Midi Organ Console Explanation Part 1

A brief explanation of my MIDI organ console. In part 1 I will explain the history of the project and in part 2 I will talk about how I aquired and put all of this together. Comments and questions welcome.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Electric Organs
• Digital Organs
• Pipe organs
• jOrgan
• Hauptwerk
• Virtual pipe organs

[FlametopFred]

Very cool. Question: how did you build the registration / memory buttons? 

[Tetsuo315]

@FlametopFred The short answer is I canabalized a standard PC keyboard and came up with a wiring scheme to connect all of the buttons. I got the idea to use a PC keyboard because jOrgan gives you the ability to associate a keyboard shortcut to any activator. With that in mind, I wanted a cheap (although labor intensive) way to use a spare keyboard as a combination controller, rather than purchansing a midi encoder. I will explain more in a personal message.

[Zylstra555]

Where is part II?

I really enjoyed seeing your organ. How much did this project cost you?

[Tetsuo315]

@Zylstra555 I have not made time to make part II. The server that I stored my sample sets crashed. After I recovered what I could, I never went back and reprogramed the the controller software. I will make a part II over the holidays most likely. Surprisingly, there is more labor in this than cost. Over the last decade working on this project I have spent about a 750. I purchased two of the keyboards, The other two (one not shown) were donated. Most of that cost comes from the midi controllers.

[Tetsuo315]

@Zylstra555 Are interested in making something like this?

[Zylstra555]

Respond to this video... Also, do you have a video of you playing? I heard two recordings of your computer playing, but not you. I would love to see your setup in action!

[Zylstra555]

@Tetsuo315 Actually, kind of. I am not quite sure. I have been looking for a high quality older organ, and I have three which I will soon be taking a look at.

Space is a major concern, actual quality is the other. I am looking at a Rialto K from Gulbransen, possibly an Allen Computer Organ (but I think it's too big!) and one other which I do not yet know the name. I would like to find out more information about building my own. You should consider writing a document about it.