Estey Organ, 1905 -Sampled for Kontakt
Background
This is an instrument made in December 1905 by the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vermont. It originally accompanied hymn singing in the small LDS chapel in Leavitt, southern Aberta. These popular, affordable organs were known as Reed Organs, Harmoniums or Melodeons among other trade names. Estey made about 500,000 such instruments between the 1850’s and 1920’s, many of which are still in good working order. At the turn of the century when this one was made, the company was producing around 13,000 reed organs a year!
I have sampled each note in 24/48 format and programmed each stop as an instrument in Native Instruments Kontakt 5 with infinite loops and key releases. I have provided two sets of instruments, one with the original tuning (about 25 cents flat from A440 and some internal wonkiness) and one tuned and touched up. The stops include a working Vox Humana (where the air turns a fan that spins to modulate the two octaves above middle C, like flapping cardboard next to your face as you sing) and bass and treble couplers which mechanically double a range of notes at the octave. Please listen to the demos and download the free instrument (one stop for the octaves above and below middle C).
Audio Demos
Nearer My God – soft stops, original tuning
All Creatures – full organ with couplers, corrected tuning
Instrument Info
Stops (separate Kontakt instruments):
Lower Register –
Dolce, Melodia, Melodia Forte, Viola 4′, Bass Coupler, Full Organ
Upper Register –
Flute, Diapason, Diapason Forte, Vox Jubilante, Vox Jubilante Forte, Vox Humana, Full Organ, Full Organ with Coupler
Specs:
Range 73 keys (6 octaves from F1 to F7)
All samples 24 bit/48 Khz
File size 284 Mb (265 Mb zip file)
Requires NI Kontakt 5+ (Player or full version)
Downloads