Swell indicators

[Thomday]

We are setting up a new console and would like to have indicators for swell shoe positions. Four shoes, Main, Solo, Percussion and Crescendo. Anyone doing this? Suggestions for hardware to use?
Thanks
thom

[magnaton]

Hi Thom:

This was listed a while back; a "Head up" display from Classic Midi Works in Canada. It shows 4 indicators. Not sure if it is still available or not.

http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=14620

Danny B.

[brooke.benfield]

It's no longer available.

One of them was obtained for the HW installation at the church I play for and there was some sort of firmware problem so the indicators didn't work properly. I contacted Classic Midi and they requested I send it back so they could "repair" it. I sent it back and shortly after that the product disappeared from their website.

The church is out ~$320.00 and Classic Midi has not responded to emails about this problem so I have sort of given up.

[Peter2]

The swell shoes appear to control a Voltage Controlled Amplifier, the controlling voltage being somewhere between 0 and 5 VDC. So basically, any voltmeter with that range could be used to indicate the position of the shoe.
Time constraints prevent me from working on this project, but it seems to me that, say, an Arduino programmed as a voltmeter, could drive a vertically mounted standard 16x2 LCD for 2 channels (two of them side by side for 4 shoes).

[jkinkennon]

In order to leverage the auto ranging ability of Hauptwerk it might be ideal to read the HW status output, an integer up to 127 if I remember correctly, and use those MIDI signals to drive perhaps 3 20-LED indicators. Sparkfun sells 10 segment LED bargraphs that are one inch long. Two of these can be combined for a two inch high display. A Teensy could drive three of these easily via a 64-bit I2C or SPI board. That way there is no need to make any changes to any existing expression or crescendo pedal wiring.

If there's sufficient interest I will find time to draw up an inexpensive solution. If anyone finds an existing project like this let me know -- no need to reinvent the wheel. I'd envision a Teensy 3.x, a Centipede Shield I2C board, and 6 LED bargraphs for a total of about $60 plus any cabling and mounting solutions.

[mdyde]

Hello Thomday,

[Topic moved here.]

To add to others' replies, Hauptwerk can also output MIDI control change (or NRPN/RPN) messages directly from any of its virtual expression pedals. Just make sure you have the appropriate MIDI OUT port enabled (on the 'General settings | MIDI ports | MIDI OUT ports' screen tab), then right-click on the desired virtual expression pedal, select 'Adjust MIDI/trigger settings manually ..., and configure the appropriate MIDI settings on the 'Primary output' tab).

It would probably be preferable for an expression pedal indicator to be driven by MIDI output from the virtual expression pedal in Hauptwerk, rather than directly/electrically from the physical expression pedal, so that the indicator would show the true position of the virtual expression pedal (which might sometimes be different from that of the physical pedal, for example if you've just loaded an organ but the physical pedal hasn't yet been moved so as to send any MIDI messages).

[IainStinson]

Hardware from http://midiboutique.com/MIDI-Decoders/mlc8 may do the job. It relies on MIDI console status output system (pg 222 in the HW manual).

Iain

[jkinkennon]

Thanks for the info about the MidiBoutique device. I hadn't seen that even though I ordered a velocity encoder from them just a couple of weeks ago. The price is reasonable as well.

[brooke.benfield]

In February this year I purchased a 480x320 LCD display, an Arduino Feather M0, both from adafruit, and a MIDI shield from Sparkfun. I cludged an epic solution that involves glorious flying jump wires between the MIDI shield and Feather M0 boards and then I murdered up some code aaaaannnnd.....drumroll....it pretty much works as intended.

In addition, since the display has a touchscreen overlay, I believe I can control HW features such as the MIDI Recorder/Player from this unit if I want to dig into it further.

It was a fun challenge but not rocket science. I'm sure many of the folk on this forum could do a project like this as well.

[Organorak]

If you have touchscreens and fancy a free software graphic option, you can create a Swell pedal position indicator using j-organ as the MIDI touchscreen interface with Hauptwerk (rather than having Hauptwerk on your monitor(s) - happy to share the details offline if anyone wants the technical info.

[brooke.benfield]

Dragging up an old post....

I did decide to expand my display project to include a subset of the features of the MIDI Player/Recorder and the Pitch large control panel. So now I have three screens that I can scroll through to access the different features.

Since yesterday was the day before April Fools day, I decided to play a little joke upon those in the congregation who pay attention. I recorded my postlude during my practice session and then at the end of the service, pressed the PLAY button and joined the congregation out in the pews to listen with them.

A group of amused and interested folk crowded around to ask questions and see how I made the organ "play by itself".

Great Fun.

[engrssc]

From an old post:

Since yesterday was the day before April Fools day, I decided to play a little joke upon those in the congregation who pay attention. I recorded my postlude during my practice session and then at the end of the service, pressed the PLAY button and joined the congregation out in the pews to listen with them.

Assume that was a MIDI recording?

I'm looking for a relatively small touch screen that would fit in a small (10" X 4") drawer to control the recording feature. Any ideas?

Rgds,
Ed

[brooke.benfield]

Ed;

It was indeed a MIDI recording.

You might consider a cheap tablet for your solution. Amazon has the Fire 7 tablet available for $29.99 today for Prime members.

[magnaton]

You might consider a cheap tablet for your solution. Amazon has the Fire 7 tablet available for $29.99 today for Prime members.

I love thinking outside-the-box! The dimensions are there: 7.6" x 4.5" x 0.4". I'm guessing you'd run TouchOSC for sending MIDI data?

Danny B.

[engrssc]

The drawer actually is 4.5" wide so will see. I just ordered it. Had looked at it but didn't want to spend +$50.
$30 is more in line.Thanks for the tip, Brooke.

Rgds,
Ed