Hey guys,
Thanks for the info. I'm excited to be a part of this and on my journey. I love doing organ repair, my host mom when I lived in Germany was a repair tech and I got to be her assistant, which was amazing. I have an 1890's pump organ I got for my birthday that I went through and refurbished the reeds, vox humana (a delightful spinning device that just adds vibrato, but for marketing purposes of Montgomery Ward, they disguise it as an actual voice), new straps, etc.
I'm definitely a research guy, especially on projects like this. In my very small living room, I have a Hammond B3, the shell with fancy lights of my Cinema III, and the 1890's Montgomery Ward pump organ. I'm trying to turn this console into my music making station, not just a virtual pipe organ.
Here's what my goal is:
I tore out all the tabs. If you've ever played a BC3, the entire bottom row of tabs are useless, except for the rhythm machine and manual percussion tabs--just lots of hoopla to make it look exciting. Instead, my intent is to put in an array of three or four small touch screens where the tabs used to be, then two more, larger touch screens mounted to both sides of the music stand. Right above the solo KB, is a bar that had some preset buttons and various rheostat volume controls for accomp, pedals, perc, and some power switches. I tore out all this and will be replacing it with new buttons to use for presets (if you could direct me to the best buttons to buy new, that would be great).
I want this to be run off PC because I want to use other programs with the console as well, like SoundTrap for music composition and use the KBs as moog style synths, then Sibelius for notation. For the sound, I just plan on hooking this PC into my existing 5.1 surround sound in my living room. See what I'm going for? An all around PC driven music console, mixing the beautiful cabinetry and nostalgic horseshoe shape of a theatre organ with the star-treky lights and screens of tomorrow. I might try to photoshop up a prospection picture to share.
With all this being said, what I specifically need help with: I have taken out every single electronic component except the key contacts, but notice all the resistors and diodes have been removed. Several keys were not working and the components were failing when tested.
What components do I need and how do I wire them to get these KBs and pistons to interact with a PC? Pic of board here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Rom94VJrGKEpzGbX6Once again, I sure do appreciate the warm welcomes. I live for learning new things and understanding my hobbies at a deeper level, so getting to wire it all up is wildly exciting. Cheers all!
~Quemeshine