johnh

Hi, looks like a nice project. I'm not familiiar with the SYSCON-2. Is there a website with more information? Thanks.

> > We have output: Up to 16 ranks. > Why limit yourself to 16 ranks? I

on 03/28/04 at 15:35:14, Thorsten Klose wrote: I've created a new board so that it's easier for you to continue the discussions. Thorsten, What new board did you create? I've been waiting since March to find out. Regards, Johnc John, Thorsten created the Midifiication secion of the Forum. That's the 'board' that he was referring to. I think you interpreted that as 'hardware'...

You mention that 'you can't make cables with IDC's'. This isn't necessarily true. In my console the drawknowbs have 5 pins on the back spaced 0.2 inches apart. A single 20 conductor ribbon cable connects to four drawknobs. There are four 10x2 IDCs crimped onto the cable. By staggering how they are placed onto the drawknob pins all 20 conductors in the cable are used. It's not pretty but it works. I haven't looked at trying this technique with the DINX4 module. In any event the outputs are scrambled and the cables need to be labelled as to position. If I were going to go to the trouble of laying out a new circuit card I would try very hard to either have the outputs in order on the connector or do it in software. It's much easier to wire stuff when you can just use pin numbers to trace things down. At least in my experience.

Hi John, You are correct : all my ranks of pipes are currently exposed. I do plan to add a swell box some day. Realize that at the moment it is all experimentation to figure out how things work and to audition the various ranks of pipes that are laying around here. I've got pipes I've never heard. My priorities at this point are to get the console MIDIbox translator up and running, install the blower in it's own permanent home in the blower room, add at least a 16' bourdon so I can rattle the windows, ;) and get at least one rank of reeds playing (probably an oboe). I do like the sparkle of the high notes but a little bit goes a long way (at least in my music room with has vary hard walls and the dimensions LxW are not optimum). Re: the MIDIbox, I'm still grappling with the addressing modes. When I get those nailed in my brain it will be smoother sailing I think... ;) ---john.

Re: 2' stops In my limited experience with my residence organs, I'd agree that the really high notes can turn a loud passage into an overpowering, get out of the room passage. Of course with MIDI that's easy, sometime the organ sounds best when listening from the other end of the house. In general finding pipework that sounds good in a small space can be a challenge if you are buying used as many of us are... I've been slowed in my MIDIbox progress, but hope to get back to it soon, I've got some new ideas to try out. More on that later. ---john.

John, It's totally feasible to have your pipe control boards respond to both methods, or more if you choose. You could get 'fancier' and have a 'mode selection' switch on the board if you like. If you can develope the software to the point that one works the other wouldn't be much more work. We temporarily had a version of the YAPPI boards that would work with my console's SYSEX scheme. Best of luck, I'm off to fix a cipher (Hauptwerk doesn't have *that* problem...) ----john.

John, Mickey, Craig Williams is now testing using Controller Messages instead of Program Changes for stop controls. Using the Controller Messages allows for a larger number of stops. Using his scheme with Program Changes limits you to 63 stops. 63 stops is a lot for a Residence Organ but having more 'available' stop numbers makes some things easier. He's also working on a standard format for organ MIDI files and then a 'converter' which will re-register them for a specific instrument. It's interesting stuff! ----john.

Greetings... I am also working on a pipe organ with MIDI. I currently own a three manual/pedal console with ~50 drawknobs that was built by someone who used 8051 microprocessors to handle the MIDI encoding, etc. I'm driving real pipes using boards a friend of mine designed (pic based). At this point the builder of the console used SYSEX messages for stop changes where my friend's pipe driver boards respond to either program changes or controller messages. My initial use of MIOS is to translate from SYSEX to controller messages. The console and pipe chests are connected via a single MIDI cable. I can add a PC if I want to record or playback sequences. I'm looking forward to the MIDIbox sequencer project since I'd like to store some 'demo' sequences that I could play without firing up the PC. There is some info on my project at: http://www.haskey.com/johnh/organ and I have a lot more info to post if I could only find time. There is a link to an early description of my friends pipe driver boards at: http://www.haskey.com/yappi (the site has moved but you will be redirectred). You could of course use MIOS for pipe control but it would be worth reading my friends approach just for informational purposes. We are also developing an 'archive' format for MIDI organ files that will make it easy to exchange sequences with the proper registrations among instruments. So much to do, so little time. All the best... ---john.

Greetings... In my application I need to process system exclusive messages. Is there any example code that demonstrates how this is done? Looking at the functions that MIOS provides it looks like there are two user functions that get called on input: USER_MIDI_NotifyRx and USER_MPROC_NotifyReceivedByte. I'm not sure of the difference between the two. It would seem that I could take calls to one of these functions and watch for the start of a sysex message and then continue to queue bytes one call at a time until the end of the sysex and then process the entire queued message. This would be easier in my case than trying to process the message on the fly (plus it would put less code in the interrupt routines) Am I overlooking an easier solution? Sorry for what may be naive questions but this is my first attempt at coding a custom app under MIOS.

Hey T, Do you know what files you need out of the huge zip? I can extract the appropriate files from the .cab and put them info a .zip if that is helpful. I have SmashTV's USB board but haven't sourced the parts for it yet so I haven't installed the driver... ---john.

I order some SIL connectors last night. How long 'til Futurelec is out of stock? ;)

Greetings, At 9:46pm PST my first MIDIbox core module requested a sysex dump. I'm very happy. Thanks to SmashTV for the great kit!!! I assume the first step is to load the new MIOS and then start into programming. I want to create an app that translates certain sysex messages into program change messages for my pipe organ project. :) ---john.