Viscount Chorale 3 Pistons

I have successfully interfaced the keyboards, pedal board and expression pedals to Hauptwerk. The pistons are a mystery. Does anyone have experience on interfacing the combo action?

Thanks,

Jim

The pistons are a mystery. Does anyone have experience on interfacing the combo action?

I'm afraid not, but the first thing I would do would be to determine what (if any) MIDI the pistons send when pressed.

Nick

I had a Viscount Prestige 80 previously and the thumb pistons were all unsusable for Hauptwerk. Only the Midi Sustain toe piston gave the possibility to do something. I had used it for the combination stepper forward.

Thank you Nick and ludu. The organ pistons are "talking" to Hauptwerk but having weird results. I believe it is a Hauptwerk configuration problem. There are so many options for configurations that I haven't found the right one. I would appreciate any one who could give me step by step instructions.
Thank you,

Jim

Hello Jim,
Yes, the pistons send a Midi signal to HW, but they are not workable because they do not give each a different signal. It does not depends on your settings in HW.

I've midified a Viscount Domus 8 only to find that the pistons are sending 2 midi signals almost together when pressed. I think one is a the piston is pressed and the second when it is released.

Hi Penrhos1920,

I think you are right. By trying different configurations, it appears the same thing happened to me. I tried to set up one stop on Gen Piston 1. When the stop was off, pressing the piston did nothing. I manually turned the stop on and pressing the piston would cancel it and it would not turn on again. Back the drawing board!

Cheers,

Jim

Hi James,

I also was trying to use the Viscount pistons but I couldn't.
I sent an email to Viscount support but I did not received any answer.
Instead of the Viscount pistons, I'm using the last 2 right keys, on the pedalboard to change +1 and -1 program memory.
Regards

I confirm. Viscount makes excellent instruments, but the Midi implementation is not compatible with HW.

Please stay tuned! I am getting professional help from Francois Ratte at HauptwerkConsultant. At least I will know exactly what the Viscount Choral 3 is capable of. My backup is configuring a X-keys Stick.

Cheers,

Jim

Have you tried MIDI-Ox?

Yes, that is what we are using to read the midi signals. So far the problem is not getting consistent results from the Viscount.

The pistons may NOT be sending any data and what you are seeing might be the stops turning on or off as set in the combination of the pistons you press. I would suggest setting a piston to All Stops off and the press it a couple of times and seeing what code you get from the second press of the piston.

Iain

CONCLUSION - The pistons can be programmed to turn stops on but cancelling them is another matter not worth the effort. So, the Viscount Chorale 3 is not 100% Hauptwerk compatible. Thanks to all of you who responded to my note.

Cheers,

Jim

There always is the option to rewire the pistons and connecting them to a MIDI encoder which will give the correct MIDI info to H/W. If you leave (and insulate) the original wiring in place and properly label those wires, they could be reconnected to recreate the original configuration.

Rgds,
Ed