|
Temperaments A temperament is a scheme by which the organ is tuned, and determines the pitch intervals between the pipes for successive notes on the keyboard. With equal temperament the interval between each successive note is constant, and so pieces of music can be played in any or several keys whilst the psychoacoustic effect remains constant. However, other tuning schemes give different effects and may be better suited to different types of music, particularly historical music which often was written for different temperaments. Hauptwerk allows different temperaments (tunings) to be installed via the component installer, and to be selected and applied to any sample set via the Temperament menu:
The menu is only enabled when a sample set is loaded. Note that the menu is disabled, and temperaments cannot be used, if the Disable interpolation (use fixed-pitch playback)? option is selected on either of the General settings | General options or Organ settings | General options screens, since interpolation is required in order that Hauptwerk can control the pitch of the pipes. Equal temperament is the most common tuning used for modern instruments and is the default when a sample set is loaded into Hauptwerk unless the virtual organ can be played with its real, original tuning. If you have selected a different temperament, you can return to equal temperament using the Temperament | Equal temperament menu function. You can load alternative temperaments (tunings) via the Temperament | Load temperament option. A number of temperaments are installed with Hauptwerk. The Temperament | Load recent temperament sub-menu and eight stand-by menu slots work in the same way as their equivalents on the Organ menu; if a temperament is currently loaded it can assigned to a stand-by slot by selecting the slot whilst in capture mode, and recalled from the slot when not in capture mode. It is thus possible to have up to eight MIDI buttons with which to recall up to eight temperaments. As with the Organ stand-by assignment sub-menu, temperaments can also be assigned directly to a stand-by slot using the Temperament | Set current temperament as a stand-by temperament menu short-cuts, avoiding the need to enter and leave capture mode. If you try playing a chord with equal temperament and then the same chord with another temperament, such as 1/4-Comma Meantone, you should clearly be able to hear the difference that the temperament makes. The 'Test-DeliberatelyMistuned' temperament can also be used to verify that Hauptwerk's temperaments are working. Some sample sets can also be played at their original recorded pitches, as an alternative to using a fixed temperament. For such sample sets, the Temperament | Original organ tuning option selects that behaviour, and is selected by default. The option is only meaningful if the samples have been kept tuned to their original pitches, and were all recorded from a single organ, and the option is not available for St. Anne's. An abbreviated name for the selected temperament is shown in the status bar at the bottom of the main window:
Finally, note that some sample sets are intended only to be heard exactly as they were recorded and have licenses which explicitly disallow any temperament adjustments. For such sample sets the temperaments menu functions are not enabled. |
