Help for the music database


The track database is displayed below as a list. In the initial view you can page up and down by clicking on these symbols . To show the entire list - without setting a search criterion or a filter (see next paragraph) - just click on the "search" button.


Your shopping cart / payment procedure

Click the show shopping cart button to get to your shopping cart with all the tracks and/or CDs you decided to order. Now if you want to proceed to checkout click on the Checkout / pay button in your shopping cart. Another window will open for you to choose your preferred payment option (PayPal or bank transfer) and finally confirm your order.


Standard / enhanced search

Depending on which search mode you chose in the start menu either the standard or the enhanced search mask will start. The enhanced search mask contains considerably more filters and you are able to set options and sorting criteria (cf. below). However this makes the mask much more extensive. Should the standard search not yield enough results you can always switch to the expert search mask later by clicking the -> Enhanced search button.

In the standard search mode you can type in several search terms. In this case you will get all results that match every single word of your search terms, regardless of the context in which they turn up.

Example: If you type in "Matthias", you will get all churches "St. Matthias" as well as the composer or organist "Matthias..." as well as any track that has "Matthias" in its title.


Filters

By using filters you can pre-set certain criteria for display - for data concerning the track (1st column) as well as for organs, on which the tracks have been recorded (2nd column). Then only those datasets will be displayed that match the criteria you set. For more than one criteria (e.g. "composer" and "city") only entries will be shown that match all criteria selected, i.e. the selection fields will be linked by "and".

Some criteria can only be picked from a dropdown list; with "composer", "title", "opus", "interpreter", "city", "church" and "builder" you may fill in any string of words. In that case any dataset will be displayed that contains the words you filled in (regardless of case).

Example: If you look for the city of "Berlin" you will be shown all entries containing this text, including, for example, entries like "Überlingen".
Note: if you use the Published online filter you get those entries displayed that have been added or updated in the last few days, weeks, months or years. If you add sorting according to date of online publishing the latest entries will be shown first.
When searching for names please keep in mind that all lists have the last name first, and the first name last.

To show if and where any filters (i.e. search criteria) have been set, they are marked in red. Depending on how filters were set the list of results can be very long and – depending on the speed of your internet connection – set-up and display may take a while. In general it should be completed in a few seconds, though.


Text search criteria

Here you can determine the strategy for the search and filtering functions. You have the following options:

Exact: The search will be for exact matches - without regard to case, though. Umlauts will be replaced by their two-character substitutes (e.g. "ä" = "ae" = "æ"). This seach is the fastest one, but it can happen that not all matches are displayed: if you enter "Symphonie", entries on "Sinfonie" will not be found. For this reason I included another seach option:

Phonetic: Similar sounds and syllables will be treated alike. This search will find "Sinfonie" even if the entry is on "Symphonie". This search function will ignore special characters. Another option that is even more comprehensive and therefore slower is the search function

Phonetic with translation (default setting): Here about 200 of the most important terms in the areas of title, opus, city and church have been translated from different languages into one specific, before the search starts. Hence the terms "Prelude", "Präludium" and "Vorspiel" are treated as one, just as "church", "Kirche", "église", "kostol" etc. This only concerns the terms used most frequently and the names of larger cities, though.

Recommendation: Do not enter too many or too specific terms. This will increase chances for a successful search: if for instance you look for "Saint Jacobi church" you miss "Hamburg, St. Jacobi." In this case it would be wiser to enter "Hamburg" in the field [city] + "Jacobi" in the field [church].

Sorting

This filter identifies the main search criterion for the displayed list of titles. Depending on the selected criterion entries will be listed in ascending or descending order. Then, depending on the main sorting criterion, obvious additional criteria will be applied for the search automatically.

Example: When sorting according to "number of ranks" sorting will be in descending order. Side criteria will be number of registers, number of manuals etc. if organs with the same number of ranks have to be sorted. If the main criterion was "composer" sorting will be ascending, and additional criteria will automatically be track and opus.
The column from which the main criterion has been picked will be displayed in the list below in dark orange.


Add headings

In order to keep the headline visible in long result lists, you can select here if the heading should be repeated and, if so, at what intervals.


Buttons

When you have set the filters and determined the sortation criteria please click on the button Search / update list.
If you accidentally picked the wrong choice click on the button Reset all to return to the original state.


Icons in the list

  Add the track to your shopping cart for later payment and download.

  Start the demo track (30 seconds of the track).

  (Button far right): show CD including cover and tracklist.

The buttons in the organ column refer to the organ database:

  Display of the organ stoplist with a short history,

  Display of the organ stoplist with a history of the organ including stoplists of the predecessing organs,

  Display of organ pictures in medium resolution,

  Display of the large 8-18 megapixel photo gallery on the organ and the church,

  Display of CDs recorded on this organ (information only, no shop).

  Light buttons indicate that these data are available only for subscribers with full access to the Organ Site. There is a preview, though, for all other users. If you wish to you can register online here.


Some remarks on the MP3/WAV format and download

You can download the ordered tracks in original CD quality (WAV format).
The MP3 format is a compressed digital audio format than can be played on almost all PCs with MP3 software or MP3 players (hardware). You can tell if your PC can play MP3s by clicking on one of the loudspeaker buttons to play a demo track. If your PC can play a demo track it will play all tracks on this music download portal as well.

The 20 second demo tracks use a higher data compression rate to keep the data quantity on a reasonable level. The "big" tracks for download have a much better sound quality, with almost no perceptible difference from the original CD: blind tests have shown that with an MP3 bitrate of 192 kBit/sec, 99 percent of the listeners could no longer discern a difference from the CD. The Organ Site uses a much higher bitrate of 320 kBit/s (keep in mind that pop/rock music downloads use only half of that or less!) Encoding has been carried out without any "MP3 tricks" (such as VBR, Joint Stereo, etc.) that would save disk space at the cost of lower quality. This means that the files offered here are not only of excellent sound quality but also fairly large: One minute of playing time takes up 2.25 Megabyte, a complete CD up to 180 Megabyte.

Obviously then you need a fast Internet access (e.g. DSL). The table below tells you how long the download will take depending on the access speed and the data volume (these are theoretical values, the actual speed depends on the quality of the DSL line, the other programs running on the PC, the load of the access network of your Internet provider and the load of the Organ Site server):

Time taken for the download of MP3 tracks coded with 320 kBit/s
Playing time Amount of data Cable 200 MBit/s DSL 16 MBit/sec DSL 6 MBit/sec DSL 2 MBit/sec DSL 768 kBit/s ISDN 2 ch.
2:00 4.5 MB 0.2 sec 2.3 sec 6.2 sec 18.4 sec 48 sec 4.8 min
5:00 11.3 MB 0,5 sec 6 sec 16 sec 46 sec 2 min 12 min
10:00 22.5 MB 1 sec 12 sec 30 sec 1.5 min 4 min 24 min
30:00 68 MB 2.8 sec 35 sec 1.5 min 4.6 min 12 min 1.2 hrs
75:00 169 MB 7.2 sec 1.5 min 4 min 11.5 min 30 min 3 hrs


MP3-Tags

In each MP3 file, information on the title and artist can be saved in tags. All MP3 files on offer here come with these tags. The standard for these tags, 100% compatible with older MP3 players and any kind of MP3 software, only allows for a maximum of 30 characters per tag. This means that from longer track titles, artists' names and album titles only the first 30 characters will be recorded. Of course this is not ideal, but it can't be helped.


General notes

Best view with Internet Explorer from 6.0, preferably in full view with at least 1,280 by 1,024 resolution. Column choice, sort and filter functions need activated Java script in your browser. Here you will find information on how to burn audio CDs from the MP3 files.


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