Post Organ Toolkit v3.0

Post Audio Media
Format: Akai/Kurzweil

Review by Clif Marsiglio
Monday, December 27, 1999

The Post Organ Toolkit fills a gap that many Kurzweil owners have needed. Kurz owners have always been considered elitists because of our wanton of perfection, from the synth emulations to realistic pianos. Micheil Post fills this need with his latest version (3.0) of the Post Organ Toolkit.

The disc sizes in on the heavy side with about 330 megs of organ sounds. Quite a bit for 3 organs, 1 bank of emulations and some solo sounds. These sounds are sampled stop by stop...no full organ hits without maxing out your sampler. This is exactly what the package says, a Toolkit. You've got to put these sounds together and figure out what patch sounds good against another, just like a real organ. About the only thing that doesn't feel like a real organ is the delay from the time you put your finger to the keyboard to the time the air fills the pipe...this is a good thing though. In all seriousness, no recorded organ is going to give you the full range of the sound and the mass of air forcing its way across the audience as you would get in real life. To be fair, no recorded piano or any other simulated acoustic instrument can do this either. Still, get a good pair of speakers, a good amp and a great sub, and you may be just as happy and be able to pack a four-ton organ in the back of your Hyundai.

About the disc: Michiel sampled these from some of the finest theatre organs in the Netherlands. The Big Bavo Organ is from Haarlem and comes to 172 Megs for this one organ. You'd need 2 fully maxed K2500s to have the whole thing loaded. The average file size is about 20 megs per stop.

The Concertgebouw, from Amsterdam, is 35 programs in 30 Megs. Much nicer on your sampler than the Bavo. Finally, the Italian organ is 16 Megs with 6 patches.

In addition to these organs, there are two banks of Simulations and Solo Instruments. The Simulations are VAST emulations. Still the bank comes to 30 Megs, though a good half of that comes from just one patch. The last bank are the Solo Instruments. It is just as it says, solo but meant to be layered just like the other organs. This comes in at 80 Megs.

About the Sound: I noted the Size and Megabytes required for each sound but this doesn't tell you a single thing about the sound. Then again, the sound really sounds as big as the file sizes. These sound perfect, like a real organ. If you are an organist, this is the disc you need. You won't be disappointed. I'm not an organist nor do I listen to much solo organ but I can still hear the quality when I listen to this. The minute I put it in my player, and after 15 minutes of loading into my synth, it sounded as close to the real thing as I could find on any of my classical discs (ok, it was mostly Bach).

To test my ears and my audio system I took a trip to the cathedral downtown on a Friday afternoon as the audience is invited to hear the practices. Did the disc sound like this? Not in your life - as I mentioned in my introduction - you cannot emulate the experience of being in a real atmosphere of a real organ. It did, however, sound a hell of a lot better than the disc I bought in the gift shop.

Any other complaints I might have? I'd have like to see more history on the liner notes...maybe a few demos filling out the remainder of this disc to give one an idea of what can be achieved with it. Other than that, no complaints.

If you want a great organ on your Kurzweil (or Akai) you aren't going to find anything better than this. Call Michiel (or probably more preferably write him) immediately and buy this disc. You won't be disappointed.

If you have this disc and would like to comment on it, please contact CCMARSIG@SONIKMATTER.COM