Martin Bezemer Harpsichord
€ 21,-

This harpsichord has been built in 1981, by Martin Bezemer Eindhoven the Netherlands. It was the 4th instrument he built.
This one-keyboard-instrument contains two 8 foot stops with a lute to the first stop.
You can download the Sygsoft Harpsichord for FREE.
Now available in a totally new version recorded and presented at 24 bit 96 kHz for the price of 19 Euro (excl. shipping)

Martin Bezemer started building musical instruments in the 60 s of the last century as he was short of money. The very first instrument he built was a harpsichird (spinet) constructed of scrap materials". It functioned all right but did did not sound great. As a result he did have a second go and that worked out better. Unfortunately, both of his first creations did not survive but he did develop a bug for building musical instruments. He built instruments for himself and his family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues and has, in the meantime, built a collection of approximately 30 instruments. These include, spinets, harpsichords with one and two manuals, a chestorgan, a clavicytherium (upright harpsichord) and a street organ. Martin is currently building a cabinet-organ.
Martin is an amateur-builder and he is adamant about not entering the commercial market.

This harpsichord was built in 1981, by Martin Bezemer Eindhoven the Netherlands.
This one-keyboard-instrument contains two 8 foot stops with a lute to the first stop.

The recording has been made with the following equipment:

1st: 2 new AKG Perception 200 large diaphragm condenser microphones.
2nd: six chanal mixer Tapco Blend 6 of 2006.
3rd: a simple computer with an AMD Athlon 1600 MHz processor.
4th: an M-Audio 2496 sound card.

The wav-files are recorded in 16 bits at 44,1 kHz.
Tuning is equal to a'=440 Hz.

We have constructed loops in wav-files in a simple manner:
After the tone has died out we have inserted a few seconds of silence and on this we placed loops with CoolEdit version 96. A loop on absolute silence is, as it happens, always correct. Just before the release of the key we inserted a cue-point as required by Hauptwerk.

The sound of the front "stop" starts immediately and the back "stop" after about 20 msec.
Recently a Dutch harpsichord player (Pierre de Ries) suggested that this staggering of the attack with coupled keyboards should be slightly larger in the bass than in the treble. At this moment we have no technical ways to realize or measure this specific harpsichord effect. But certainly there is a point in what mr. de Ries says. We are still working on this. We also admit that this staggering of the attack delay is not always uniform from key to key.
We welcome your comments, especially from those who play the real instrument. You see 2 keyboards in Hauptwerk. At the side of the upper manual you will see two labels "8va Bassa". This manual plays one octave lower than the other manual depending on the stops chosen. In this way you can now play the 5 lowest notes of the original instrument on the lower left side of the upper manual.

Instead of stop buttons we have opted for combination buttons. These implement all possible combinations (affecting the stops on the upper manual as well):

1: The front stop, a somewhat "sharp" one.
2: The back stop, a little bit "milder".
3: The lute on the first stop.
4: The back and front stop together.
5: The lute and the back stop together.
6: Everything reset.

Furthermore we have added a swell, which is of course not original.
Due to the state of the instrument which is not very good the result is not overwhelming but possibly you can enjoy it nevertheless.
The instrument uses approximately 300 MB of memory (this is what Windows attributes to Hauptwerk etc).

Downloadfiles 96 kHz version:
As soon as we receive your payment for the newest version (€ 21,-), you will receive access to the download files via email.

Downloadfiles FREE version:
Would you like to download this sampleset for free, then fill in the Request form(name and email adress), you will get immediate access to the download files.

Important: Please read before installing first the following information under 'General'.

Before download and install, note the following:
1. Download all .CompPkg.Hauptwerk files.
2. Leave these files in the same folder and
3. Do not change the file names and
4. Do not unpack by hand.
5. Check the MD5 checksums with the WinMD5 program, free to download from
http://www.winmd5.com or http://www.fastsum.com
If a checksum is incorrect, discard the wrong download file from the PC and download that file again.
6. Start Hauptwerk (File/Install organ....), select in the folder where you just downloaded the files,
the file with extension .CompPkg_Hauptwerk_rar in Hauptwerk's 'component installer'.
Hauptwerk automatically finds the other files.
7. If you get error messages, scroll to the end of the log file (this opens automatically if something goes wrong when unpacking) to see what goes wrong.
Usually a file is missing, or there is a file in the wrong folder or a file is damaged.
8. Before loading the sampleset, check the system information regarding the expected memory usage etc.

Note: Please contact us via the Contact form if you encounter any issues; we will try to assist you.