A pure, with character, somewhat unpolished, many-sided sampleset.
The description on the site of this sampleset contains "the timbre of the organ is typically French, rather sharp".
However, most of the 8 and 4 feet stops of this organ are in my ears mild (listen for example to the 'blowing' flutes).
The other stops (e.g. Doublettes, Plein Jeu, etc) are a bit sharp, that results in a bit 'sharp' tutti.
The church in Forcalquier has beautiful acoustics, this is very nice in the samples of the 'Grand Orgue' (II) and the 'Recit expressif' (III).
The 'Positif de dos' (I) is more direct recorded; this gives a nice effect in an ensemble with the Grand Orgue (see the example of Ps 33).
The organ have a lot gorgeous solo stops, e.g. Cromorne 8, 1ere Trompette 8 (scherp), 2eme Trompette 8 (mild), Cornet V, Cornet III, Hautbois 8, Voix Humaine 8.
All reeds sounds different.
The Cornets sounds exactly how a Cornet should sound and are both good usable.
The organ have multiple possibilities, I had no struggles to find suitable registrations for different styles of music.
Because of the Gambe, mild flutes and reeds, you can use this sampleset also for romantic music.
After playing my 'standard examples', I have a lot of registration possibilities not shown, there are plenty timbres!
I miss only a few nice principals, the Flute 8 can be used as replacement.
In the past the pedal had as basis only the slow, but nice swelling, Flute 16.
For fast music pieces, it is pleasant that Sals added the Soubasse 16 in 2000.
The Bombarde is a bit out of tune (in the original tuning temperament, this is corrected in the Hauptwerk temperaments) and I used it only for the final chords of 'Plein Jeu a la Couperin'.
New for the samplesets of Sonus Paradisi is the visibility of the wind model, furthermore you can adjust the valves to change the wind pressure.
This nice toy is only usable with Hauptwerk Advanced and outside the U.S. (because of a patent).
The absence of noise (also in reverb tail) is one of the characteristics of Sonus Paradisi.
It's not needed, as by many other sets, to put on the organ motor to avoid that the noise is annoying.
The sampleset have a practical good readable 'stops page'. Only the pedal stops should logically be at the bottom of the screen and not halfway.
It is, for those that have a 2 manual console, a pity that there is no coupler from III to II.
Without big concessions to the sound quality, you can load the whole sampleset (with multiple release samples) on a computer with 4 Gb RAM.
With about E 8,- per stop (E 291,-), this is not an expensive sampleset.
Gert, september 2008
Copy the files to c:\Hauptwerk\HauptwerkUserData\OrganCombinations\OrganID000345\
You can load the in Hauptwerk via menu 'Combinations\Load combinations file...'.