Invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot, this electronic instrument is a cross between a theremin and an organ and is known for its melancholic melodies. It was famously used in the original Ghostbusters film and also features in There Will be Blood (2007) and The Black Cauldron (1985). The GarageBand User Guide for iPad is the official manual covering how to use Apple’s GarageBand for iPad to play, record and share your music. These are referred to as 'Garageband Pro Instruments'. Bear with me, I'm pulling out a full content listing (sampler instruments only, not sample files or loops) from the installer and will post it bit by bit - this way you can compare what you have with what the installer should have written.

Hello everyone (that I didn’t scare away with my last post).

Today I thought I’d do something a little different and turn you on to some organ sample sets, free as well as commercial. For the few of you that have no clue what I’m speaking of -A history lesson:

‘Samples’ are snippets of recorded sound used in musical composition. It technically started in the 1940’s with Pierre Schaeffer and ‘Musique Concrète’.

1948!

In the 1960’s Musique Concrète went pop with the birth of the Mellotron, a keyboard that played 8 second lengths of audio tape playing a signle note of an instrument (like a cello, or violin) per key. Certainly, you’ve heard it.

The strings? Mellotron.

Then came the 80’s and with it came digital sampling. The biggest name in the form was the Fairlight CMI.

Peter Gabriel explains the Fairlight! Yes, in English

Art of Noise with their ground breaking Fairlight track (and amusing vid) for “Close To The Edit”

As the decade wore on, the technology became MUCH cheaper and the data storage much smaller resulting in many different choices in the sampling realm. From the heavy duty:

The EMU Emulator II

To the down and dirty:

Pipe Organ Garageband Ipad Cover

The Ensoniq Mirage (RACK VERSION)

Pete Rock wailing on the now legendary EMU SP1200 (among other things)

Pipe Organ Garageband Ipad

To the thing you wish you never bought your grandkid for Christmas:

What they sold you…

What you bought!

Replace “Hello My Name Is Herbert” with a fart, or “Billy Is Gay” and the tears, they did flow huh, Gramma? Yep.

Well, with the 90’s came the advent of computer recording and now, in the late Aughties, anyone with a half decent computer or smart phone (iPhone / iPad) has the ability to also run a top of the line sampler / sequencer through any number of DAW programs like Cubase, Nuendo, Reaper, Fruity Loops, Ableton, Pro-Tool, Garageband, the list is LONG.

go ahead, hit the link, see if I care!

So, why oh, why did I drag through this?

Because some of you love organs, but don’t have the space necessary or means to have one in your home. Well, if you have a computer, enough space on your hard drive, and money to afford a USB MIDI keyboard controller, I think sampling is the solution for you! Once you understand the basics of sampling (terms like MIDI and WAV) and spend a little time with a simple program like Garageband (which comes loaded in most iMacs as far as I know) or Cubase lite, the internet will provide you with more sampled organ sounds than you could believe, often cheap, sometimes free!

Here’s a few places to get some organ samples!:

http://sonimusicae.free.fr/orguedesalon-en.html awesome pipe organ

http://www.forgottenkeys.co.uk/3_fe70.php A Yamaha FE-70 – exactly the kind of organ we love @ Organ *Pron! I’ve bought from Forgotten Keys numerous times, great stuff and SUPER CHEAP! I didn’t know about this until TODAY!! Plenty of classic Drumbox sample sets there, too!

http://www.sampletekk.com/proddetail.php?prod=PMIDELIVER-007-FORMAT A nice Kontakt style baroque organ

http://www.vintagekeyboardsounds.com/ A bunch of hot combo organs here!

http://audiogeneticslab.com/instruments/free/magnus-chord-organ A free Magnus chord organ set. Actually really cool!

http://www.hollowsun.com/shop/Freepacks Hollow Sun, the masters of the weird sample set, offer up a free Novachord, one of the coolest organ type instruments EVER!

http://www.freesound.org/ Speaking of weird and Musique Concrète…

Pipe Organ Garageband Ipad Case

Here are some VSTi (Virtual Studio Technology instrument), basically simulated digital versions of real instruments – no samples. Some are servicable, some are amazing, as far as organs go, there are TONS and the majority of them are FREE. So, please, mosey on over to KVR Audio check ’em out!