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Console changes with Launchpads

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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostFri Mar 07, 2014 5:21 am

All four manuals are on now. The Swell pistons are not yet operating because I've run out of ribbon cable and connectors so the E-Keys unit for the Swell isn't yet wired up. However the other three are fully operational and tested, including the sequencer "plus" pistons. As mentioned earlier, all 8 "plus" pistons are wired in parallel, and they are connected back up to the Solo piston rail because it's in that rail that the input actually gets MIDIfied.

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Here are the shots of the left and right sections of the Solo (with Swell also in view). On the left, the group of three are further generals, and the five red pistons are more couplers and reversibles. On the right there are the final five generals (total of 27). There are 8 more generals (10 to 17) in the 5th rail. The two pistons to the far right (S1 and S2) are for keyboard "swapping". There are two more (S3 and S4) in the 5th rail.

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Bear in mind that this massively generous piston layout was devised before I discovered launchpads, in response to my dislike of touch screens. I wanted to create a console which minimised as far as possible the need to touch the screens while playing. Now that I have launchpads to give tactile stop control I have the best of both worlds. My console plan originally aimed for five manuals, but when reason prevailed and I cut the fifth keyboard from the plan I decided to retain its piston rail and mount it above the Solo, after the fashion of some English cathedral organ consoles.

No more work happening for a while due to the mundane reality of the day job. However you may wish to tune in to my next broadcast. I am the voice on radio for the Organ Music Society of Sydney as programmer/presenter of their monthly radio show "Colours of the King". The broadcast takes place from 5 until 6 pm (Sydney time) on Fine Music 102.5 FM in Sydney on the second Saturday of each month. The broadcast also streams live to the internet from http://www.finemusicfm.com. The March broadcast will take place tomorrow.

Andrew
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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostFri Mar 07, 2014 7:53 pm

It's now late Saturday morning in Sydney. Here's a quick photo by daylight.

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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostSun Mar 09, 2014 6:58 am

Further work took place tonight, and I can now report that the MIDI wiring to the Swell is now complete, tested and working. All pistons to the four manuals are now operational. There remains just the fifth piston rail to wire up. Its MIDI connections are waiting for it - I just have to wire up the cables to come from the pistons themselves.

Here's a quick shot of the whole assembly with the top section temporarily placed back in position. The music rest support has not yet been installed. I've removed the four LCD screens which are mounted from behind. I have put them to one side and will return to them as the very last task. I've not wired LCD screens previously, so I'll have to work on that job very carefully. I plan to finish everything else first, then do the screens last of all.

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Here are the pistons to the left. All 8 in the two left groups are generals. As with the previous 5 rows, the central section contains 11 pistons numbered zero to 10. They are flanked by sequencer pistons, but in this instance they are minus (engraved in red) rather than plus.

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To the right are five red pistons for special functions - Doubles Off, Pleno I, Pleno II, Tutti and Crescendo. The final 2 pistons are S3 and S4 - following on from S1 and S2 under the Solo manual. These can be seen as Spares, or for keyboard Swapping.

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Still plenty more work to do. The pistons in the 5th rail need to be wired up. The music rest needs to be mounted. Then the entire instrument's innards need to be replaced - all the connections to launchpads, keyboards, swell pedals, inputs for the pistons to the computer, plus the audio hardware etc etc. And finally the LCD screens.

However I am pleased at how fast this has gone. It's less than 2 weeks since I pulled everything apart, and I'm amazed that I've got it to this point. After wiring up the Solo piston rail nearly a year ago I'd been waiting for "the right time" to do the rest. Once I finally had the keyboard stack and I'd pushed the pistons loosely into place I made some decisions which led to a few changes, which in turn led to me ordering a few more from Syndyne late last year. These arrived a few weeks back, and this became the final push which I needed to get in and start work.

After having carried this plan in my head for nearly 5 years, it's nice to see it now so close to completion.

Andrew
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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostSun Mar 09, 2014 7:57 pm

The music rest is now temporarily in position, supported by the Otto Heuss brackets which allow for horizontal and vertical adjustment.

The old music rest which I have (which came off a junked pipe organ about 30 years ago) is not tall enough for the vertical supports. I am not considering cutting the supports down, in case I decide in the future to get a new music rest.

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The horizontal supports are quite long, as they contain the sliders which run in felted slots. The workmanship in this music rest support is absolutely first class.

At this stage I am still experimenting with exactly where to attach the verticals to the back of the music rest. Until I can actually play the organ I won't know for sure where I want the music rest to be. Also, I am not attaching the brackets permanently to the top box just yet. For starters, I'll need to get exactly the right screws and make sure they go precisely where they need to be so that they don't foul the slider action. Secondly, I am still needing to take the top box off to wire up the pistons and fix the LCD screens. For now, some very strong clamps are holding everything in place.

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The music rest needs to be some distance out, projecting over the Solo keyboard, but with a balance struck between the outward extension and vertical placement to allow at least a glimpse of the fifth piston rail. Unfortunately by bringing the music rest right out like this the LCD screens are obscured from view in the playing position. One must lean to the left or right in order to see the screens. However I will be spending much more time looking at the music than at the screens, so I don't anticipate a major problem.

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Horizontal adjustment is infinitely adjustable simply by pulling or pushing the music rest in or out. The long shafts run in felted square holes. Vertical adjustment requires operating the two spring-loaded clips at each side. This lifts a pin out of a hole on each side, and a series of holes allows for vertical adjustment at specific intervals.

Andrew
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G3

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostSun Mar 09, 2014 8:28 pm

Awesome...incredible. What a great idea. I'm going to see if I can do something similar. I gave you ideas, now you've given me so many. Thanks...

George (G3)
Owner/Builder of Hammond-Hauptwerks X-66 3-manual organ.
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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostMon Mar 10, 2014 12:57 am

Hi George,

Thank you very much. I'm pleased to be able to continue sharing.

Judging by the view count to this thread - now over 6,000 - I am hoping that the sharing of ideas has been helping many other forum members.

The music rest support was made for me by the Otto Heuss company in Germany.

http://www.ottoheuss.de

Their catalog is available from their download page. Music rests are in Group 3 of the separate download files.

This item wasn't cheap, but nearly 40 per cent of the total cost was associated with shipping it from Germany to Australia. The music rest support itself cost about 300 Euros (including staining), but it cost about 180 Euros to get it here. However I saw it as a great solution to my music rest situation, and after piecing it together today for the first time know I have made the right choice.

Andrew
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pat17

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostMon Mar 10, 2014 2:40 am

Quite an impressive setup Andrew! 8)

The music rest setup is a very good idea considering how complex your console is!
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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostMon Mar 10, 2014 4:15 am

Thanks Pat. For a year I've had the music rest set up temporarily, but it's been too far away and too high for comfort. My inspiration was the console at the Sydney Town Hall, where the 1890 Hill masterpiece has an adjustable music rest which projects out over the keyboards. Despite its size, this console is renowned for being quite comfortable. Having played the STH organ on a number of occasions I can testify to this.

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I've just finished wiring up the 5th piston rail and testing it. After wiring the first four piston rails all pistons worked first go. Just one piston in the 5th rail is not responding - and as one might guess it's going to be a significant job to trace it out. The circuitry in question is buried and I'll have to unplug everything to get to the source of the problem! Fortunately I designed the setup with male/female plug/socket pairs connecting the flat ribbon cables from the pistons to the MIDI hardware, so it will be fairly straight forward to unplug everything, find the fault, then plug it all back in again. I suppose that after all that soldering I shouldn't complain about having just one dud input. I'll get it eventually, but not tonight as my concentration has reached its limit for now!

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostTue Mar 11, 2014 6:45 pm

It's hard to believe that it's only two weeks since I dismantled the console in order to finish the work on pistons. Last night I tested the pistons again, found and fixed the loose wire which was stopping one piston from working, dealt with a few other niggly issues, then began to reassemble the console. After a year of procrastination the work has been dealt with within a fortnight!

For anyone who is wondering, I test the pistons by connecting the E-Keys units to my Mac. I then launch Garageband, open up a file to play a piano sound, then I just press each piston in turn. If all is well I am rewarded with a piano-like plunk from the Mac upon every piston press.

The organ itself has yet to be played, so I'm not celebrating just yet. By midnight I'd reached the point where I had the E-Keys devices for the pistons installed in Windows 7, plus the reinstallation of the launchpads and touch screen driver. I also reinstalled the M-Audio Firewire 410 driver. The reinstallation of drivers was necessary because I've made major changes to how the USB devices are connected. With everything going through different ports I needed to start again. When I first powered up the computer I had nothing connected, then I added one device at a time.

Most tedious was the process of reinstalling the two daisy-chained Roland MIDI interfaces. This has to be done in three stages. Each interface must be installed separately in master mode, followed each time by a computer restart. Then the two devices are linked and switches on the devices set to indicate master status for the first and slave status for the second. The master is then connected to the computer and the whole assembly is finally identified by Windows as a single unit. This process also ties the interface to the specific USB port to which this final connection is made.

The wiring to the swell pedals is now also back in, as is the headphone amp and pedalboard lights.

By midnight I'd run out of energy so I stopped short of actually launching Hauptwerk. Later today I will return to the coal face and see if it all works!

Andrew
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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostTue Mar 11, 2014 9:12 pm

Just switched it all on, and I can report that (nearly) everything works! The one item which I can't yet get to function is the swell pedals. MIDI OX shows no signal, so I have some checking to do but that can wait for now.

Everything else appears to be working fine - especially the pistons! I have loaded Salisbury and quickly used auto-detect to capture the pistons in their new and proper locations. Success!!

Here's another quick shot for those who are gleaning ideas from my console design. For the fifth piston rail - which is a common feature in English cathedral organs - it's usual to find these pistons mounted on the board above the Solo keys, which means that they can only be comfortably pressed by extended fingers but not by thumbs. In my console I've had the pistons mounted in a small "shelf" which protrudes in front of this board. That allows for these pistons to be pressed by the thumbs if desired, as shown here.

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Just a minor detail, but one which I hope to find useful.

More work to do figuring out what has happened to the swell functions, then some tidying up of cabling to be done - then I can finally get back to some playing!

Andrew
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G3

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostTue Mar 11, 2014 9:42 pm

So impressive. I can't wait for some videos of all this in action.

George (G3)
Owner/Builder of Hammond-Hauptwerks X-66 3-manual organ.
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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostWed Mar 12, 2014 12:08 am

Hi George,

I hope to be able to oblige one day. Making videos isn't something which I've done much of. I can for now give you my one and only YouTube offering. I created this about a year ago for a beginner organ student.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP_E6Z7NQek

Andrew
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Andrew Grahame

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostWed Mar 12, 2014 7:24 am

Well folks, here it is! Finished - for now.

The swell pedal problem turned out to be a faulty MIDI cable. Swell pedals are all now working. LCD screens yet to be installed, and music rest support yet to be screwed down. Apart from that, it's all up and running. I've actually just spent some time playing - for a change!

No more major work for now. However in due course the pedal assembly will be given a major overhaul and reconstruction. The present setup has grown like Topsy and my woodworking is crude. However that's a job for another time, because for now I've had enough and I just want to play!

Thanks to all forum readers both seen and unseen. Even just watching the view count steadily creeping upwards has been a stimulus to keep working. If anyone has taken up some ideas, I'd love to see photos of your consoles.

Andrew

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Ted Williamson

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostWed Mar 12, 2014 10:15 am

Congrats Andrew,
You have given me a bad case of piston envy. No, really the entire thing is really cool. I wish I had a setup just like it.

I admire you for persevering through the obstacles and showing your work along the way.
Many Thanks,
Ted Williamson
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profeluisegarcia

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Re: Console changes with Launchpads

PostWed Mar 12, 2014 11:40 am

Wonderful work Andrew, congratulations from we "organ little brothers".
Your problem now -as well as mine- is that you will not find anything new to work in order improve your instrument.
By the way, hadn´t you think about its birth name?
I´d suggest: "Octopus" :wink:
Regards,
Luis
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