Mon Nov 21, 2011 6:04 pm
I had the same rollers - albeit much older - and just took two of them out a few days ago (and cut all the wiring out too). The ones I removed included the diodes across each leg of the circuit to stop the transient voltage spikes. Without these, pipes would speak - and sometimes MANY pipes would speak - without any provocation whatsoever just by moving the swell and/or choir expression pedals! Before installing those diodes, I observed the blue electrical arcs on the contact roller and that's when the extraneous sounds occurred. This wiring isn't even connected to the pipes except circuitously through the power supply. Ghostly. Diodes stopped all those problems and those arcs.
I almost went with what you suggested; however, I'm not that far along in the CODM yet to make two more 8-contact (faux) keyboards in addition to the 4-manuals + pedalboard. You can't use your solution, I believe, without altering the organ definition, and you can't (reliably) alter someone else's organ definition since they probably didn't even use the CODM. Eventually I hope to go the full CODM route. For now, I'm using existing sets and disabling some/many audio samples and substituting real pipes for those ranks. And, that is easy to do in Hauptwerk without CODM.
Since the new console will be moveable, I didn't want to keep the existing wiring either (twenty more wires). Right now, there's but a firewire cable to all the pipe ranks and that's it. Regretfully, firewire is only rated to just under 5 metres maximum length - so a short tether at the moment.
Interestingly, we have the same Peterson RC150 shade motors for the swell and choir louvres.
Midiboutique's solution using a reprogrammed controller was just right for me; neat and compact. It's ordered.
I also ripped out a long contact roller with 32 contacts for the old crescendo pedal. A fun time was had by all.