Notre Dame de Budapest Pipe Organ Samples

Notre Dame de Budapest (NDB) Pipe Organ Samples was the first symphonic organ sampling library of the world for GigaStudio 3 that featured realtime controllable swellbox, crescendo and natural cathedral ambience effects. It had samples of two Hungarian Symphonic organs featuring a selection of 62 stops and combination from them. The library was released for the sampler GigaStudio 3 at the same time TASCAM has released it, but a smaller part of NDB was previously available for GigaStudio 2 as well. Now the 62-stop library is available for all GigaStudio version from version 2 up to version 4. It is also available for Native Instruments' Kontakt 2 and Kontakt 3 samplers, and there is a dedicated Virtual Instrument Edition for Tascam GVI.

Note: In its original form, the NDB sample set was streamed from hard disk by means of GigaStudio and Kontakt samplers.

Recordings

The organs were recorded with two Neumann U87 microphones. Extensive room acoustics measurements and listening experiments took place before the actual recordings to determine the following:

• the optimum placement of the microphones
• how to minimize the noise level
• the optimum number of stops and combinations to be sampled at the available short measurement time
• the optimum number of notes per program to sample.

Post processing

The novelty of NDB Pipe Organ Samples was in its sonic quality. This was reached by implementing a unique post processing work flow consisting of many phases, including adaptive noise reduction, noise removal and post processing phases taking human psychoacoustics into account. The phases also included a periodic, rigorous objective and subjective comparison to the original source material, in order to fulfill the goal of keeping the organ sound intact, as much as possible.

History and success

NDB was originally planned as a non-commercial, non-public library, but the great interest and the lack of similar quality sample sets caused the developers Csaba Huszty of Entel and Szabolcs Varga of Shirokuma to think about implementing a business model unique in the sampling industry and started building a working cooperation with the two cathedrals whose organs were eventually sampled in this library.

Before NDB was released, a small group of developers and dealers were presented with a first experimental combination. The response was very positive, and it seemed like NDB may define a new standard in pipe organ sampling.

When NDB was released in 2003, a huge amount of background work was over, including the development of recording and post processing algorithms, the actual work, business cooperation, and a brief marketing survey and pipe organ research.

The library began to sell without any marketing at all. The first responses came and within a few months, and there was no negative feedback since then. Nearly all major audio magazines of the industry reviewed the product and most of them awarded the collection or selected it as a 'must' for computer-based organ playing.

Since 2004 when NDB was released with its current contents, the library spread out to all continents. There are many commercial and academic users, among them are organists, celebrities and institutes who still enjoy using the NDB Sample Library.

Version history

• GigaStudio 2 compatible: 17 November 2003
• GigaStudio 3 compatible: 7 September 2004
• Kontakt 2 and later compatible: 31 May 2006

The business model

All key products of Inspired Acoustics, among them the NDB Pipe Organ Samples implement the unique business model of sharing the revenue with the owner of the instruments to help them maintain their tangible and intangible heritage. Therefore both the owners and the users understand, that NDB is not just a product but a mission as well. Other developers and prospective NDB competitors are also encouraged to use NDB's business model, as it is very fruitful for the maintenance and upkeep of the actual instruments in their own surroundings.