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Allen MOS-2 225 to Hauptwerk

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larason2

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Allen MOS-2 225 to Hauptwerk

PostTue Oct 19, 2021 12:18 pm

It’s been a while since I last posted about my Hauptwerk Console, and I haven’t updated this community about it. A year ago I found a non functional Allen Mos-2 225 RTC on Kijiji needing a new home. I brought it home, and initially tried to get the original Allen sounds working with Midi and Hauptwerk. I ran into some trouble, so in the end decided to convert it using a home made Arduino based platform. To this end, the pedals, expression pedals, keys, and pistons are all encoded for Midi using a single Arduino. For the combination system, however, John Kinkennon generously provided me with his Teensy based system for the stops. Stop detection works perfectly, but the combination action isn’t fully functional yet (still waiting for some further testing). Still, I’m very happy with how the system is currently, and have been taking organ lessons based on this system.

For the sample set, I purchased and have been using MDA’s Notre Dame de Metz, and have been very happy with it. Three generous people sold/sent me for the postage extra Allen stop tabs, and so I modified the original Allen labels to match Notre Dame de Metz as closely as possible. This left 5 switches left over, which I used for the combinations (all 4 on one stop!), Recit to GO, Pos to GO, Recit to Pedale and GO to Pedale. I switch between Recit and Pos on the upper manual using two pistons and floating divisions.

A word about Notre Dame de Metz, after a few months, I feel like I could probably get by just with this set and never need another! It is very versatile for practically any registration, and the extended version does particularly well for Baroque for most purposes. I only use stereo going to my two Yorkville NX25p monitors or headphones (Beats Studio3’s) wired directly. I do use some of Augustine’s great samples for some repertoire (The Aeris Castilian for Spanish Baroque, Zamardi for French Baroque, Tihany for other Baroque pieces), and MDA’s St. Georgenkirche, particularly for some Bach, but otherwise I couldn’t be happier! I think the reverberation is the perfect balance, so never miss other perspectives. My computer isn’t particularly powerful - MacBook Air 1.6Ghz Intel i5 with 16 GB of RAM, but it runs the Metz perfectly at default settings. I only get audio problems if I couple all the manuals and pedals together with the base fonds and reeds selected on every division, which isn’t a very realistic registration for me! If I want FF, then I just select the base fonds and reeds on the pedal and GO, and it’s more than powerful enough without any audio problems!

I still have a few future changes to make to the console, adding buttons and so on, but I’m planning to leave it as it is for a while since I’m taking organ lessons. Very pleased with it!

I’ve documented a lot of my journey on Arduino Hub and the Organ Forum, here are the links:

Arduino Hub page with encoder information including Schematic and Code:
https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/La ... ans-f3756c

Organ Forum Post with more details about what I did to modify the console:
https://organforum.com/forums/forum/ele ... rtc-repair

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