KealyPaul

OrganGrinder, Haven't seen you in awhile, and wonder how your project with the organ retrofit is coming along. I have recently altered my WurliTzer 216 soundfonts playback from massive room speakers to four near-field speakers (like those old quadraphonics). It is focused specifically to the organist (for critical sound analysis and research) rather than playing into a massive room. TWO soundcards are installed in the computer, each with TWO outputs (L / R, rather than stereo) configured to the soundfonts (for Main / Solo chambers) = four outputs altogether. For the present, I am surrounded at the console with four separate speakers 2 in front (L main and R solo) 2 Suspended above (L main and R solo) Each of these receive discretely separated sounds from the computer. registered to appear from four separate corners about me. Not unlike the early days of hi-fi stereo-quad with the ping-pong balls bouncing back and forth and trains coursing past the microphones. So the 216 MidiTzer OUTPUT plays like this: FRONT (Soundcard 1) Left Right DIA / CLAR / OCT TIBIA /OBOE /GLOCK REAR (soundcard 2) Left Right VIOL / CLST / FLUTE TUBA / VOX (12th / 15th / PICC / Tierce) So a maximum of only three ranks playing from eachy single speaker. To set up my soundcard software, ALL of Bruce's soundfonts are loaded in BOTH soundcards in the "Audio HQ" SoundBlaster software configuration Specific ranks are later chosen by MidiTzer software. (I do not use fluidsynth; nor do I use a central pan ... These SoundBlaster Live! soundcards have "joystick" plugs to plug my synthesizers into, avoiding an outboard midimerger). MidiYoke software download merges the soundcard keyboards. To configure my discretely separated channels: MidiTzer yellow button / Output select: I simply assign specific ranks of the loaded soundfonts to each soundcard, As listed above to: (1) Left Front, (2) Right Front, (3) Left Rear, (4) Right Rear to separate the ranks into four separate amp speakers. I haven't tried to send a non-tremmed soundfont to a Leslie. but I'm certain it can be accomplished. Since the tremmed and non-tremmed sound fonts are in two separate places in the software configure, a subsequent project will be to send those tremmed fonts to a separate Leslie amp, to see if that will work. To create the separate tremmed sound as a dry sound (which is "minus 50" for "Patch 2" in the MidiTzer "output") should do the trick, unless I'm missing something. The tibia tremmed is 68, Tibia dry is 18, etc. There has been talk of the feasibility of sending dry sounds to a Leslie speaker (instead of using imbedded trem soundfonts) on the soundsfonts chatlist lately, so perhaps a solution is on the way. There is room enough in a gutted Wurli for three keyboards, replacing The little Barbie-Doll Orbit Synthesier with a full sized MIDI keyboard. What have you decided to do with your Wurli 950? Replacing original organ electronics with MidiBox Cores and DINs is the perfect solution for more authentic sounds, and re-wiring the 25 pedal clavier (from 3 separate sockets to a single 25-pin printer cable to send to a midiBox DIN) is not difficult I'll keep you posted on our project with the 950 amps and speakers - it could be perfect for the quad-system-cum-leslie you speak of - All you need is MIDIbox DINs and replace existing manuals with 3 MIDIfied keyboards and plug in the MIDIfied pedals. Trust all's well in your corner of the kingdom and your project is progressing well – we have great respect for our antipodean friends. pk

Great idea .. I use a professional NSI MIDI 616 Memory Lighting Control Console for my theatrical productions that works well as a source to control stage lighting coupled with a simple mini MIDI keyboard plugged into the lighting controller (that also can work as a stand-alone light controller without MIDI) to control up to 16 circuits of theatre lights. Simply set a scene with up to 16 lights, then save that as a keystroke (say, C), then set another scene and save that as another keystroke (say C#) and another, (say, D), etc. You get the point. It's sort of like registering an organ with pistons that you punch to energize various pre-selected ranks of pipes, except you can set the intensity of each lamp individually in the light mix, whereas an organ sets the stoptab, but the swell pedal control intensity. I can hardly wait to complete my own organ MIDIbox project, but I digress ... Then to perform the light cues for Act 1, Scene 1, simply "play" the C note on the synthesizer. To transition to Act 1, Scene 2, simply "Play" the C# note of the synthesizer, etc. as each of these are set into MIDI memory . . . Saves a lot of fidgiting once the scenes have been configured to simply play a note on a keyboard instead of setting all 16 channels of lights. If this can be accomplished via DIY MidiBoxes, what a breakthru for community theatre without the need for more than 16 channels of light circuits, or churches that transition from worship to weddings to baptisms, or whatever, by simply configuring and saving pre-set lighting cues on a synth keyboard or a MIDI button on a MiniBox. By the way, these light mixers (slide faders that resemble a recording studio sound mixing console) simply send control TRIGGERS to master dimmer boxes (using lengths of microphone cords to interface the mixer to the dimmer boxes) ... they do not directly control light bulbs. pk

Keep us posted on your progress, 'Duke I'm not a duke or count or anything like that, but a simple subject of the King of Instruments, I guess more a Dude with a Conn than a Duke with a viscount, heh! I soon will MIDIfy 2 pedalboards to plug into my current MidiBox organ retrofits: (a) Conn 650 with 32 pedal clavier that is a working organ (b) WurliTzer 950-TA with a 25-pedal clavier in a gutted shell (BTW - there's a similar Wurli on eBay with photos that show what that console and pedal clavier looked like before it was disemboweled). More immediately, I have 2 cores and half dozen DINs and DOUTS to solder and MIDIfy stoptab triggers. By the time I'm ready to attack the pedal retrofit project, I should have the best plan ready to go (and know a thing or two more about MidiBox technology). Inquirig minds want to know. pk

'Duke, Here's another link that goes into lots of detail retrofitting reed switches in pedals http://www.musanim.com/mam/organproject.html pk

Greetings, 'Duke and your Viscount I can't seem to find all my research of folks who have created DIY pedals, but until I do, there is a rather thoroughly documented project you can check out at: http://www.westnet.com/~levins/organ/practice.html profusely illustrated with photos and how he created magnetic switches and all using PAVO. (You'll have to scroll down towards the end to get to the section about creating MIDI triggers on pedals. Here's wishing you the best of success! pk

Hello, 'Grinder, You're cool! The more we discuss all the ramifications of MidiBoxing our organs, the closer we may come to some practical solutions. The ol' "groupthink" may help us bring the organ back to society. "there's GOT to be a pony in here somewhere, don'tcha know!" I'm glad there is no ceiling on either your creativity or your passion pk

Organgrinder, you make valuable statements to help us retrofit our organs. Your questions and research are practical and valuable. As you point out, the two parts of the configuration process are the difference between what happens at the programming level with those MIDI signals inside the computer and the output level where the MIDI stream leaves the soundcards go. I was addressing how to plug the configured MIDI computer output into existing organ amplifiers, and that does not involve MIDI stream. I hope to find many "Ta-Da" moments to bring simplicity to the process, so many more people can adopt cinema organ sounds today. Since I have limited my software to MidiTzer to help promote it, I cannot speak of other systems. It is probably time for me to move on to JOrgan or something that is more flexible. I do not use fluidsynth ... but multiple soundcards that are easily manipulated (as I have on my "Using Multiple Soundcards" website article) by simply configuring the Soundblaster MIDI channels to send to different outputs. Console stoptabs address the existing computer control (configured by (a) SoundBlaster assignments and (b) the little yellow M in the MidiTzer screen). The folks I seek to influence are more interested in simply plug and play. So I cannot speak of other MIDI assignments that differ. Once I get my current project complete, I'll investigate alternative systems ... but hey, these work for me! In my passion to bring back the sound of theatre organ to public awareness, to this point I sought a simple way to impress people to use MidiTzer. Since the monitor/mouse click is not friendly to performers, the MidiBox has been a Godsend. Triggered MIDI events ... through MidiBox cards ... installed between my retrofitted console stoptabs and the MIDI DIN cable ... speak to the configured MIDI assignments in my computer soundcards. I have selected a variety of discrete MIDI channel outputs from those soundcards into a variety of amps and speakers, and like you, prefer to use discrete individual sounds into maximized individual sound contoured systems ... it is more true pipe organ sounds than simply tossing all the outputs into a single output stream and subsequently splitting that amalgamated "stereo" channel into a 7.1 or 5.1 wannabee "theatre sound." That is why I seek a way to use existing organ amps and speakers emanating from a plethora of individual sound sources. I like the wraparound [Disneyland] "Tiki Hut" sound from discrete sources, and as you mention, the potential of separating tremmed stops to a channel for Leslie can be separate from a different organ "rank." Although a particular organ stop channel must be capable to reproduce everything from 32'- to a 1'-stop ... I haven't found a way to send sub bass to maximized speakers and the upper registers to a higher frequency horn or tweeter. I bi-amp a lot. So I have a lot of questions as I dig into MIDI and the various ways people use it for organ. This is tied in to the soundfonts, and I use Bruce Miles' exclusively as my defacto standard (again, to keep it simple enough to help promote). Even here, I imagine it is possible to ignore the "tremmed" soundfonts (fortunately, he provides them discrete from his non-tremmed soundfonts) and simply send the non-tremmed soundfonts to a Leslie output. I'll look into that. There might be a way. However, this is all controlled at the MIDI soundcard software level, not the OUTPUT control, so in my case, it's understanding the different roles of the Soundcard and the MidiTzer and simply setting up them to comply to my needs. I continue to experiment, and that's why I documented the tedium details on my website, hoping someone comes with better solutions to help equip me to bring organ sounds back to a new generation. Please keep us posted in your progress. I am new to this, and eagerly devour all I can gather from guys like you who aren't afraid to post, share, query, confront, whatever. My background of choral / orchestral, is far different from organ MIDI. But I am limited to MIDI technology. Although the 19-rank virtual 260 Balban MidiTzer gives greater flexibility, I have stepped back to the smaller 10-rank 216 virtual organ until I complete my present organ retrofit. I have several discrete channels, since there is an A side and a B side on each SoundBlaster card. I am unable to comment on other cards or softsynth setups with different means to accomplish this (not enuff time). ANd I do not use softsynth or USB technology yet. As long as there are eunff SoundBlasters out there I'm happy for now. pk

Anybody have any opinions on the Cold Heat soldering by Coleman? Couldn't find any mention of it in the archives or Wiki. Some well-meaning friend gave me one of these, but I am apprehensive. pk

. . . And THAT's the beeg "IF!" . . . and the reason for this query. That is precicely what I do with my current setup, and it works well. The soundcards ARE up and working with my present installation: www.MediaExcellence.com/page16.html (In fact, I have a third soundcard to install and troubleshoot just for the heck of it when I have time). Simple matter of blue and green plugs, and on Media XP, it isn't hard to configure the 5 or 7-channel playback. However, for this separate, additional project, and encouraging some local folks to install MidiTzer in their ailing organ console shells, I was hoping for some way to rescue existing organ power amps and speakers to play back the soundcard output, rather than trashing and replacing these amps. I appreciate your input. I was hoping for a simpler way to configure the inputs of these amps. At one time I was on the trail of someone with a similar organ to walk me through the process to verify the circuitry, but I'll probably follow your first suggestion, to remove the amps and speakers and set everything on the bench and keep pluggin' until I get something to work, or failing that, just trash these amps and run down to Guitar Center and pick up a coupla new ones. That's what I get for trying to make a silk purse out of a proverbial sow's ear. Just wish I had more hours in a day! pk

Ta-Da! ... It already exists! - simply use output cable from the existing computer soundcard output jack into sound mixer or direct to any amplifier. The computer sound card output is what I use to output MidiTzer into various exisiting amplifiers and speaker systems - it works successfully! You can plug them into guitar "crate" amps, home theatre sound systems, professional mixer, or anything capable of a line level music input. Now if I could just learn how to retrofit existing amplifiers already housed within the organ console to accept these computer soundcard output jacks! Some models of electronic organs allow an aux input of some sort to play cassettes or CDs - Indeed some of the Wurli 950-TA models included a bulit-in cassette deck. That would be perfect for a MidiTzer add-on. Since electronic organs were designed specifically to play organ sounds, it would make sense to configure their amplifier / speaker systems to accept these computer card outputs _in addition to / instead of_ the original organ electronic signals. It is easy to remove the speakers ... eBay offers such organ speakers all the time ... and hook them up to any garden-variety hi-fi stereo or touring gig amplifiers. But it seems like a waste to sacrifice their corresponding amplifiers originally designed to power them, especially when some of them were designed to power Leslies and other potential channels of sound. My Wurli has 4 discrete channels of matched full-range sound amplifiers with RCA input jacks designed to power 15-inch loudspeakers. Now if I could just get the input signal from the MidiTzer soundcard INTO these 4 amps to drive those speakers (sigh!). pk

Lots of food for thought, Greenfox. Just gotta chack the guzinta. The guzouta drives 8 ohm speakers, and those can be placed in new cabinetry. Even the Leslie speakers are rated at 8 ohms. I am more concerned with recycling WurliTzer 950-TA amps. There are two matched stereo amplifiers with RCA inputs, for a total of four channels, marked Input 1,2,3 and 4. It seems they are designated main, aux, presence and Leslie. But between the amplifier's RCA "ins" and the 8 ohm "outs" there are circuit wires emanating and chassis plugs that were once wired to various plugs to to disconnect all the speakers when headphone jack was inserted, some wired plugs, long since removed, that interfaced with pedals and various other volume controls on the face of the console, including wires that added spring reverb channel circuitry inputs subsequent to the guzinta RCA "input" jacks. Knowing which of these to short together or bridge or insert some sorts of variable resistors or pots might give them a song to sing again. I realize I lack the skill to adequately explain this, but it seems tragic to trash otherwise good amps made to power these speakers, rather than keep them intact and remount them to sing the MidiTzer signals. I have several tour gig amps, but I'd like to preserve these if possible. With my other projects calling me, I haven't removed these from the Wurli console, hoping there would be an easy "tab A into slot B" answer to enable this console to become a MidiTzer singing through these existing amps and speakers. But I guess it's best to remove "the whole shootin match" and bench test as a contiguous whole and start from scratch. Or, as they say, start from "Itch" since I don't have Scratch." pk

Quote from: John_Swenson on 2004-06-22 at 18:00: I'm also fairly well versed in the amplifier/speaker area for electronic organs if anyone is interested in that. John, I am! BTW, a banner tells me this topic hasn't been posted in 120 days, which is surprising, since many today seem to be working on retrofitting electronic organ cases with MIDI capability to interface with MidiTzer, jOrgan, et al. So I hope it gets read, and receives response, for inquiring minds DO want to know. There are two separate designs, and my two current projects fall into both: (a) completely gutting a console to create tabs and keyboards to trigger MIDI events (my console 1 - touring console for gigs) (b) adding MIDI capability to existing electronic organs, to operate as original electric organs in addition to serve MIDI capability. (my console 2 - studio console that stays planted) I'm working with a completely disemboweled Conn 650 solely MidiTzer www.MediaExcellence.com/Page16.html as well as a functional working Conn 650 console to play as existing AND send MIDI stream to computer for MidiTzer I also have a gutted Wurli 950-TA fitted with 3 new MIDI keyboards and a monitor/mouse instead of MIDI trigger tabs for MidiTzer / jOrgan. And that makes me think of your comment about electronic organ amplifiers. What do you feel is the best way to use the existing original amps and speakers within the console of an otherwise gutted organ console to receive line-level inputs from the soundcards of a computer running MidiTzer or JOrgan? When the electronics are removed from the organ console cases, but the powerful amplifiers and speakers remain, the input wires with volume control pots, etc are forever altered. The ones I have seen do not have simple "aux input" like a hi-fi or touring gig amplifier amp. It seems a pity to not use these amps/speakers simply because I cannot understand how to use these as stand-alone units. Both the Conns (tube technology - those good ol' 12AX7's, probably) and the WurliTzer (MOS technology) were made to kick out a hefty sound to these speakers made for a wide sonic organ performance, including Leslie speakers. Seems a pity not to use these. I am seeking to remount these speakers into separate speaker cabinets, and would prefer to salvage their amps and speakers intact if possible. Is this feasible? pk

Well spoken

x

Let me know when you have a solution. At present, I am just beginning my organ MIDIfication, and have a plan that could benefit from your design to make this work: I'm wiring the stoptabs on my horseshoe curve to send MIDI events to the MidiTzer. They work OK for individual stop selection up/down ... duh, I think I can understand which stops are on and which are off. But I wonder, since there are many piston buttons that can be adjusted for pre-configured registrations that will not be displayed by up-down toggle positions (SAMS that are actuated on a true theatre pipe organ) ... I'd like to install an LED above every stop tab tongue to signify which are selected as "on" when a particular piston has been selected. Since MidiTzer does not operate true SAMS, I wonder if there's a way to notify an LED that resides above each stoptab to signify it has been chosen as a part of the current registered piston selection. These would not be displayed when the stop tabs are toggled on or off (their up/down positions are visual enough to indicate they have been selected), but rather by the piston buttons engaged to signify which individual stops comprise the particular registration that otherwise would not be visible. Any ideas? pk