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Caen cryptic foot levers

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TimM

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Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 4:31 pm

I may be pushing my welcome here with this longer question, but now that I pretty much finished configuring my Rotterdam organ, I am going on to my other organ, the Caen St. Etienne, and I am pulling out my little remaining hair. It has a bewildering array of foot-operated levers that control sounding of stops. The Sonus site gives a few small hints, like pushing red levers for red stops, and a Cop GO lever for the GO. But they have no explanation of what these are, which is a bit frustrating. Worse, this is just a tiny fraction of the story. Maybe it's my screen, but I see no red foot levers, though there are some yellow and orange. And the labels are terse, like 'P.' (Positif?) and other single letters and French words. It took me a long time of trial and error just to get the Positif to play. This is a ridiculous way for me to proceed, working by random trials, doing things that I don't understand to see what works. Is there any documentation anywhere about what these levers do? What the terse labels mean? If I knew what they are, not only could I work faster but I would understand what I'm doing. Thank you for any help, and I do apologize for such a long question.

Tim
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organtechnology

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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 5:04 pm

Hi Tim,

Don't feel bad about asking. It is some arcane French thing about ventils.
The short answer seems to be to engage all the red pedals and wait for a more authoritative answer on the others. I spent an hour yesterday trying to get the Caen V2.5 demo sample set to work.
I finally found something in the FAQ as to why the Fonds and Anches would not sound.
Then I had to figure out which stops were not working because they were not part of the demo.

Had the same issue with the little MDA CC organ There must be a way to save all that in the combination set loaded at start up but I have not tried it yet. Plus I am something of a Francophobe :)


Thomas
Complete Hauptwerk™ systems using real wood consoles, PC Sound Engines, Dante Audio for Home or Church. info (at) organtechnology.com http://www.organtechnology.com
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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 5:19 pm

It has pretty standard French Symphonic organ controls, documented in books and online. Read through these for an intro:

http://faculty.bsc.edu/jhcook/orghist/h ... ist056.htm

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristide_Cavaillé-Coll

http://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/blog/reg ... tic-music/

Anches pedals are ventils that turn on wind to upperwork and chorus reeds.
Tirasses are manual to pedal couplers.
Orage plays some bass pipes to imitate thunder.
Cop. are manual couplers, including GO off.
Octaves graves are suboctave couplers.
R Recit
P Positif
GO Grand Orgue
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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 5:22 pm

Thomas, we American doofuses can just default the ventils to stay on. Caen works very well then... :)
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organtechnology

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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 5:28 pm

mnailor wrote:Thomas, we American doofuses can just default the ventils to stay on. Caen works very well then... :)


Merci Beaucoup :)
Complete Hauptwerk™ systems using real wood consoles, PC Sound Engines, Dante Audio for Home or Church. info (at) organtechnology.com http://www.organtechnology.com
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mnailor

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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 5:31 pm

P.S. The Anches levers *are* marked in red, but it's almost a reddish brown.
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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 5:35 pm

I see some others have already responded, but here's what I was preparing in the meantime:

> It has a bewildering array of foot-operated levers that control sounding of stops.

Yes, each one turns some group of stops on or off.

> And the labels are terse, like 'P.' (Positif?) and other single letters and French words.

Must be because it is a French Organ, and French Organists would know what the abbreviations mean.

From the Sonus Paradisi Website for the Caen Organ, first the Features Page:

FAQ -- Are the G.O. stops not giving any sound? - do not forget to switch on the foot lever marked Cop. G.O.

(This couples the Great Organ to itself, which allows it to play.)

Do the stops with the red labels not give any sound? - do not forget to enable the foot levers marked by the red color. These are the appels for every manual and the pedal.

(The red labels are on the STOPS, defining those groups of stops which these levers will control.)

Then the Specifications Page:

Tirasses: G.O., Positif, Récit
Accouplements: Positif - G.O., Récit - G.O., Récit - Positif, Octaves graves G.O., Octaves graves Récit
Appels: Pédale, G.O., Positif, Récit

Google Search for "Organ Tirasse":

tirasse (Fr.). Coupler of organ -— generally a pedal coupler. So tirasse du positif, du récit, du grande orgue, mean respectively Choir to Pedal, Swell to Pedal, Great to Pedal. These may be abbreviated to Tir. P., Tir. R., and Tir. G.O.

Google Search for "Organ Accouplements":

les accouplements qui permettent d'accoupler entre eux les claviers, c'est-à-dire qu’une note jouée sur un clavier sera également jouée sur l’autre.

Google Translate:

The couplings which allow the keyboards to be paired together, that is to say that a note played on a keyboard will also be played on the other.

So we see that these are "couplers"... positive to great organ, recit to great organ, recit to positve, and others: Octaves graves G.O. means deep octaves, and couples the great organ to itself but down one octave.
Octaves graves Récit couples the recit to itself but down one octave.

Google Search for "Organ Appels":

Les jeux ne parlent que lorsque l'appel général du clavier correspondant est tiré à droite ou à gauche des claviers manuels. Pour les jeux écrits en rouge, il est, en plus, nécessaire d'abaisser l'appel du clavier correspondant au-dessus du pédalier

Google Translate (slightly cleaned up):

The (stops) only speak when the general appel of the corresponding keyboard is pulled to the right or to the left of the manual keyboards. For (stops) written in red (mostly reed stops), it is also necessary to lower the appel of the corresponding keyboard above the pedal board

In other words, these levers activate their respective divisions, or also the reed portions of their divisions.

Such controls allow the reeds to be all set up and ready to play, but only become active when the reed appel for that division is drawn. Likewise, allowing entire divisions to be activated or de-activated with a single lever. Very convenient in the days before programmable pistons were developed. So you could have several divisions coupled to the Great Organ, and played from there, even if the Great Organ itself is silent. Then with a single lever the Great Organ can also be activated and will play whatever stops there have been selected.

Hoping this is helpful. Hauptwerk gives us the opportunity to enounter other organs, and other organ-building and organ-playing cultures right at close range. Enjoy the discovery!
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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 5:45 pm

mnailor wrote:Thomas, we American doofuses can just default the ventils to stay on. Caen works very well then... :)


Yes, absolutely. Since these are all devices to turn certain sounds OFF, we can just leave everything ON for simplicity and ease-of-access, and then use our wonderful computer-controlled programmable pistons to set all of our Registrations... using divisional pre-sets, general pre-sets, possibly an All-Reeds-Off Piston, and so forth... however we may choose to set it up.

The other stuff is there for "historical authenticity"... or in case you are using Hauptwerk to prepare and study for actual live play on some such historic instrument.
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TimM

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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSat Mar 18, 2017 5:50 pm

That was all very helpful, and I thank you. Sigh, I was so excited about setting up this organ that I was up at 4:30 AM, and configuring with my first cup of coffee in hand. After about 8 straight hours of setting up the Rotterdam, my heart sank when I ran into all this weirdness with the Caen. If I were sensible, I would have quit and picked up tomorrow, but I was driven. Anyhow, I'm quitting now, and tomorrow I'll start again, with all of this useful information in hand.

I guess the bottom line is that I set all the ventils permanently on, and just use Hauptwerk Master Couplers, which are easy to use. But at least now I know what these things are. Thank you again for taking the time to give me all that information, and I do feel a little guilty about not just Googling it myself. I was too fatigued by then to even think about it.

Tim
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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSun Mar 19, 2017 4:55 am

[Topic moved here, since it's a question about a sample set, rather than the Hauptwerk software per-se.]
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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TimM

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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSun Mar 19, 2017 6:01 am

I have put together the information that so many wonderful people shared, and done some research and testing of my own, and prepared a brief summary that others new to the Caen St. Etienne may find useful. Please feel free to comment and criticize.

The foot levers are numbered from left to right as seen on the Stops screen.

1) Orage - This acts as a key itself, requiring nothing else to be pressed. It plays preset low adjacent pedal notes using whichever stops are set. The result is a liver-rattling rumble that is perfect for accompanying Ride of the Valkyries.

2) Tir GO - G.O. to pedal coupler

3) P - Positif to pedal coupler

4) R - Recit to pedal coupler

5) Oves GO - G. O. Sub (16' coupler)

6) R - Recit Sub

7) Aches Ped - Must be down for Combinaison and d'Extension (red labels) pedal stops to play

8) Aches GO - Must be down for Combinaison (red labels) G. O. stops to play. Cop GO (#11) must also be down.

9) P - Must be down for Combinaison and d'Extension (red labels) Positif stops to play

10) R - Must be down for Combinaison and d'Extension (red labels) Recit stops to play

11) Cop GO - Must be down for ANY G. O. stop to play

12) P - Positif to G. O. coupler

13) R - Recit to G. O. coupler

14) R au P - Recit to Positif coupler. If Positif to Pedal coupler (#3) is also down, Pedal plays both manuals.

15) Trem - Tremelo on Recit


Tim
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RichardW

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Re: Caen cryptic foot levers

PostSun Mar 19, 2017 11:10 am

I found this article on the Sonus Paradisi site useful: http://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/blog/reg ... tic-music/

I agree, they can seem like a bit of a nuisance, but if you "go with the flow" you will be channeled into using the type of registrations that a French organist would have recognised.


Regards,
Richard

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