A gentleman named Mark Williams has asked that I post the following information and pictures of his set-up on his behalf for the interest of others:
Description of the WILLIAMS ORGAN:
This is a 3-manual Hauptwerk organ designed and constructed by Mark K. Williams of Savannah, Georgia (USA) for his home. The organ utilizes a duo-core PC with 8GB RAM and WinXP64. MIDI interface hardware is from Largonet’s MIDI Gadgets Boutique of Bulgaria (really nice boards). The main goal in the design and construction of the organ was to provide a replica of the 67-rank Harrison and Harrison that Williams plays at Christ Church Anglican as the parish's Organist/Choirmaster. Therefore, Mark utilized Oberwerk as the best program from which he could choose and arrange stops that best mimicked the Harrison and Harrison. Williams also chose Dr. Yves Petit-Clerc’s Oberwerk (Milan Digital Audio) for the simplicity of the application's voicing controls for establishing balance within and between divisions and for its ability to employ treble ascendancy to the voicing process.
In addition, Williams copied the ergonomic design of the Harrison and Harrison console carefully--regarding bench height, height from pedals to bench, pedals to keyboards, and keyboards to the music desk. "The Harrison and Harrison console on which I play every day is the single most comfortable console on which I have played. I can play for several hours at a time with only a couple of breaks for a stretch and a walk around without any serious discomfort," says Williams. "So I took on the task of copying the ergonomics of the church console so that I could enjoy the nearly stress-free playing that I do at Christ Church as well as enjoy little to no transference difficulties when moving between the two consoles."
The secondary goal was to create an instrument that looked as good as it sounded and sounded as good as it looked. Therefore Williams employed two hi-end Sony Surround Sound systems for a total of twelve speakers and two 16'' woofers as well as two powered Behringer monitor speakers (nice matched speakers) to round out the sound.
The third goal was to convince his lovely wife, Tina (who is a lyric soprano and runs a large voice studio), that the instrument would fit into and look nice in the decor of their historic home in Savannah. Once Mark presented a photo of the case of the Bosch-Schnitger/Saint Nicolaas Kerk (Netherlands) organ to her, along with some CADD drawings of their living room space to show her that their grand piano and the newly proposed organ would indeed fit into one end of the room comfortably, she gave the project a green light.
Construction was begun in June of 2007 and voicing completed in March of 2008. The pipes are non-working. The two monitors are touchscreen from Elo Touchscreen Systems. Mark Williams may be contacted at <williams4950 [at] bellsouth.net> for comments or inquiries.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.