I adopted a late 80’s Rodgers Concord 755 six or seven years ago. Since it has MIDI, I’m want to now do some work on it to use it as a Hauptwerk controller.
The manuals on this instrument are not worth keeping, so the plan is to cut through the cabinet, remove the entire top half of the organ, (manuals, top half of the cabinet, stop tabs, everything), leaving a “table” for a new three manual keyboard assembly to rest on. Of course, all interior analog electronics will be removed and discarded. A couple of touch screens will be added on each side of the new manuals.
I'm basically just salvaging the MIDI pedalboard, the toe pistons, expression pedals, and the bottom half of the cabinet ... and of course the MIDI wiring that's already connected.
Does anyone know of someone who’s documented a project like this online? I really have no idea if this is as easy as it sounds, or if the MIDI wiring from the pedals and the pistons requires electronic expertise to isolate so as to become the bottom half of my Hauptwerk controller.
Anyone know where to start? I’m sure there has to be people out there who have completely replaced the manuals on a MIDI organ and gutted the original electronics. I’d love to learn from them if anyone knows where their stories/pictures/videos are.
The manuals on this instrument are not worth keeping, so the plan is to cut through the cabinet, remove the entire top half of the organ, (manuals, top half of the cabinet, stop tabs, everything), leaving a “table” for a new three manual keyboard assembly to rest on. Of course, all interior analog electronics will be removed and discarded. A couple of touch screens will be added on each side of the new manuals.
I'm basically just salvaging the MIDI pedalboard, the toe pistons, expression pedals, and the bottom half of the cabinet ... and of course the MIDI wiring that's already connected.
Does anyone know of someone who’s documented a project like this online? I really have no idea if this is as easy as it sounds, or if the MIDI wiring from the pedals and the pistons requires electronic expertise to isolate so as to become the bottom half of my Hauptwerk controller.
Anyone know where to start? I’m sure there has to be people out there who have completely replaced the manuals on a MIDI organ and gutted the original electronics. I’d love to learn from them if anyone knows where their stories/pictures/videos are.