Possible New Organ projects

[robinfawell]

I am now in the very final phase of my organ project based on the SCPOP sounds using the now obsolete Roland Sound Canvas SC8850 Sound Module.

There are now only a few minor tasks to complete.

I have begun to think of the the next project and have identified two fairly large tasks.

1) A hammond type organ based on a hardware synth. (see below)

2) A (church) organ specific sound module.

After completing the SCPOP organ I have identified two major problems with the system. Firstly the system needs to send large sysex messages to change the stops. Secondly, when there is a need to do this during a performance the system suffers from Midi "choke" and the notes are ignored for about 0.3 to 0.5 secs.

It would be better if the various organ stops could be called with a simple midi message (not sysex). I think that this means an organ specific synth module (independent of the notes midi messages)

I would like to use existing MIOS based modules if possible. eg Midibox SID, FM.

I need to understand the difference between the relevant Midibox modules and the Roland Sound Canvas Sound Modules.

Can anyone suggest any good starting references?

Regards Robin

[henrygr]

Yes. I've tons of advice, as organs are my vice. First off. take a look

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?topic=6818.0.

Some photos are missing. I rehoused vox continental drawbars for that project, and as I speak, am about to test some Hammond Smooth T Bar style drawbars- two sets. One from a M100, the other from a H series.

It is not clear, however, what you want to achieve. What drawbar system are you running? What do you want to control? How many drawbars? Any other switches? Why did you use sysex? (I know Roland tend to get OTT on the sysex. Their most up to date keyboard, the Fantom series, loves SYSEX, loves other Roland keyboard, and hates everything else- in short a nightmare.)

Let me know exactly what you are concocting. I should have the code lying somewhere around....

Mark.

[robinfawell]

Thanks Mark

The two projects I propose are really different. 

I used the Roland Sound module because the original Italian designers designed the PC based software system around the SC8850.  I copied their sysex messages verbatim.  The sounds are good. see http://www.scpop.de/  My version uses MIOS written in C. The system is purely based on MBHP items. ie No PC.  I am wondering whether I should try to design or tailor the FM module to produce an organ specific sound module which will overcome the design defiecencies as I see them.

The modified/ midified Conn organ will be returned to the church soon.

The Hammond organ will be for me only.  At this stage I only know that I like the sounds.  I don't want to make the system as the original. I will be happy with just the sounds.  The drawbar seems a good stops system.  I play the piano a little and would probably prefer a velocity sensitive weighted keyboard.

It would be interesting to utilise my newly acquired C programming skills to help to design the system.

Regards Robin

PS I have looked at your Drawbar system.  I looks good!

[henrygr]

OK. I'm not so hot at the synthesis end of things. But if I understand correctly, the issue you are having with your midi is the fact that everything is in SYSEX and is slowing you down. I guess the thing here is to try and ascertain what midi messages control what aspects of the SoundCanvas. If the SoundCanvas can be manipuilated from your PC, try to get a read on its various messages by sending its MIDI out to a program like MidiOx.

Secondly, when there is a need to do this during a performance the system suffers from Midi "choke" and the notes are ignored for about 0.3 to 0.5 secs.

What exactly is causing this? I am a bit lost here. Did you already midify a set of drawbars, and if so, how so?

[robinfawell]

Mark, I have confused you with discussing the subject of the possible improvement to the church organ project and the Hammond organ synthesis.

The SCPOP organ uses a layering of "instruments" to simulate the various organ sounds.  Typically 5 of the Sound Module parts are used to produce the desired stop.  This is fairly complex, all sorts of data is transmitted. Typically a sysex of 1500 bytes are required by the Module to change a stop.  All stops require this transmission. Some stops require over 2000 bytes.

Therefore if a stop is changed during a performance the poor old SC8850 needs to cope with all the midi note On Off messages and the Stop Sysex message. I know exactly what the problem is.  It cannot be fixed except by changing the Synth module.  However  my hardware implementation is no worse than the SCPOP PC system.  The SC8850 is the problem.  However the overall result is fairly satisfactory,  but with a differently designed Sound Module it could be improved. It is unlikely that the church organ will ever be modified but the design of a better synth would be a challenge.

There are no drawbars, I use integral membrane switches with Leds.  The software is mine, (with a lot of help from Thorsten) it is a complete, unique application.  The hardware consists of 2 core modules, 5 Din Modules and 2 Dout Modules and one 64k bankstick (to store the various sysex messages).  There are 7 pedal stops, 8 swell stops and 14 great stops plus tremelo plus couplers.

In a few weeks I may show the mechanical and electronic design of the console on the forum.

I have begun to research hammond organ sythesis and already realise that to get a realistic sound may be difficult.

Regards Robin

[henrygr]

It is extremly difficult to get a good organ sound live, I agree. What I gig with is a PC in a rackmount set to run B4 automatically on start up. I am in the throes of builing a keyboard/PC in one. I started last week and hope to have it finished within a fortnight- basically before gigging heats up again. Look forward to seeing the pics!

;DMark

[robinfawell]

I have delved a bit more into Soft Synths.  The  NI Express Keyboards package seems to be a good intro.

I have an old Elka Mk76 Controller Keyboard.  I am assuming that I can use this with the NI package.  It has 8 banks of performance presets.

What soundcard do you use in your rackmount pc?

Thanks Robin

[henrygr]

I use M-Audio stuff. For recording at home I have a 1010LT run from a studio master spirit desk. For live, I use the ever popular 2496. This is a great little card, and it is cheap enough to start with also.

Funny you should have posted today, as I am in the middle of building a PC into my keyboard. I got this on ebay http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130059189209 for a steal, as well as a tulatin CPU for same price, so I will be posting a fuller srticle later on, as I am also building hammond M1 drawbars on to the keyboard surface (just finished those last night).

Will run NI B4, Lounge Lizard, Steinberg The Grand 2 and Edirol Hyper Canvas for everything else. A kind of cut down package especially for live playing.

I have an old Elka Mk76 Controller Keyboard.  I am assuming that I can use this with the NI package.  It has 8 banks of performance presets.

As long as there is MIDI out on the machine, you're good to go. Set it up to MidiOx, see what type of information is output when using the preset buttons, and if you want, change what they do by using MidiOx as a filter between your keyboard and your software. Look into it. It's a free program, and the best out there.....

Only thing I want to look int now is a shift toward LINUX, as I want the smallest system possible to run this in as hassle free an environment as possible, but that is for another post.

[robinfawell]

Thanks Mark

I know Midi-ox fairly well and have used it extesively,  my organ project is based on sending longish Sysex and other shorter Midi messages to the SC 8850.

It is also helpful that you recommend M-Audio, I have looked at the 2496 as a possibility.

Robin

[robinfawell]

I have just purchased "Express Keyboards" produced by Native Instruments.(about £60.00 in UK)

This is a cut down version of 3 softsynths:-

B4 Hammond, 64 Presets

FM7, 64 Presets

Pro-53, 64 presets

I really like the Hammond Sounds!

Although I can control the Presets with my old Elka MK76, it does not have the capacity to control 192 presets using the Midi Control of the Elka.

My current thought are to to build a 1U rackmounted PC using Mini itx.

I could also build a Midibox based Midi Controller in a 19" rack, this would be able to select the presets and ideally select any of the 3 softsynths.

The unit would incorporate an LCD module to show the name of the preset and employ rotary encoders for preset selection.  This would be a good exercise for me to improve my LCD programming knowledge.

I am confident that the Midi control is feasible, however....

Can I avoid the use of mouse/keyboard and select the softsynth with the controller?  (Perhaps using USB or Midi)

I would welcome any suggestions or links regarding this last point.

Robin

[henrygr]

Can I avoid the use of mouse/keyboard and select the softsynth with the controller?  (Perhaps using USB or Midi)

Very easily. Just assign each of the soft synts to a specific MIDI channel in your VST host, and control them via your selection of midi channel. ;D

[robinfawell]

Unfortunately I have no VST host.  The nearest I have is Cakewalk Version 5.  I dont think that will work.

Robin

[henrygr]

Okay. I will repahrase. Naturally you want to use all three in CakeWalk. That uses DirectX i think. Anyway, set up your sequencer as though you are about to record, assigning each instrument to a different channel, and then setting up a midi filter to allow only the messages from a particular channel to access each of the individual instruments and their respective channels.

TIP: B4 works best on channel one. Not necesarrily the input channel to your sequencer, but the output of cakewalk assigned as such.

[robinfawell]

Dear Mark

My copy of Cakework is too old to work with XP. However Turnkey in London have Cubase VST Ver 5 at £49 and Cakewalk Sonar 5 Studio Edition at £59.  I've never used my Cakewalk much.  Can you recommend any of the above?

I'm looking at Linux, I see that they have the Rosegarden sequencer.  I don't think that I can use the NI Express softsynths with that but I will pursue Linux Midi further.

I will ask on the Midibox forum about Hammond synthesis to see if anyone has had any success with midibox hardsynths with Hammond sounds.

Regards Robin

[robinfawell]

I've decided to attempt to build a midi controller which will work in conjunction with my midi controller keyboard.

In addition to controlling and displaying the presets and some midi parameters I would like to select one of the three standalone synthesis of the Native Instruments Express Keyboards ie B4,FM7 or the Prophet 53 softsynths.  (not at the same time).  The are installed with XP.

HenryGr has suggested the use of a sequencer eg Sonar or Cubase where each softsynth is allocated a different midi channel. 

I wonder whether it is feasible and practical not to use a sequencer but to generate a midi message to open the program for the B4 or the FM7 or PRo 53 .  I want to avoid mouse,keyboard and monitor if possible.

How do I proceed?  Would I use Visual Basic? or is there a simpler way to go? (I don't know VB but would be willing to learn.)

From a hardware standpoint I will build a 1U rack mount PC and perhaps a 2U rack mount Midi Controller (Midibox).

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks Robin

[henrygr]

Robin,

I think there are one or two apps out there that allow you to control the PC via midi. I cannot think of their names, but a bit of intensive googling should fix that. Another option I use is to get an industrial keyboard- ie each button programmable in ascii. I have one, got it on ebay for €40 incl p&p. I then use VitrualMidiController to transform some of the keyboard input into midi (which I use for sequencer play, stop, mute etc etc) and the keys I don't transform I use as windows shortcuts to start either apps or run commands in MidiOx etc etc.

Have a look here- http://www.logiccontrols.com/web/prodKB3.htm

Keep an eye on ebay for 'keyboards' in Business, Office and Industrial. They come up about once a month,

Best,

Mark.

[henrygr]

http://cgi.ebay.ie/PREH-Commander-PC-POS-Jr-Programable-Keyboard-w-Cable_W0QQitemZ200078362638QQihZ010QQcategoryZ71474QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem

FYI- Have a look at this.

[robinfawell]

Thanks Mark

The keyboard approach is a good one.  I would prefer to have my midi controls on a 2U or 3U panel in the same rack as the PC.  I wonder whether I can concoct a the equivalent of of a standard keyboard with only a few keys which will provide the keystrokes to open the files.  However the idea of using a sequencer with the various synths in different Midi channels removes the need for the keyboards altogether.

I will concentrate on the rackmount pc first.

Robin

[henrygr]

I have two suggestion and one comment.

Suggestion 1 - Get one of the number pad only keyboards, and use that to trigger with macros, open file shotcuts etc.

Suggestion 2 - Get a micro keyboard on ebayfor about €15. I got one. They are truly tiny and the wholeunit itself will felcro on to the front of a 2U with a bit (1 cm?) of overlap, or onto a 3U with room to spare.

Comment - You seem to be building exactly what I am building- rack mpunt pc's, total control from actuators, and you (like me) probably have a touchscreen monitor (the ultimte). Is this a thing about Hammond enthusiasts?

Mark.

[robinfawell]

This is primarily addressed to Henrygr but I am interested in any comments on the use of touch screens.

Mark, What tasks do you envision being given to the touchscreen?

As a complete novice as far a touch screens go,  it seems as if you could allocate a huge amount of Hammond organ tasks including stop selection to the TS.

There may be response time issues of course.

Which version of TS have you purchased?

Thanks Robin

[TheAncientOne]

Way back at the end of the 80's I rescued a church organ project where the local guy, a retired organ builder had fallen ill with about 80% of an organ functional. The ranks and actions were in, as was the core wiring, but he'd not actually started the stops boards, due to lack of parish funds. They had a nice 2 manual and pedalboard system, (recycled), hard wired to a limited range of stops. I had to tread diplomatically on this one, but we had a local who worked for Hewlett Packard, and he came up with an HP 150 Touch screen computer, running (I think), DOS 3. There was a good FORTH for the 150, so I wrote a touch controlled stops system, using the same type of layout as used on the dealing room autodiallers. We could have 32 stops per page, and I think we used 2 pages to fit in all the other bits. HP150's used HP-IB, and we used the this, via some HP data-slector modules, (from Computer test systems), to interface the box to the organ. I did it in such a way as not to interfere with his wiring. The final version had user selectable coupler/pistion actins, and ways to group up pages of stops and remember them. It booted off one floppy, and had another for data storage. It was supposed to last for six months of so until he was back on his feet. It ran for over 3 years in the end, though is now replaced with lovely classical stops, with electric action, (it's cool to press 'general cancel' and watch them all jump back in at once). 

The HP touch screen used escape sequences and could be programmed with them too, for terminal type systems. There was a C API, but the FORTH was fast enough and for me, more flexible.  I wrote my own escape sequence words, and built up  from there. I can still remember doing the lists of stop names, with the old guy 'directing' in a funny and irascible style. The only problem we had was dust in the IR sensors on the original 150. If I had used a 150/2 then this wouldn't have been a problem, because HP fixed it. I did a big stack of boot discs, just in case they lost any. That old HP stuff was built to last, and the only service call I had, once debugged, was to change the batteries. My favourite memory is getting impromptu lessons in tuning pipes, since he couldn't go scrambling around inside the works and I remember getting a faceful of dust from the first time the 16 foot open flutes had sounded for ages - they're very loud at close range too.

The reason I'm getting to, is that a lot of POS (point of sale systems) use touch panels too, usually over LCD's, so this might be a good starting point. The outputs of the older ones are serial, and simply return a postion and an on/off as an ASCII string. Modern ones all seem to be USB, with driver only for PC's.

I love electronics, and working with it, but sometimes I do get this hankering after rooms full of wood and metal, with esoteric names.

Sorry for the long winded post, a bit of a reminisce, if you want to talk touchscreens, you could memo.

Mike

[robinfawell]

Thanks Mike

I will contact you when I'm back from holiday in about 2 weeks.

Robin