zbd1960

The pedal board has no wiring to connect it to the organ - just magnetic reed switches.

There was some interest in my new Hauptwerk organ and set-up at the NW Bass Petting Zoo yesterday, so I thought I'd write a bit more about it. Over the last 25 years or so, various software developers have worked to create 'virtual pipe organs' using MIDI. In short, someone goes out and records every single pipe individually, including its reverb decay in the acoustic. You recreate the organ console in the software. Physically, you have MIDI keyboards and pedalboard. The stops of the organ are controlled either through touch screen, or (if you have plenty of money) you can have physical stop pistons that you pull out. When you press a key, the recorded sound is what you hear. The whole organ is loaded into RAM so that there is no lag. So, if you have 30 stops drawn, hitting one note means 30 sounds are simultaneously sounded for that one note. If you're playing four-note chords in each hand AND two pedals at the same time, then that 10 x 30, in this case, so 300 sounds to play... except it gets worse... Some stops are 'mixtures' so if you sound a note, it ALSO sounds a bunch of other harmonics of that note e.g 12th, 19th, 21st. Usually there are at least 3 harmonics sounded with a mixture, but 5 or 7 are common, especially with French 'cornet' stops. So, if you had a 5 mixture, those ten notes become 50 notes, sounding say the root, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 21st.... of EVERY note you're playing. This is part of what creates the complexity of organ sound - it's an analog mechanical synthesiser. I decided a while ago that I wanted a major retirement activity (yes, I know I have lots of music already with cello, saxes, basses, viols...). I've never really been a keyboard player as I never had lessons. I bought a piano when I moved to Shropshire 25 years ago (a 1970s Yamaha upright). I had some lessons then, but not many. I've always been a fan of organ music. Sadly, the sound of many English organs is quite boring as they lack the reeds which add character to Dutch, French, and German organs for example. The English organ sounds specialises in creating a uniform sound across the main diapason/principal ranks. My organ was built by a guy who specialises in building bespoke Hauptwerk set-ups. I opted for a 'positiv' style case as it was going to be in the lounge and I wanted a 'nice' piece of furniture. The main frame structure is solid English oak, as are the 'cheeks' of the manual stack, the organ bench seat, and the expression pedal tops. The pedalboard is recycled from a 60 year old organ and the pedals are solid maple. Some other parts are oak veneered MDF which has been painted so you see the wood grain. The main large flat panels are painted MDF. They were primed and had three coats of paint. The speaker grill design was chosen by me from a sample of 500 designs. I opted for an Art Deco quasi Lutyens 'sunburst' design, rather than something more gothic/Victorian. That was cut by CNC machine. The screens are all Iyama - two 22" mounted vertically for the 'stop jambs' and a 24" in the music desk which can be used for PDFs of music (pages can be turned with one of the toe pistons). All touch-screen. There are 8 general pistons and 24 divisional pistons, 8 per manual. There are a further 8 pistons which can be defined and I've opted to make them pedal pistons. There is a 1,000 step sequencer. This is used for example to set-up a recital - you assign all your stop settings to values. For example, if I had a piece which needed 5 changes of stops then I could pre-program each set of stops and assign them to say sequencer steps 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24. As I need ot hcange registration, I just have to hit either one of the + thumb pistons, or the + toe piston to change to the next registration. I kept the number of toe pistons down to five: three couplers and a + to advance the sequncer, and a page turn for the PDF on the music stand. Toe pistons are expensive items as they're about £50 each for nice brass ones. I ruled out having a further 8 for the pedal divisional pistons. If you have multiple users of an organ, you can assign ranges to specific players so that say Fred uses 100 - 199, Bill uses 200 - 299 etc. Custom built computer has 128gb RAM and two 1tb SSD drives. The sound output is to active Neumann studio monitors. A pair of KH310s inside the box, a pair of KH120s externally on stands, and a KH750 sub. If you want to see the guy who built it getting excited over the first sounds out of it... this is a short 1 min video. Finally, why didn't I just buy say a Johannus, Content, or Viscount off the shelf? Whilst some models are cheaper than what I've paid, most are significantly more expensive and even £25k ones are vinyl not real wood! Despite the cost of mine, the end result is a much superior cabinet and significantly better sound system than you'd get for a commercially available home system. https://drive.google.com/file/d/154ZAxxZ0N0JOuuf9byiSqP-uMdwtq7Xs/view?usp=share_link

Those who were trying my custom 'Titan' 6-string (walnut top) and were wondering what the control options were... and I'm bad at remembering them... here's the set-up. From front to back: Volume (pull for passive) Pickup select/balance Neck switch - down P, middle series, up reverse P Stacked bass (bottom) treble (top) Bridge switch - up parallel, middle single coil, down series. Final furthest back control - Middle. Also, a shout out to @rwillett for making the whole thing possible.

Great day.

I should be able ot be there for 10 - I can be earlier if any help is required to set-up as it's about an hour from here.

More photos and some sort vids of the sound testing - not me playing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hCs4C6m-TZsL4XBN6vBvpoypaSFvsoUV?usp=share_link

OK.... here we go... A custom built Hauptwerk virtual pipe organ. Three manuals, 32 key pedal board. Custom built PC with 128gb RAM, assorted Arduino and MIDI boxes, Focusrite interface, two ARC Studio DSP boxes, 1 pair Neumann 310 inside the cabinet, 1 pair Neumann 120 externally, 1 Neumann sub....

OK.... the two-day installation of the "Bird Scarer" started yesterday... It is an instrument which has been built by a bespoke builder for me... It won't be fully functional until after we've installed all the electronics etc today. I will post more later, but here's a teaser...

Long shot... try recording the sound with various set-ups and then have a session with you all listening to the recording on some decent kit.... Probably overly optimistic. As a long-in-the-tooth hi-fi nut, I know that not everyone hears things the same way.

Two most common rattles on my cello are the end-pin, which is easily sorted, or it's the mute when not applied. The mute is a basic Torte one and when not in use it's slid over teh strings between the bridge and the tailpiece. In some locations it causes a rattle, which menas adjusting how/where it's sitting until the sound goes away.

Generally I eat most things - guitars are probably safe and cables a bit too chewy

As the non rock n roll bassist, I also sing, but I sing in classical choirs - choral societies and chamber choirs... The nearest I usually get to modern music is arrangements for choir of American Song Book stuff. I sing baritone (roughly the two octaves up from the F at the bottom of the bass clef). I'm a very experienced singer and I've been chair of various groups over the years - I know how they run. Anyway, for the last year I've been singing with a local choral society. They have a number of problems.... They have an MD with an inflated ego and it looks like the committee aren't up to challenging him. They don't have a separate accompanist, which is a major hindrance. The main issue though is the tenor and bass sections are weak. The basic cause is a lack of younger voices. At 65 I'm younger than any of the tenors by a large margin and I'm the second youngest bass... None of the other first basses (baritones) is strong which means I feel as though I'm always leading the line. This is where a good MD comes in and works to get people singing out. It makes rehearsals very tough going for me. I have to be on point all the time as if I'm not there's just nothing there. If I go off the rails, which happens (it's easy to come in a third too low or something) I've got no way of fixing it as there's no one else there. If this were a vocal consort with just three or four voices to a part, then that's a different thing, but this is supposed to be a 60+ member choral society. The current repertoire in rehearsal includes complex 8 part a cappella stuff. I've sung all of this repertoire before, so it's stuff I'm aware of. It's obvious that most of this stuff is new to most of the choir who've not sung this rep before. I pushed back to the MD a couple of weeks ago and told him this isn't working. He was very dismissive although words were said at the next rehearsal where it was evident I'd had some impact... The next rehearsal was hopeless. You would never know that there were 9 basses. It's supposed to be fun and this has become hard going. The choir just isn't up to this repertoire (don't get me started on sopranos unable to maintain pitch in the a cappella numbers). I've called it a day.

Hi, welcome

My plans have changed - I have ditched a conflicting event (long story) - so I will now attend and I will bring some kit. I'll probably bring my ACG 4 and Manton 6.

Yes, that was also true. That is exactly why I saw it as pointless everyone soloing every piece as all you got was generally the same solos repeated every time.