Happy Holidays - and project status report

Happy holidays to all Hauptwerkians!

It has been a while since I posted the status of my large theater console project - so here it is:

I obtained an old 1960s Artisan double bolster console shell in late June. I had the shell, three wood core keyboards, a nice AGO pedalboard, a bench, a bag of stop tabs, a box of SAMs (mostly non functioning), and some goals. I plan to turn these into a controller for Hauptwerk, using 30 of Neil Jensen's excellent theater organ ranks.

Here is what it looks like today:



It is a bit of a sham at the moment since it does not play anything! However, there has been lots of progress. I have worked a lot on the keyboards and they now have all their primary contacts wired and have been remounted according to AGO specifications. I fabricated all new piston rails and installed custom engraved thumb pistons - lots of them. These are also wired. I doubled the number of toe studs and got all the expression pedals working (I had to add a potentiometer to the crescendo pedal.) I also learned how to repair SAMs. Between the working ones I started with, the ones I could repair, and two purchases of used SAMs, I have all 165 that I need plus some spares. I had Bob Arndt custom engrave stop tabs to my specification.

Hence, the console you see is about 75% of the way to being able to play music. I have five big projects left:

1) Adding second touch to the accompaniment manual

2) Wiring the SAMs

3) Installing the control system (it will come from Classic Organ Works)

4) Building an audio system

5) Refinishing the console

Of these, only the first is a bit experimental and creative. The rest is straight forward engineering and effort. I can see the end - though it is still far off!

You can follow my continuing progress on my blog at

http://www.nightbloomingjazzmen.com/Theater_Organ_Project.html

I hope that my experiences can aide others who will be retrofitting old consoles for use with Hauptwerk.

Les Deutsch

Hi Les,
That is a fabulous project! It'a a lot of work, but all very do-able - and the feeling of having accomplished such a project will, I'm sure, be wonderful. Congratulations and good luck.

Les,

The design of your bench is really cool. Where did you get it? Or did you make it?

Here is what it looks like today:

Les, Looks like a good project. And I love the style of that console. You should do it in white!!

BTW, I play a Rodgers Oxford 945 every Sunday. I love it. Plus, we have "pop' organ concerts on it. You can see some of the theatre-style videos at http://www.donvideos.com There are three Rodgers videos on that page. The only thing I would change on the Rodgers is to add MIDI so I could add the Hauptwerk to it. What a sound!!!

Good luck and keep us informed on your Hauptwerk console..

Don in Dallas

Jim, the bench is actually the original Artisan bench from the 60s. At first I thought I would replace it with a more traditional bench - but I have grown to appreciate the space age design. It is quite strong. It also offers a design compromise, being full width like a concert bench while appearing (due to the inward curves) to blend well with a theater style bench. In any case, the bench is in excellent condition.

Don, My Rodgers 945 has full MIDI as it was delivered from the factory. It even has two MIDI channels (assignable) per division, making it an excellent Hauptwerk platform. I have even written software to decode the system exclusive that the stops generate so they can control Hauptwerk directly.

I do plan to have MIDI out on my theater console in addition to its direct control of Neil's samples. I did not provide stop tabs for this, however, as I wanted to keep the specification authentic and I also did not want to spend another five tabs for this. I plan to use Classic's digital display system (which I will hide in a drawer) for this, as well as for other controls such as sequencing, combination memory levels, and transposition.

I have also used the Rodgers very successfully as a theater organ. I once performed a soilenet movie using the two-manual version at a local synagogue. I used the custom voicing system (I own one of these) to change some of the ranks around and customize levels and trems. I also used its MIDI to control tuned percussions (glock and xylophone) using an external synthesizer. The results were very authentic.

Your 945 theater organ videos are great. I have no videos on my site, but there are a lot of audio samples of various Hauptwerk organs I have designed using existing samples, and a few pipe organs I have recorded (and lots of other instruments ...)

Les

Wish you much success with your newest project, Les. Very impressed at how you are going about it.

Any chance you would care to share your sys exe decode software either privately or here on the Forum?

Rgds,
Ed

Ed,

My code isn't pretty since I did not write it for release. It is "hardwired" to my model Rodgers so it will need to be modified by anyone with a different model. However, if anyone wants it, I can send it to them. It is written in c and runs on a Mac.

Les