Opus 1
Status update: February 15, 2003
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:
(you can click on a small picture and see a larger version. Use your
browser's 'back' feature to return to this page)
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'.
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.
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.
The resevoir is fed by the blower and in turn supplies wind to the
chests.
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.
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.
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)
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'.
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.
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.
The resevoir is fed by the blower and in turn supplies wind to the
chests.
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.
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.
