, just scroll down to the download Link;) „Behind the VI“ A few months ago I was very curious how I can create my own sample...




vi-control.net


----------



## CT (Dec 2, 2020)

Being an organ person, I've posted in most of these threads and always get notified when they get bumped. Reading through, I think perhaps we've exhausted the recommendation possibilities as a forum at this point.


----------



## doctoremmet (Dec 2, 2020)

Gotcha haha. I just double posted something in a reverb thread. Had no idea it was an older one. Luckily I did not contradict myself haha


----------



## GLM (Sep 2, 2022)

To wake up this 2 years old thread I would like to add and hear opinions about the VSL concert hall organ. Anyone who can compare it to other pipe organs mentioned here?


----------

