(see also the links section below)
I've had a long-time interest in the pipe organ and subscribed to PIPORG-L
shortly after its establishment in 1992. It was there that I learned that many
people were building residence organs either professionally or as hobbyists.
I purchased a used pipe organ (II/8) in the mid 90s but was a renter at the
time and had no place to install it. My wife and I purchased a home in 1999
and in 2002 completed the addition of a music room. Finally I have a place
for a Residence Organ. In addition to the orginal 8 ranks of pipes I also
purchased another dozen or so ranks in 2001 and acquired a 32 note pedal
bourdon at about the same time.
Intending to add MIDI to the orginal two manual console I had collected
some Peterson keyboards, and a couple of different MIDI encoder boards
for evaluation.
To celebrate the completion of the music room Craig Williams lent some
organ parts to get things playing for our 'room warming' party in December
of 2002. That setup is described below in the 'Interim Report on Opus 1'.
With something actually playing there was a real need for a 'real' console.
My organ playing friends didn't take the Korg MIDI Keyboard seriously.
About this time Glenn Gundlach put his residence organ project on eBay
and I purchased it. This console turned out to be almost exactly what I
was intending to build. Hopefully the console parts I collected will end
up in the hands of other hobbyists.
The links below describe my efforts in reverse chronological order. Please
follow these links to learn more about the organ.
(12/26/03) MP3's of the Gundlach Organ
(08/03/03) Photo of new console (more details to follow)
(02/13/03) Interim Report on Opus 1