Available for download, the Modartt Organteq from Pianoteq is a virtual instrument that gives you the sound of a pipe organ, the sort you’d hear in a church. The organ has been physically modeled, and the virtual instrument can operate in standalone as well as within any DAW supporting AU or VST plug-in formats.

Though this instrument uses physical modeling, actual sampling has been eschewed; the behavior and timbre of the organ has been simulated, giving you the authentic sound of an organ in a file size relatively small in this day and age—just 15 MB. All the familiar aspects of a church organ have been reproduced, including the action noises from keys, stops, and couplers as well as the arrangement of pipes in a stereophonic space.

Organteq gives you over 1000 pipes assigned to three keyboards in the GUI, covering a range of five octaves as well as a pedal section with 32 notes. Each virtual keyboard can be assigned to various stops with adjustable parameters. The software provides intelligent MIDI mapping for your MIDI controller, though its comprehensive MIDI-learn feature allows you to play the organ with all sorts of MIDI controllers.

The software is compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems. It functions in AU, VST, and standalone.