News

We are pleased to offer the release of Hauptwerk 3.23 which includes the new Free Edition of Hauptwerk. Version 3.23 may be downloaded from the website downloads area, or ordered on DVD-Rom through the Hauptwerk store.

The Free Edition has all features of the Basic Edition except: 

• Its polyphony is restricted to 256 simultaneous voices (pipes). That's sufficient for practicing with a reasonable number of stops on organs with small and medium-sized acoustics.
• You can load a maximum of 1.5 GB of sample data into memory at a time. You can load larger sample sets, but you will need to disable some ranks.
• 24-bit or 32-bit sample sets will work fully, but can be loaded in a maximum of 16-bit resolution.
• Non-commercial, home personal use only.
• No support. You must buy a licensed edition if you need help or advice from us.
• You may use the Free Edition on only one computer at a time.
• You cannot use commercial sample sets if they are licensed via the Hauptwerk USB key (unless you have a license for them on an attached Hauptwerk USB key for an earlier Hauptwerk version).

We're making this edition available so that people who would genuinely not otherwise be able to afford a license can use Hauptwerk for learning and practice. If you can afford to buy a license, please support Hauptwerk's development by buying a license for it. The aim is that the Free Edition should be sufficient to provide very high-quality and flexible small and medium-sized virtual instruments (or medium-sized parts of larger ones) for home practice use for students and others who, for any reason, aren't able to afford a license. It has the features needed for modeling both classical and theatre organs, and there are plenty of free sample sets available for use with it on the instrument downloads page on our website.