Opus 1

Status update: February 15, 2003

Overall View


Here is a brief summary of the first Residence Organ I've had a hand in.  The view above is an overall view of the organ as situated at the end our newly constructed music room.  A friend has lent much of what you see.  I own the pipes and the stands that the computer and console are sitting on.  The rest is borrowed!  You'll note the absence of any 8' pipes, stopped or open.  Here's a brief tour:

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The one manual console The one manual console is a Kawai MDK61 MIDI controller.  The masking tape on the upper right serves as the legend for the stop controls.  In its current state the organ has three ranks of speaking pipes (the principal pipes in front are facade pipes at the moment) which can be drawn at both 8' and 4'.

Computer The Titular Organist.  The chests in the organ are controlled with MIDI messages.  The console is connected to the MIDI 'In' of the computer and the MIDI 'Out' is sent to the chests.  The computer is a much more capable organist than I am at present (hear below).  Currently PowerTracks is the software package in use but any capable MIDI sequencer should suffice.

Blower The blower is a small Meidinger made in Switzerland.  It supplies more than enough wind for the organ.  Hopefully soon the blower will move into the blower room which is directly behind the wall it is sitting in front of.

Resevoir The resevoir is fed by the blower and in turn supplies wind to the chests.

Windline The windline consists of schedule 200 PVC pipe.  This is very thin walled pipe.  The pipe leading beyond the tee goes nowhere at this point.  Sitting on top of the manifold is a Magnehelic pressure gauge indicating just under 4" water.  There is also a container of super glue and a solid state relay sitting on the manifold for unknown reasons.

MIDI driver board This is a fuzzy shot of the MIDI driver board.  It was custom built for this application.  There is one of these boards for each rank of pipes in the organ. A technical description of the board can be found at The YAPPI site.

Left Chamber Both Chambers Right Chamber

And here are the pipes!  From front to back we see a principal,  a stopped diapason, an harmonic flute, and a salicional.  The principal is currently mute pending the arrival of a replacement MIDI driver board thus it serves as the facade for now.  The three ranks that are playing are from an organ that I purchased some years back in Oregon.  I learned of its availability on PIPORG-L.  Prior to subscribing to PIPORG-L I never really thought it would be feasible for an individual to own a pipe organ.  

Oh, and what does this thing sound like?  Here are a couple of MP3 files.  Please realize that the tuning isn't perfect, some notes are missing, and the room is very live.  But I'm quite excited at any rate!  I've owned these pipes for years and this is the first opportunity I've had to hear them speak!

Recording 1 (MP3) (4.7Mb)

Recording 2 (MP3) (5.1Mb)