Just like a patch in electronic music software and hardware, a stop is the smallest sound unit of an organ and represents a set of pipes with the same timbre, sometimes also pre-figured mixtures to achieve a certain sound quality.
This makes the basic design of the Vienna Organ Player pretty straightforward: The Stops are organized in division according to the original organ's Werk – the Rieger Organ has 4 manuals and 1 pedal to play these. Combinations represent the organ's registrations and contain one or more stops that will play when the combination is called up.
Finally, combination banks group together combinations as they may be needed for a piece's entire registration, or to fashion a modular build-up where each of the bank's buttons adds more pipes to the initial combination.
The Vienna Organ Player software has three main tabs: PLAY, COMBINE, and MIX.
Volume meter: Displays the stereo output volume. Clipping will be indicated by a red display.
Volume knob: Adjusts the player's master volume.
Help button: Click on this button to go to our info site and view this online manual.
Library selection: This button shows up when you have more than one organ library. It opens an overlay where you can see the installed organ libraries and some information about them.
Controller overview: Opens an additional window where you can see all assigned MIDI controllers and make changes to these assignments and adjust volume, tremulant, swell, and other controls individually.
Combination bank matrix: A window display showing the structure of the currently loaded Preset with all combination banks at once, where you can organize your organ setup for different pieces and requirements.
Scale button: The scale button lets you adjust the size of the Player GUI in steps from 75% to 200%.
CPU real-time display: Opens a CPU meter that shows the actual CPU load on your computer. Lower latencies and higher voice counts will result in a higher CPU load.
Settings: Lets you adjust your Interface and Engine settings, thus affecting general performance. Here you can also assign the correct sample content in the Database tab.
Browser / current Preset display: Click the folder button to hide/show the player's browser, where the currently loaded preset is highlighted, and the editor for the currently selected or all enabled stops.
Tab selection: Choose from additional customizing options.
PLAY: All parameters and settings affect the whole Organ Player instance.
COMBINE: Shows the organ's manuals and pedal with the available stops. This is where you can design registrations of your own.
MIX: The integrated mixer with manual and pedal channels as well as Room Tone and Aux channels.
SPREAD / REGULAR: Switch between two different keyboard mappings, where "regular" represents the common playing range of organ manuals, and "spread" adapts it to, e.g., an 88-key master keyboard. More on this under PLAY.
Current tab view: Contents and controls according to the selected tab.
Bank selector: Displays the keyswitch of the currently selected bank. Click on the up/down arrows of the bank selector to switch banks.
Combinations: Shows the selected bank with its different combinations as they are needed for a piece's registration.
Shift-click on a combination button to save the currently activated stops shown in the manual/pedal blocks above that button. Right-click to access naming, color, and controls. If you make changes to a combination, its state will be saved when you switch to another combination or bank.Coupler switch: Couple the current combination with sub-octave and octave, so that the lower and/or higher octaves will automatically be added to the note played. Click on the "+1/-1" to add the respective octave. If both are activated, a "0" appears between the two which you can click to activate/deactivate the middle voice.
Clear: Clears/disables all stops of the currently selected combination.
Browser: Load one of the available Presets, or save your own. Choose PRESET for entire registrations, or MIXERPRESET to select a different sound configuration for the organ.
Info area: By clicking on the help button, you can toggle the display between a description of the current preset and detailed help texts.
Voice control: Adjust envelope, volume, pan, tuning, mixer output, and start offset for all or individual stops.
Clear key: Like the Clear button, it disables all currently active stops. Regular mapping: C0; Spread mapping: C9.
Combination stepper: Use this to step through a bank’s combinations – C to go down one combination, D to go up. This is especially useful with modular combination sequences. Regular mapping: C1/D1; Spread mapping: C8/D8.
Combination switches: If keyswitches are selected for combination changes, these keys are highlighted. Alternatively, you can set combination changes to MIDI program changes or MIDI CC and select a controller for switching.
Play range: The playing area proper is indicated by keys in customary color, and changes when you choose a "regular" or "spread" Preset.
Bank switches: These keyswitches allow you to select different banks of the current Preset.
Short mouse-over information: Provides you with a short description of the control element under the mouse pointer.
Voices: The number of currently played voices on all active channels.
RAM load / Overall loaded samples: Currently used RAM and sample count.
Full screen / Preferences: Click on the double arrow button or press
F11/Cmd-Ctrl-Fto toggle full-screen mode. Clicking the wrench icon opens the Audio/MIDI Preferences window. The numbers next to this icon show the latency in samples, the current sample rate, and the CPU load in percent.
As the name says, the controller overview provides information about the controllers used and allows you to adjust parameters pertaining to these controllers.
Controller: Name and currently assigned controller. Click on this area to set the controller type and number:
Value: Shows the current value of the controller.
Range: The numerical range of the controller, depending on its type
Curve: This parameter changes the controller's response, and can be adjusted by dragging with the mouse, or reset to linear by Cmd/Ctrl-click.
Curve type: Click to switch between bipolar and unipolar curves.
This window display shows the matrix structure of the currently loaded preset. Here you can organize your organ setup for different pieces and requirements.
The horizontal lines of the array display the contents of the different banks, which are by default mapped to the keys from C7–B7 (regular) or C0–B0 (spread). The buttons in these lines contain different combinations. A blue dot indicates that the combinations are controlled by CC rather than other controllers, as well as its current value – the higher the controller value, the farther right the dot moves. Bank names can be changed by double-clicking on them.
The range of CC-controlled combination buttons can be set by dragging the boundary between two buttons. Alt/Option-clicking on the boundary between two CC buttons merges them while retaining the setting of the left-hand button. Alt/Option-clicking within the boundaries of one button will split that button; in this case, both buttons will have the same settings, and only the right-hand one will be unnamed. You can have up to 12 buttons in one bank, so splitting will only be possible if there are fewer than 12.
Drag button boundaries
Merge buttons
Split button
Right-clicking on a combination button opens a context menu:
Switch to CC/buttons alternates between these two options. If CC is selected, an option appears below to distribute the sections evenly. The assigned keyswitch or controller is displayed above the switch text. Using MIDI CCs comes in handy, e.g., for a crescendo setup that allows you to add pipes or take them away with a single controller such as the mod-wheel rather than several keys, which are better suited to abrupt combination changes.
Name lets you set the full name and abbreviation of the combination.
Color sets the button's lettering to a color of your choice, or resets it to its default.
Save allows you to save the current state of the stops, octave couplers, and manual couplers to the selected combination button. The quick way to do this is to
Shift-click a combination button.Copy/paste allows you to copy and paste combinations and entire banks.
Learn activates the MIDI learn function.
With Note, White note, Program change, and Controller you can select the preferred method of combination switching, and set it to the desired note or value, respectively. The chosen note or value affects the button the menu was called up from, the other buttons will be adapted accordingly.