We recently installed a four manual, moving draw knob Hauptwerk implementation at our church running the Hereford Cathedral XLv2 sample set. It is magnificent! We also have a beautifully restored Bluthner grand piano from Germany.
We are currently looking into implementing a MIDI record/playback system on the Bluthner piano such as available from QRS Music Technology. Once implemented, we’d like to record and playback songs played live on the piano and Hauptwerk organ together. My goal is to keep the production sequencer system to accomplish this as simple as possible. Ideally, I’d like to use the built-in sequencer in Hauptwerk to record and play back both the organ and the piano together. Assuming the acoustic piano could be connected via MIDI over USB to the same Mac computer running Hauptwerk, would it be feasible to use the integrated Hauptwerk MIDI sequencer to record and play back both instruments simultaneously? Having to integrate both the piano and the organ into a DAW is more than I feel the church could handle and operate. The key to a solution for the church is it must be “simple to operate.” Further, I am not up for a creating a highly complex solution for them and then maintaining a DAW, etc.
One thought I have concerns a feature built into the XLv2 version of the Hereford sample set in that it incorporates 20 additional MIDI ranks (five per division and a huge thank you to David Butcher) that are available to map to external MIDI devices/voices. We are using those MIDI ranks now to play from within Hauptwerk external voices running in Kontakt sampler software. The addition of the 20 MIDI ranks in Hereford allows the organist to use during performance all of Hauptwerk’s controls over the voices mapped to the MIDI ranks. Could one of those MIDI ranks be used to map to the MIDI address for the Bluthner acoustic piano? How would a 61 note rank record 88 keys? What else should I be thinking about here?
I am hoping someone else has worked on solving this issue of an “elegant” production solution for connecting a Hauptwerk organ and an acoustic piano for simultaneous MIDI recording and playback.
We are currently looking into implementing a MIDI record/playback system on the Bluthner piano such as available from QRS Music Technology. Once implemented, we’d like to record and playback songs played live on the piano and Hauptwerk organ together. My goal is to keep the production sequencer system to accomplish this as simple as possible. Ideally, I’d like to use the built-in sequencer in Hauptwerk to record and play back both the organ and the piano together. Assuming the acoustic piano could be connected via MIDI over USB to the same Mac computer running Hauptwerk, would it be feasible to use the integrated Hauptwerk MIDI sequencer to record and play back both instruments simultaneously? Having to integrate both the piano and the organ into a DAW is more than I feel the church could handle and operate. The key to a solution for the church is it must be “simple to operate.” Further, I am not up for a creating a highly complex solution for them and then maintaining a DAW, etc.
One thought I have concerns a feature built into the XLv2 version of the Hereford sample set in that it incorporates 20 additional MIDI ranks (five per division and a huge thank you to David Butcher) that are available to map to external MIDI devices/voices. We are using those MIDI ranks now to play from within Hauptwerk external voices running in Kontakt sampler software. The addition of the 20 MIDI ranks in Hereford allows the organist to use during performance all of Hauptwerk’s controls over the voices mapped to the MIDI ranks. Could one of those MIDI ranks be used to map to the MIDI address for the Bluthner acoustic piano? How would a 61 note rank record 88 keys? What else should I be thinking about here?
I am hoping someone else has worked on solving this issue of an “elegant” production solution for connecting a Hauptwerk organ and an acoustic piano for simultaneous MIDI recording and playback.