Allen 301C, Mos1 conversion...

I think my Allen 301-C (mos1) bit the dust - both amplifiers are good, but none of the flute stops work, maybe a board went bad, but whatever it might be, it could be rather expensive to repair an organ with 40 year old technology...
I may be interested in converting this organ to run Hauptwerk. And if I do so, I want to keep the stop action (no touch screen, current Allen stop action works fine) and use the current Allen keyboards and pedalboard. In short, I want this pristine console to function as it does now, but use Hauptwerk for voices.

I'm not an electrical engineer by any stretch, but I can handle electrical connections, solder and so on.

So, what will I need to convert this, and who would be the best parts suppliers to contact?

Appreciate all responses...

Hi Moe,

First you need to convert the Allen 301 to a MIDI controller. Second you build a Hauptwerk sound engine and third you connect the Hauptwerk sound engine to an audio system.

Converting the Allen 301 to a MIDI controller:
If you really want to keep the Allen stop action you maybe can convert the keyboards and pedal board to MIDI with boards from Harrison Labs. Here is an example from eBay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MIDI-KEYBOARD-A ... 2c679fe97b The stop action and the expression pedals are not included in this conversion. I have never used these boards and have no affiliation with the company.

It may be more cost/labor effective to remove all of the old Allen analog electronics and put an encoder on each of the keyboards and pedal board, convert the pistons to MIDI, convert or replace the expression pedals and use a conventional KVM to program the pistons. It appears to be possible to use the original SAMs and stop tabs using an Artisan uMIDI system and the Allen power supply but the nomenclature on the tabs will not match the various organs in Hauptwerk unless you get them engraved to match a particular sample set and do not change sample sets.

Building the Hauptwerk sound engine:
There are several people on the forum that can supply you with a proven sound engine. If you want to build it yourself, I recommend an i7-6core CPU in an x99 motherboard with 32GB of RAM and storage to your liking. The current value champion in audio modules is the Behringer FCA610 used with a Texas Instruments IEEE-1394b card.

Using the Allen audio system
I have used the Allen amplifiers and speakers in a church installation and it appears that the amplifiers and speakers are 'made for each other' as other speakers hooked to the Allen amps did not sound as good as the Allen speakers and vice versa. If you have just two speakers and amps it would be a good idea to collect another 4 sets of amplifiers and speakers identical to the ones you have. This would allow for a six speaker system which would sound great with Hauptwerk.

If you have not seen Kenneth Spencer's book "All about Hauptwerk", please try and get a copy.

There are several companies who do this type of conversion also. PM me if you want more information on them.

Best regards,

Thomas

Moe,

If your keyboards and pedalboard are in good condition, I recommend you gut the electronics from the console and rewire the contacts to an encoder card. I have no affiliation with the company, but I recommend DTS -- http://www.dtsmidisystems.com. The basic encoder cards will send the signals for the manuals and pedals, and you should have enough capacity for a decent amount of thumb pistons. The boards will also be the "sense" mechanism for the stop action.

I personally had a bad experience with Artisan, but others do like their products. I found their customer support to be non-existent after purchase.

DTS also has the driver boards you will need to electrically move the stop action, you just need to figure out if the coils are driven by positive or negative voltage and order the corresponding card. Hauptwerk will be the "engine/memory" for the combination action via MIDI signals.

It may be worth replacing the console power supply unless you know it is in good condition...a new Astron or Intelli-Power unit will cost around $3-400 and will provide stabile power for a long time.

All together, you're probably looking at a ~$2K+ cost depending on the options you choose.

You might want to check my web site at http://www.kinkennon.com as I have a single encoder/decoder board that is the only inexpensive way that I'm aware of to do an Allen conversion while maintaining complete console functionality. The designs are available at no charge and I would be happy to offer limited advice to an engineer or talented technician who wanted to work with you to do this conversion. This is a hobby, or perhaps a mission, for me so I don't list items for sale though I do a few conversions in the Pacific Northwest.

The Allen consoles use high voltage SAMs and it is best to retain the Allen capture power supply and to reuse the driver circuit boards which are attached to each stop tab assembly (SAM). Should you consider the Artisan system be aware that it requires modification to each of the SAMs driver boards. Other systems require that you maintain the Allen console in a functioning state with its original electronics, an exercise I think you are trying to avoid.

In any case the manuals will be a 6x11 matrix design and there are plenty of encoders which can handle that. The pedals vary a lot on Allens and I won't try to guess what configuration you have. Some early consoles had bus style pedals so in my case I've converted these to a matrix to match my encoder.

I know I'm blowing my own horn here, but be sure you have a complete plan in mind and don't start piecemeal. Things like the transposer switch and crescendo LEDs or lamps can work perfectly and if you are willing to do extensive rewiring the cost of materials could be around $500 or so.

I do not like the Allen speakers from that era at all. Perhaps the ones I worked with had totally deteriorating crossovers, but they had a horrid stuffy sound to my ears. I've heard these speakers modified with new three way crossovers and 8" midrange drivers that sounded better.

If I weren't using my own approach to handling the Allen SAMs then I'd look first at the Midi Boutique decoders. I'm doing a couple of Rodgers consoles and have ordered Midi Boutique decoders for 86 stops as I ran out of time trying to get my own boards designed in time -- I'll do that eventually as I've got a few hundred darlington transistors and some power mosfets lying on the workbench. For Allen SAMs you would want to order their 100V rated decoders, not the 60V ones. You would also want to look at procuring a larger power supply as the Allen capture supply had four outputs that were activated independently so that the supply was never switching more than 1/4 to 1/3 of the SAMs at a time.

Hi John,

Wow! You have made great strides in your progress on this project. This sounds to me like the way to go with an MOS-1 (at least one of which is in my warehouse). How can I find out more about it?

Thomas

You might want to check my web site at http://www.kinkennon.com as I have a single encoder/decoder board that is the only inexpensive way that I'm aware of to do an Allen conversion while maintaining complete console functionality. The designs are available at no charge and I would be happy to offer limited advice to an engineer or talented technician who wanted to work with you to do this conversion. This is a hobby, or perhaps a mission, for me so I don't list items for sale though I do a few conversions in the Pacific Northwest.

The Allen consoles use high voltage SAMs and it is best to retain the Allen capture power supply and to reuse the driver circuit boards which are attached to each stop tab assembly (SAM). Should you consider the Artisan system be aware that it requires modification to each of the SAMs driver boards. Other systems require that you maintain the Allen console in a functioning state with its original electronics, an exercise I think you are trying to avoid.

In any case the manuals will be a 6x11 matrix design and there are plenty of encoders which can handle that. The pedals vary a lot on Allens and I won't try to guess what configuration you have. Some early consoles had bus style pedals so in my case I've converted these to a matrix to match my encoder.

I know I'm blowing my own horn here, but be sure you have a complete plan in mind and don't start piecemeal. Things like the transposer switch and crescendo LEDs or lamps can work perfectly and if you are willing to do extensive rewiring the cost of materials could be around $500 or so.

I do not like the Allen speakers from that era at all. Perhaps the ones I worked with had totally deteriorating crossovers, but they had a horrid stuffy sound to my ears. I've heard these speakers modified with new three way crossovers and 8" midrange drivers that sounded better.

If I weren't using my own approach to handling the Allen SAMs then I'd look first at the Midi Boutique decoders. I'm doing a couple of Rodgers consoles and have ordered Midi Boutique decoders for 86 stops as I ran out of time trying to get my own boards designed in time -- I'll do that eventually as I've got a few hundred darlington transistors and some power mosfets lying on the workbench. For Allen SAMs you would want to order their 100V rated decoders, not the 60V ones. You would also want to look at procuring a larger power supply as the Allen capture supply had four outputs that were activated independently so that the supply was never switching more than 1/4 to 1/3 of the SAMs at a time.

Hi Thomas,

I'll get you an encoder at cost if you want to try one out. Will respond to your email as well in a day or so. The present encoder uses a piggyback module (UBW32) which is open source and available from Sparcfun for $40. It is my intention to make a few adjustments to the design to accommodate the latest Microchip 32-bit MCU on a single PCB and see what the fabrication costs would be for small quantities. I've actually proposed that someone else do this as I'm retired and want to keep my activity at the level where it's still fun and more of a hobby.

In any case the design, software, and link to a PCB fabricator are all on my website. At this time only conventional soldering is required as all the surface-mount technology is on the piggy back module. The only item needed in addition to normal tools is a PICkit 3 programmer or equivalent. The development environment and compiler are free from Microchip. I have designs for a matrix and bus version and I'm working on a MIDI merger that should be interesting. The merger exists in prototype form and the software is started and looks promising.

What is lacking is a good explanation of the overall console connections, especially for the Centipede Shields I use with the Allen SAMs decoding functions. I'll try to come up with that quick as it might be interesting for forum members. Centipede Shields are designed for the Arduino form factor which might make them useful for quick projects. They run about $25 each from macetech.com and are an easy I2C connection to handle up to 64 inputs or outputs. I2C runs slower than I like for keyboards but is great for piston and SAM inputs as well as outputs to SAMs drivers.

As others have suggested, the answer to the original question depends on how comfortable you are with your knowledge of electronics and your wiring and assembling ability as well as whether you wish to retain the ability to use the organ as a standalone instrument without MIDI connections.

If you're good with the electronics and wiring aspect of the conversion and your intent is simply to use the console as a MIDI controller, John Kinkennon's board is without a doubt the most economical and best way to go in my opinion.

On the other hand if you're looking for more of a plug 'n play solution and/or wish to continue to use the existing tonal resources of the organ, either standalone or in conjunction with external MIDI software or devices, then I would recommend the combination a MOS-1 keyboard encoder from Harrison Labs and one of my Zuma Group DM-MIDI Stop Controller boards.

The Harrison board installation does require soldering to existing boards in the organ, but if you're uncomfortable with doing that yourself, I believe you can send the boards to Harrison and they'll do it for you.

The Zuma DM MIDI Stop controller board is a plug-in replacement for the original Allen capture board and requires no additional wiring for that purpose; however, you will have to do some additional wiring for the expression and crescendo pedals if you wish to utilize the board's analog inputs for those functions. The latest version of the board has non-volatile on-board memory allowing legacy mode capture operation when the organ is being used standalone or with external devices that do not implement capture memory such as expanders and other MIDI instruments

Since I don't care to use the current Allen voices in conjunction with Hauptwerk, I wouldn't need the Harrison hardware, would I, since that hardware makes use of the keyboard array board? Just midify the 2 Allen keyboards and the pedalboard is what I'm wanting to do. So I guess I'd be using the console as a midi controller. Wish it was as simple as plugging in my Behringer controller in the computer's usb port.

Was on John Kinkennon's website, but I didn't see a board for sale - maybe I missed something.

Since I don't care to use the current Allen voices in conjunction with Hauptwerk, I wouldn't need the Harrison hardware, would I, since that hardware makes use of the keyboard array board? Just midify the 2 Allen keyboards and the pedalboard is what I'm wanting to do. So I guess I'd be using the console as a midi controller. Wish it was as simple as plugging in my Behringer controller in the computer's usb port.

Was on John Kinkennon's website, but I didn't see a board for sale - maybe I missed something.

It is under the 'Projects' tab. He has the PCB available and the software for the CPU available but I think you need to gather the other parts and build it yourself. Talk to John about it. He is very helpful and maybe you can talk him into building you one when he has time.

Thomas

Thanks Thomas. Yeah, I'm retired and not trying for more than a part time hobby. I can provide an assembled and programmed board and provide some direction and support for $200 and could wire up a set of three of four Centipede Shields with breakouts (for stops and pistons), the encoder, expression pedal controls, relay for amplifier power, and ribbon cables to the manuals for $500. That would all be on a single nylon mounting board so it's just a matter of sorting and soldering a few hundred wires! Send me an email as in any case I'd want to get the UBW32 board programmed to match the console -- pedal wiring especially has been unpredictable.

This is a really nice design for Allen consoles. If someone wants to produce this as a product along with the proper support that a DIY kit requires, then go for it. I'm content to do two or three consoles a year as a service to small local churches and I'm already without a console for months as I simply haven't had time to build one for myself.