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Lighting the stops

Connecting Hauptwerk to MIDI organs, sequencers, ...
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axel971

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Lighting the stops

PostWed Feb 07, 2018 6:44 am

Hi everybody,

I have linked the stops of the virtual organ to the stops of my real organ. I works well : real stop is lighted if I click a virtual stop and reversely.

BUT, if I use a registration, the stops of the real organ are not lighted. Is there a way to perform that ?

Thanks by advance.
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mdyde

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostWed Feb 07, 2018 7:28 am

Hello Axel,

Based on looking back through our email correspondence, am I correct understanding that you're referring to:

1. Using the stop switches on your Ahlborn Hymnus III digital organ with Hauptwerk, and:

2. The problem you're having arises when you try to trigger one of Hauptwerk's virtual combination pistons using one of your digital organ's physical pistons?

If so, as covered in the 'Playing Hauptwerk live from a digital organ' section of the main Hauptwerk user guide (pages 179-180 in the current v4.2.1 version), it can never reliably be possible to use both a digital organ's stops with Hauptwerk, whilst also using the digital organ's combination pistons to trigger Hauptwerk's combination system, since the digital organ's built-in combination system will inevitably 'fight with' Hauptwerk's combination system over the states of the stops. (The only exception might be if you were able to disable the digital organ's internal combination system completely, but I know of no digital organs that have an option for that.)

Hence you have to choose either to:

A. Use the digital organ's stop switches with Hauptwerk (in which case you mustn't auto-detect its combination pistons to Hauptwerk's virtual pistons/buttons), or:

B. Use the digital organ's pistons to control Hauptwerk's combination system (in which case you mustn't auto-detect its stops switches to Hauptwerk's virtual stops).

In that way you will only be using one combination system (the digital organ's combination system in the case of option A, or Hauptwerk's combination system in the case of option B). In my experience most people prefer B (since the selection of stops switches on any given model of digital organ are unlikely to match exactly with multiple different sample sets).
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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axel971

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostWed Feb 07, 2018 10:50 am

Thanks for your answer, Martin.
I understand what you say, but I don't think that it is exactly my situation :

1. stops are triggered both ways between real and virtual organ (that works manually)
2. Combination pistons on the real organ are not programmed on the real organ, so they can't trigger anything inside the real organ
3 Combination pistons on the real organ are linked with Hauptwerk to trigger combination pistons on the virtual organ

so, we should have :
press piston on the real organ => piston is pressed in HW combinator => a registration is called
all this works perfectly
except the fact that the stops are not lighten (despite the fact that stops are midi linked between real and virtual)
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mnailor

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostWed Feb 07, 2018 11:18 am

When I used my previous Ahlborn AG3200 with HW, it had a similar problem, if I understand you. I had stops and pistons autodetected to trigger the sampleset stops and HW combinations, respectively.

When I set HW to send MIDI output back to the digital organ, stop controls lit up and turned off as expected when used individually, and hitting a HW combination on the touchscreen lit the right stops on the consold, but the console pistons triggered combinations in HW without lighting the corresponding console drawknobs.

The reason seemed to be that the piston on the console turns off its drawknob lights a moment after HW has already sent the stop on outputs to the console. Or if the piston had a console stop combination assigned, that combination lit on the console, unrelated to what was actually drawn on HW. Drove me nuts. Like Martin says, the two combination systems fight over the console's stoop lights.

I replaced that with a CMK and Organtechnology console, and have been quite happy with it.
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mdyde

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostWed Feb 07, 2018 11:22 am

Hello Axel,

Thanks for the update.

axel971 wrote:2. Combination pistons on the real organ are not programmed on the real organ, so they can't trigger anything inside the real organ


Even if the digital organ's pistons are programmed with an all-off registration they would normally still affect the states of the digital organ's stops, since pressing the (physical) piston would tell the digital organ to turn its stops off, even if Hauptwerk had previously told it to turn them on, and even if Hauptwerk is simultaneously trying to tell it to turn some or all of them on. As you press the digital organ's piston, the digital organ will also probably send 'stop-off' messages to Hauptwerk for any of its physical stops that were previously on.

There really is no way of getting it it to work reliably and fully with both pistons and stops, unfortunately (at least not with any make/model of digital organ that we've previously encountered, and not without disconnecting the digital organ's internal circuitry completely).

If you click on the relevant virtual combination piston within Hauptwerk (instead of pressing the digital organ's piston), do both the virtual and physical stop states get set correctly? If so, then the difference in behaviour when pressing the digital organ's piston will be due to the digital organ's own combination system.

axel971 wrote:press piston on the real organ => piston is pressed in HW combinator => a registration is called
all this works perfectly
except the fact that the stops are not lighten (despite the fact that stops are midi linked between real and virtual)


That will be because the digital organ's combination system is simultaneously turning its stops off, due to the all-off combination that you've stored for the piston in the digital organ (as above).

[Edit: P.S. I see nmailor and myself replied at the same time -- thanks nmailor for additional information.]
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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axel971

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostThu Feb 08, 2018 6:09 am

Ok... Thank you for your explanations. I understand everything now.
I understand that there is no solution :(
In fact, I should not use at all the stops of the console and just link the pistons to the HW pistons.
Why not use the stops as pistons ? I can imagine that drawing a "trompette" on the console calls a complete "basse de trompette" registration ?
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mdyde

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostThu Feb 08, 2018 6:44 am

Hello Axel,

axel971 wrote:Why not use the stops as pistons ? I can imagine that drawing a "trompette" on the console calls a complete "basse de trompette" registration ?


Unfortunately, I think you probably wouldn't even be able to use the digital organ's stops to trigger pistons reliably, since the digital organ's combination system would sometimes result in the digital organ's stops changing states (thus indirectly triggering the virtual pistons they were mapped to) when the digital organ's pistons were pressed.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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engrssc

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostThu Feb 08, 2018 8:13 am

Launchpads or touch screens will work for control.

Rgds,
Ed
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axel971

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostMon Feb 12, 2018 4:14 pm

A very interesting constatation :
I use mainly 2 organs : the Milan's ND Metz Cavaillé-Coll and the jeuxdorgues Jeux d'orgue3 Silbermann.
The Cavaillé has a built-in combinator (20 pistons). With this one, everything works as I want : everything is synced both sides (stops, pistons, expression, crescendo).
The Silbermann has no internal combinator, so I use the HW one. And with this organ, I do not have the sync back to the stops (stops not lighted when I press a piston on the real organ, this piston beeing linked to a virtual piston in HW) :(

What the hell is the trick ?!
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mdyde

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostTue Feb 13, 2018 4:44 am

Hello Axel,

I can only reiterate that you cannot reliably use both your digital organ's stops, and its combination pistons, with Hauptwerk, even if it might seem partly to work sometimes, or in some situations. As previously discussed, you have to choose either to use its stops, *or* its combination pistons, with Hauptwerk if you want it to work reliably (or to disconnect the digital organ's internal combination system circuitry completely). Sorry -- there really is no magical trick or solution, I'm afraid.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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axel971

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostWed Feb 14, 2018 3:58 pm

After some tests it works perfectly with organs which have an embedded combinator.
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mdyde

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Re: Lighting the stops

PostThu Feb 15, 2018 5:07 am

Hello Axel,

The behaviour, in terms of the MIDI messages being sent and received, will be the same, regardless of whether you're using combination pistons built into a sample set's virtual console (such as the divisional pistons in St. Anne's) or Hauptwerk's 'master' combination pistons (master generals, master scoped combinations, stepper). Any differences in the results you get are probably just due to slight differences in timing with the various combinations, and/or in what registrations you happen to have stored to them, and/or in what states your digital organ's stops happen to be in.

If it seems to be working for you for at the moment, and if you'e happy with that, then of course that's fine, but you shouldn't expect it to work reliably in the medium/long-term, because the underlying issue (that the digital organ's combination system will be 'fighting with' Hauptwerk's) remains -- use it that way at your own risk!
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.

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