Masterpiece

A cross-platform pipe organ sample player that reads Hauptwerk and GrandOrgue sample sets, builds the instrument’s own console out of the set’s definition — artwork, drawstops, keyboards, pedalboard — and plays it.

Standalone application, VST3, LV2, and Audio Unit on macOS — the same engine either way. Windows, macOS, Linux, and Raspberry Pi. An independent GPL-3.0-only implementation; it is not a fork.

Download — version 0.7.1

Windows installer macOS — Apple silicon macOS — Intel Debian / Ubuntu .deb Raspberry Pi 64-bit Raspberry Pi 32-bit

Portable archives for every platform, the plugins on their own, and the Android and iOS builds are on the releases page.

Hear it

Thirty-three works on nine organs, 17 minutes, recorded from the application’s own audio output. The consoles animate because a MIDI note takes the same path through the instrument that a physical console would drive.

Programme, sequencers and sample library producers: attribution page.

New tested instruments

The second recording: the sample sets tested for release 0.5, two works each, chosen for the instrument. Thirty works on fifteen organs, 12 minutes, filmed from the running console with the audio taken from the application’s own output.

Programme and credits: its own attribution page.

What it is

A sampled pipe organ is distributed as a large library: a recording of every pipe of a real instrument — attack, a loopable stretch of steady tone, and one or more releases with the building’s reverberation dying away — plus a definition describing the instrument around them. Which pipes each stop owns, what the couplers and pistons do, how the console is drawn, how the wind and the swell box behave.

Masterpiece reads those libraries and turns them back into a playable instrument. It reads unencrypted Hauptwerk-format sets directly, so existing libraries transfer without conversion; copy-protected .hbw/.hbx sets are reported, not played, and stay locked to the program they were encrypted for. GrandOrgue .organ sets load too, translated as they load into the same kind of definition, console included. A set can also be played straight from the packages it ships in — RAR archives or GrandOrgue .orgue packages — without unpacking it.

Why it matters on a Pi

The differentiator is resource use. Attacks and sustain loops stay resident while release tails stream from disk into per-voice ring buffers, with 24-bit bit-exact, 16-bit and mono-folding options plus a decoded sample cache.

Measured on Friesach — 44 stops, 17 GB, 12,148 files:

Mode	RAM	Open time
32-bit float, fully resident	21.6 GB	77 s
24-bit, bit-exact	16.2 GB	—
16-bit stereo, releases streamed	4.65 GB	—
16-bit mono-folded, releases streamed	2.33 GB	26 s

Up to 9.3x less memory and 3x faster loading. Streaming assumes SSD-class storage. Method and full figures: PERFORMANCE.md.

Using it

The console, playing — The console — drawstops, pistons and shoes where the builder put them, wired the way the builder wired them

Loading an organ — Loading on its own thread — real progress, an estimate built from the rate achieved, cancellable

The stop list — the same registration grouped by division, for sets with no console picture

Engine settings — Engine — what costs CPU and what costs memory, in one place

MIDI settings — MIDI — right-click a drawstop and move the real one to learn it; manual ranges, splits, velocity windows

Mixer and routing — Routing — output pairs carry across organs, rank assignment is saved per organ

Voicing — rank and per-pipe level and tuning, with A/B sets for direct comparison

Recorder — Recording — MIDI and audio at once; the MIDI take replays through a different registration

Favourites and combination sets — Combination sets — whole registration books, one for a recital and another for a service

Room reverb — The room — convolution reverb for libraries recorded dry

Jamb displays — the text panel on a wired console, driven by system exclusive

Every organ gets its own Combinations window: generals in rows of ten, divisionals with their own cancel for every manual and the pedal, a stepper with up to 999 frames, Set and General Cancel. A piston that was never set does nothing, and only the registration is captured — stops, couplers and tremulants, never the blower or a noise. The organ’s own pistons keep working beside these. Right-click any piston to map it to a button on your console.

Tuning holds the three things a player changes between pieces: temperament (the organ’s own, Werckmeister III, Kirnberger III, Vallotti, Young II, quarter-comma meantone, Pythagorean, Silbermann’s sixth-comma, equal, or a Scala .scl file), pitch in Hz with 415, 440 and 442 a click away, and a transposer that moves the keys rather than the samples.

Supported instruments

Each organ below is a freely published sample library, separate from the player. Twenty-three are produced by Piotr Grabowski and fourteen by Augustine’s Virtual Organs. Most of the newer ones are demonstration sets, which include only some of each organ’s stops. Full credits: attribution.

Nancy console — Nancy — 65 stops, four manuals; the keys are part of the photograph and the drawstops are colour-coded by division

Friesach console — Friesach — Eisenbarth, 2000 · 44 stops, three manuals, jambs on their own pages

Kraków, St. John Cantius console — Kraków, St. John Cantius — 40 stops, three manuals

Lipiny console — Lipiny — A. Volkmann, 1898 · 25 stops, drawstops lettered in Fraktur

Raszczyce console — Raszczyce — Vermeulen, 1965 · 21 stops

Strassburg console — Strassburg — C. Werner, 1743 · 20 stops

Długa Kościelna console — Długa Kościelna — 22 stops

Melcer Chamber Music Hall console — Melcer Chamber Music Hall — chamber organ

Azzio console — Azzio — Mascioni, 2016 · 12 stops

Lemmer console — Lemmer — Flentrop, 1977–78 · 9 registers, a Flentrop under the saints

Giubiasco console — Giubiasco — complete set

Alessandria console — Alessandria — pipes reached through pallet switches

Święta Lipka console — Święta Lipka — pipes reached through pallet switches

Erfurt, Predigerkirche console — Erfurt, Predigerkirche

Erfurt-Büßleben console — Erfurt-Büßleben

Chorzów, St Hedwig of Silesia console — Chorzów, St Hedwig of Silesia

Oloron-Sainte-Marie console — Oloron-Sainte-Marie

Nagyrákos console — Nagyrákos — Angster, 1938

Ják Abbey console — Ják Abbey — Angster, 1902

Hajós console — Hajós — an Angster organ

Székesfehérvár, Cistercian church console — Székesfehérvár, Cistercian church — an Angster organ

Székesfehérvár, Franciscan church console — Székesfehérvár, Franciscan church — a Mauracher organ

Szombathely console — Szombathely — an Eule organ

Monor, Reformed church console — Monor, Reformed church — a Rieger organ

Császár console — Császár — F. X. Luber, 1793

Zalalövő console — Zalalövő — Aquincum, a modern baroque organ

Vasvár, Dominican church console — Vasvár, Dominican church

Budapest, Church of the Holy Spirit console — Budapest, Church of the Holy Spirit

Hungarian village organs console — Hungarian village organs — two village churches in one set

Kézdimartonfalva harmonium console — Kézdimartonfalva — a Dutch harmonium

Installing

Windows — run the installer; it adds a Start menu entry and removes from Settings → Apps. The portable .zip needs no installation and carries the VST3 plugin.
Debian, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi OS — sudo apt install ./masterpiece-0.7.1-linux-amd64.deb (use -arm64 or -armhf on a Pi). The PC package also installs the plugins, to /usr/lib/vst3 and /usr/lib/lv2.
macOS — unzip and move Masterpiece.app to Applications.
Other distributions — the .tar.gz archives on the releases page.

Masterpiece runs on OpenPipes OS ARM and OpenPipes OS x86 alongside the engines those images ship with.

Support the project

Masterpiece is free and GPL-3.0-only. Development is funded entirely by the people who use it.

Support OpenPipes Ko-Fi

Source and documentation

Source — bonninr/masterpiece All releases Issues Project site

README — the full description, every screen, every instrument
PERFORMANCE.md — memory and loading measurements, with the method
COMMAND-LINE.md — headless and scripted use
ATTRIBUTION.md — sample library producers, the recital programme and credits
LICENCE — GPL-3.0-only
Build workflow — Windows, macOS, Linux and Raspberry Pi on every commit
github.com/Openpipes-org — the rest of the OpenPipes software and hardware