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Swell pedal - limited range

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

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Swell pedal - limited range

PostWed Mar 16, 2005 4:07 am

Hello All

At long last I have sacrificed some practice time to undertake the carpentry to mount a swell pedal on top of my pedal board. All's well but I need some advice on getting the most out of it.

The swell pedal that I'm using works by mechanically rotating a 10KB potentiometer. I have wired the swell pedal into one of my MK361 keyboards, in place of the keyboard's internal volume wheel. This is working fine in terms of generating the appropriate midi messages and Hauptwerk is processing them fine as adjustments to the swell pedal position.

However it's range of mechanical movement is only sufficient to rotate the potentiometer by approx. 80% of it's range. This limits my ability to fully close the swell pedal in Hauptwerk. I have set parameter AmpMinimumLevel to 1% to maximise the effect of the swell pedal, but this alone doens't provide sufficient contract between my fully open and fully closed.

Q. Do other people have this problem or is this a perculiarity of my swell pedal, thus I should to replace it?

Q. Is there any software available that could "stretch" the midi message to cover the full range? I don't believe that MidiOx does this function.

Q. Are there other midi processors available other than my MK361 that could convert the current range of potentiometer resistance into the full range of midi message?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Martin
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schultzpo

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Re: Swell pedal - limited range

PostWed Mar 16, 2005 5:37 am

MRGreenwood wrote:However it's range of mechanical movement is only sufficient to rotate the potentiometer by approx. 80% of it's range. This limits my ability to fully close the swell pedal in Hauptwerk. I have set parameter AmpMinimumLevel to 1% to maximise the effect of the swell pedal, but this alone doens't provide sufficient contract between my fully open and fully closed.

Q. Do other people have this problem or is this a perculiarity of my swell pedal, thus I should to replace it?

Q. Is there any software available that could "stretch" the midi message to cover the full range? I don't believe that MidiOx does this function.

Q. Are there other midi processors available other than my MK361 that could convert the current range of potentiometer resistance into the full range of midi message?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Martin

I don't think this is a unique problem. It's difficult to utilize the whole range of the potentiometer using a simple linkage. My swell pedal has the same problem.
A possible mechanical solution is to use a rack and pinion method. Not easy to do.
Another possibility is to use a linear potentiometer instead of a rotary type.
Here's how I did it:
I use an application called MIDIO128 from www.ucapps.de . I have midified the whole organ, 3 manuals, pedal and stops. This device has also an analog input where I connected my swell potentiometer. I measured the values between open and closed. I then altered the software to "stretch" the midi msg from 00 closed and 7F fully open.
A word about the MIDIO128. I handles up to 128 inputs, fully configurable and has an integrated MIDI merger. But it's a true DIY project. Parts are available in kit form, the software is free including source code and there is an excellent online support.
Per S
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Iain

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Re: Swell pedal - limited range

PostWed Mar 16, 2005 7:37 am

Midi-Ox can do this. I have the same issue with my swell pedals, and I use Midi-Ox to stretch the range. Works very well
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MRGreenwood

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Re: Swell pedal - limited range

PostWed Mar 16, 2005 9:22 am

Iain wrote:Midi-Ox can do this. I have the same issue with my swell pedals, and I use Midi-Ox to stretch the range. Works very well


Please could you give me the details of how you set this up in MidiOX. When I looked I couldn't spot how to do it.

Thanks

Martin
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NeilCraig

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Re: Swell pedal - limited range

PostWed Mar 16, 2005 7:50 pm

MRGreenwood wrote:
Iain wrote:Midi-Ox can do this. I have the same issue with my swell pedals, and I use Midi-Ox to stretch the range. Works very well


Please could you give me the details of how you set this up in MidiOX. When I looked I couldn't spot how to do it.

Thanks

Martin


If you know how to use the mappings page, firstly note what the fully open and fully closed MIDI numbers are in the output screen, write them down, then create a mapping for the Ctrl message type and correct channel, and on the top line put these two range figures, then on the bottom (output) line keep the message type and channel the same but put 0 and 127 in the boxes for "Value 2 MIN and MAX." Same boxes for the top (input) line.

Works a charm however for me it causes a problem with multitracking via Cakewalk Sonar because I don't know how to map to Sonar and back to Hauptwerk while also using MIDI-YOKE/OX.

Anyone any ideas?

Best wishes//Neil
A plaque is simply not necessary - everyone will know it is a Willis organ! - "Father" Henry Willis
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MRGreenwood

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PostThu Mar 17, 2005 3:56 am

Thanks chaps - bloomin' marvellous!

I got the mappings working fine in MidiOx but was finding that even though new "stretched" messages in the midi output window appeared correctly, Hauptwerk was still processing the original unstretched messages.

I've sorted this out using MidiYoke as follows:-

a) install MidiYoke to create an additional logical Midi device (actually it's 8 ports effectively provide 8 logical devices)

b) set up mapping in MidiOx to stretch the messages

c) set the output device in MidiOx to be MidiYoke port

d) set the Hauptwerk input devices to be the MidiYoke port 1 device as opposed to be midi port on my soundcard

In short, manuals/pedalboards => soundcard midi port => MidiOx => MidiYoke => Hauptwerk.

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