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Sonar X1

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wolfman

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Sonar X1

PostWed Sep 14, 2011 1:24 pm

Hi-

I'm new here and I hope some of the experienced users will be so kind to share their wisdom.
Although I know how a pipe organ works (did some diy setup and repair on an old and abandoned church organ as a youth), I'm not an organ expert and frankly, I would like to get away without becoming one. I'm a composer and recordist and for my current project I want church organ as the main instrument sound. Google pointed me to Hauptwerk, I installed it last weekend and voila! here I am. For the time being, I need it just for this one song and the 300+ pages of the pdf manual are a little intimidating. Not sure if I'll ever will be using it again so I hope I'll get away with some assistance from this forum instead of studying the entire manual and trying it all out in detail.

Tech stuff: fairly new quad core PC with lots of RAM, running Win7/64, Sonar X1 Producer is the audio host. I spent some time cursing until I had actual sound coming out of the setup but it's working now. Basically, I can play Hauptwerk through my MIDI keyboard as well as through recorded MIDI parts in Sonar. What's confusing me is the interaction of the manuals/stops and how the switches work. First off, probably dumb question, the labels of the switches below the manuals are impossible to decipher; same with the images in the pdf manual -- where can I find the info on what switch does what?

Second, I had two stops of the Great engaged and none of the Swell but there was sound coming out of the organ when playing the swell. How come? All of the below-the-manual switches where off so I assume no Great to Swell or the other way around was active. Also, at one point it seemed that the organ was behaving very odd and I quit and re-started and that was gone. Are there stability issues known?

All right, here is what I want to achieve. I've got a song where I want to replace all the instrument tracks of the demo with organ, plus there is one vocal track. Within Sonar I want to use three MIDI tracks using different channels to control Pedal, Great, and Swell of Hauptwerk. I need a sparse registration throughout the song that doesn't change until the last section of the song where I would add a stop or two for a fuller sound. There are counterpart (to the vocal) instrument parts that are covered by ebow electric guitar in the demo and I want to use some kind of Swell registration to account for it. Finally, pedal will come in at some point in the song. All sound changes should be done with MIDI.

I assume all this is possible, no? It doesn't sound too ambitious to me. As I said at the beginning of this post, this is the first and maybe the last of my songs with church organ so it would be very kind of you folks to help me out instead of uttering the usual RTFM! :)

Thanks in advance,
wolf

http://www.wolfmusic.eu
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mdyde

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Re: Sonar X1

PostThu Sep 15, 2011 6:23 am

Hello Wolf,

Although this isn't the way covered in Hauptwerk user guide (since that's designed for maximum integration), and so isn't the way we'd usually recommend configuring it, here's one quick and easy way you could do it:

In Hauptwerk:

- On the 'General settings | MIDI ports | MIDI IN ports' screen tab in Hauptwerk, tick the 'Hauptwerk VST Link' entry in the left-hand column, and untick all other ports in both columns.

- On the 'General settings | MIDI ports | MIDI OUT ports' screen tab in Hauptwerk, untick all ports in both columns. OK the screen.

- On the 'General settings | Audio outputs' screen select 'Hauptwerk VST Link' as the audio device. OK the screen.

- Load the St. Anne's organ.

- Use 'Organ settings | Organ configuration wizard' to reset all MIDI settings for the organ, so that any spurious settings you might already have selected are cleared, thus ensuring that unintended virtual controls don't get triggered via MIDI.

- Right-click on one of the virtual pedalboard keys and select 'Adjust MIDI/trigger settings manually ...'. Set 'Input' to 'Direct input from your MIDI organ console/keyboard/sequencer' and select 1 for the MIDI channel.

- Repeat for the other two virtual keyboards (you can access them via the left-hand browse list without needing to close the screen), assigning 2 for the MIDI channel for the Great (lower) keyboard and 3 for the Swell (upper) keyboard then OK the screen.

- Open the 'Registration' large control panel if it isn't already open.

- Right-click on the master general 1 button and select 'Adjust MIDI/trigger settings manually ...'. Set 'Input' to 'Momentary piston: MIDI program change'. Select 1 for the MIDI channel and 'Prog 001 ...' for the program change number.

- Repeat for master general 2 (you can access it via the left-hand browse list without needing to close the screen), this time selecting 2 for the program change number. If you want to use more than two registrations, repeat for additional master generals (up to twenty). Click OK.

- Turn on the Setter button on the Registration control panel.

- Draw the virtual registration you want for the start of the piece, then click master general 1 to assign (capture) the registration to master general 1.

- Repeat for the second virtual registration you want, this time capturing to master general 2. Repeat for any additional registration changes, assigning to additional master generals.

- Turn the setter off again.

- (With the setter off), click the master generals in turn to make sure that they're programmed to draw the sequence of registrations you intended.

Now in your Sonar project:

- Make sure that the Hauptwerk VST Link plug-in is loaded a VST instrument.

- Create three MIDI tracks with channels 1, 2 and 3 for the Pedal, Great and Swell respectively, selecting the Hauptwerk VST Link as the MIDI output for each of them.

- Create an additional track for registration changes, using channel 1, again with its MIDI output set to the Hauptwerk VST Link.

To change registrations you would then just insert MIDI program changes on your registration track, with (one-based) program change numbers corresponding to the master generals you wanted to trigger in Hauptwerk.

First off, probably dumb question, the labels of the switches below the manuals are impossible to decipher; same with the images in the pdf manual -- where can I find the info on what switch does what?


You can resize the main window to make the virtual console screen larger if they're difficult to read.

The 'The virtual console' section in the Hauptwerk user guide (pages 48-53 in the v4.0.0 guide) covers what the various St. Anne's controls are and do.

Second, I had two stops of the Great engaged and none of the Swell but there was sound coming out of the organ when playing the swell. How come?


You probably had the crescendo pedal in a non-off position, or had the FF or PP pistons on (all of which override or add to the draw-knob registration).

Also, at one point it seemed that the organ was behaving very odd and I quit and re-started and that was gone. Are there stability issues known?


No - I would guess that you had some unintended MIDI settings that were configured to trigger unexpected virtual controls via MIDI (and/or perhaps the crescendo or FF or PP on).

Hope that helps.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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wolfman

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Re: Sonar X1

PostFri Sep 16, 2011 10:34 am

Martin,

Thank you so much. I got it up and running now. I just need to figure out how to send program change messages from a Sonar MIDI track. (I am basically a guitar player so this MIDI stuff is like a 2nd language to me.)

Thanks again,
wolf
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mdyde

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Re: Sonar X1

PostFri Sep 16, 2011 10:57 am

Thanks, Wolf.

You're welcome.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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wolfman

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Re: Sonar X1

PostSat Oct 08, 2011 7:48 am

So I got my project finished. Not your average organ piece but a song. As I said, I'm not a keyboard player to begin with but I think the message gets delivered. Great that such a quality instrument is available in a free edition.

In case anyone's interested, the song is here:
http://temp.wolfmusic.eu/Early_Easter_Spring.mp3

Thanks again.

wolf

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