An age but immense progress

It has been almost a year since my last post about the virtual organ project.  Why?  Well, to be honest, other things in life took over and the organ took a bit of a back seat.  It ended up being completely dismantled for a long time.

After a lot of thought, I decided against an all oak console because it was ultimately going to end up being a little too dark colour wise.  Instead after consulting my partner as to what he thinks (after all, he's losing a spare bedroom too), I decided on maple veneered MDF.

The MDF was bought for a total price of less than £200 for the lot.

I didn't use any plans for the build whatsoever.  I was, however, inspired by the console of Organorak who is a Hauptwerk user as well as a member of the website PCOrgan.  He sent me some details which were very handy primarily so that I knew how much MDF to buy.  His console can be seen here

http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=10878

As you'll see by the pictures, he has the pipe towers either side of the console.  Currently space doesn't allow that for me but there will be some eventually.

Above is my attempt at a music desk.  The edges are prepared to receive the ebony stringing I wanted to install to heighten the features in the wood grain.

Below is how it is put together although the biscuit placing was somewhat more accurate when it came to glueing up!

This picture below, shows the stringing being placed just to see what it will look like.  I was rather pleased.

As I didn't particularly make any proper measurements per se, it made for a somewhat interesting build.  If I'm being completely honest, perhaps the whole console is possibly 5% too large but hey, if you're going to build something to your own wishes you might as well overdo it a bit.  All I needed to know was how wide the pedalboard was, how wide each manual was, how high the lowest manual should be above the pedals.  The playing surface of the middle key should, according to the RCO specifications, be 29.5" to the playing surface of the pedal note D below it.  Plus, I needed to know the dimensions of the touchscreen monitors so I knew how big a hole I needed to leave.

After lots of playing with power tools in the garage I came up with this...

It's the music desk in the middle and the stop jambs either side.  I was rather pleased.

As time went on I became even braver and started playing with a router.  This enabled me to make a lot of progress as until then practically everything had been done with a cheap and cheerful table saw.  The picture below shows the top and bottom attached with tracks routered into them which enabled the stop jambs to fit into them... In the middle of our living room floor!

I'd placed three of the four manuals in there just to see how it'd look.  Plus, at the time the fourth manual was in dozens of bits awaiting me to veneer the key cheeks.

Speaking of veneering... 

It's dead easy.  I bought as much veneer as I needed online, ironed on a glue backing at the same time as glueing that to the surface to be veneered.  Very simple process.  It meant the four mismatched wooden manuals I'd managed to find would all look the same with enough work.

For those of you that don't know, because the organ is digital, you don't need to have proper stops like you see on old organs.  Instead you can use screens that you touch to draw the stops instead.  Good, eh?

I needed to fit the screens which proved to be very easy.  I removed them from their stands and made a very basic but sturdy frame for them to sit in.  Hopefully the following photo shows it better than I can explain it...

Where the screen would normally attach to a VESA bracket, instead I screwed that to the back wooden panel.  I really wanted the screens to have zero movement when pressed and this has definitely succeeded in stopping that from happening.  Yes, you can see daylight across the top.  That's 'cos the frame isn't installed as yet.

So, yet another picture of the top half of the console but this time with the screens installed and my ugly mug leaning on it to give an idea of scale.  I'm 6ft tall but leaning forward and resting on the instrument to prove that it won't collapse!

"AH-HA!"  I hear you cry.  "There's a toe piston rail there.  You never mentioned that!"

Yes, that's true.  The piston rail was built with a bit of hope and a prayer.  Considering I'm an atheist, it was best just to stick with the hope!  I knew that it had to span across the width of the pedalboard plus a little spacer down either side to make sure there was a bit of room for the electronic gubbins to have somewhere to languish.  I wanted the rail to be at a 45 degree angle as it was a very easy angle to work with and it felt comfortable when I was testing it from the organ bench.  As the pedalboard has a flat, level box at the back of it rather than the concave shape some people have had to work around, it was simple enough to make the whole rig just slide over the pedalboard.

How lucky am I to have so many toe pistons?!?!?!?!  I'd wanted a lot and had priced them up to buy new.  It would have cost me around £800 for the 21 I have so discounted that idea.  I've seen on many blogs and sites that lots of clever and imaginative folks have made very effective toe studs with all sorts of things including plumber's copper pipe and lids off jam jars.  I however, wanted mine to look like it was built with no expense spared yet in actual fact having been built on a budget of sorts.  Eventually, after a long wait and hunt on eBay, these pistons appeared, along with the little tags that go with them.  I won the auction and, in hindsight probably paid more than I should have done.  I think including shipping from the US as well as import duty, it came to £400 instead.

You can also see clearly the space I'd left for the three expression pedals I had knocking around.

Here's an arty shot of the pistons on the rail done by my beloved.  Lots of lovely bocha (if that's how you spell it).

Next up was building a table for the console to sit on.  Two sides both the same size, brace them together with a couple of 2x2s lots of brackets and screws and you're pretty much there to be honest.  Clearly the pictures are out of sync a bit now because of the magically disappearing toe studs.  This was just a dry fit to ensure it all did fit.  And it did!  Not only that but it was a lovely snug fit to boot!  

Now I knew that it was correct in width and height (remember I wanted the bottom keyboard to be a certain height over the pedals?  Well, this is where you do the sums to make sure it's the right height) I wanted to do a decorative bottom panel that would match the top.  This would add significantly more stability to the table too.  In the following picture you can see the panel in place but the stringing is still to be done.  Also I'd started to assemble the top too.  Have a gander..

You may notice that there's a bar across the underside of the table.  Well, that's one of the 2x2 braces but it also conveniently (serendipitously more like) hides the light that I fitted there to illuminate the pedals etc.

Something I've not discussed yet is the hinge situation.  There are loads of them.  I'm very aware that as this is home built, the likelihood of needing internal access to do tweaks or whatever is quite high.  With that in mind, the two stop jambs hinge forward allowing access to the back of the screens.  This is also where I've hidden the computer and lots of the electronics as there's quite a lot of room.  I'm also going to install a shelf or two on either side to take some of the speakers.  I'm making panels to cover the sides that will allow the sound to escape unimpeded.  Think of a radiator cover and the pretty patters that are cut out and you're not far wrong.  The music desk is also hinged upwards.  I'm not quite sure why to be honest but I guess it'll be advantageous if I need to get to the back of the manuals although they slide forward too if need be.  The other thing is that the whole instrument is 'knockdownable'.  By no means does that mean it's a portable organ but I know that there will be a time when it'll need to be removed from that room.  It comes apart in either three separate sections of top, base and pedalboard to say decorate the room and just move it enough to get behind it or it comes apart into six pieces but also needs to have the electronics and manuals removed.  That situation is really only in the eventuality of a house move though.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted a gap between the top of the piston rail and the bottom of the panel.  Don't worry, the top of the rail will be capped with a black lacquered piece of wood which will compliment the rest of the colour scheme.

So, the moment of truth as it is in its current state.  I'm very pleased with how it looks but there's still a long way to go and it's actually unplayable at present as it's not properly wired up.  You may also spot that the fourth manual is now in place but still not veneered.

Clearly you have to ignore the piles of crap that surround it!  

Did you see the difference in colour between the top three manuals and the rest of the console?  There is quite a marked difference.  What I've done there is begun the lacquering.  Thus far, none of the console has any finish on it (apart from the painted black shelves either side of the manuals).  The whole thing is going to be coated with five or six layers of lacquer each sanded between and then gradually polished down using finer and finer grits until I get down to probably 2000 grit wet and dry.  I'm hoping to go for a high gloss finish which will also include the black shelves.  This will, though, take a LOT of elbow grease.  It'll be worth it.  So, the key cheeks are a different tone purely because I was playing with the lacquer.  It looks really good.

You might just be able to see the carcass of the temporary expression pedal setup I had if you look to the right on the floor.  I've now attached all three to the rail.  Here it is.

I'm sure you've noticed how beautifully lit they are.  That's the light underneath the tabletop doing its thing.  I also particularly wanted you to see some rough edges that in time will be dealt with.  There is no frame around the recess, the pedals aren't boxed into their own enclosure, the crescendo pedal is too close to the bottom of the panel too.  That's totally fine.  Remember, it was all done without plans and instead was done by what feels right.  The bottom panel is in three pieces so the middle one just unscrews.  I'll take a couple of inches off the top of that section and it'll fit nicely.  I'm also going to get the pedals re-chromed and will replace the rubber.  I've no idea why the previous owner saw fit to stick holes in them but they had their reasons, I'm sure.

There's also something else that hasn't been mentioned.  Thumb pistons!  Yay!

I've made four new, matching rails.  They too have been spray painted black and will be lacquered to a gloss finish.  I just used off cuts to make them.  It's always worth keeping bits of wood that seem surplus to requirements.  Here, have a look at a small section of one of the rails...

A drill press or, in my case, my mother's mortising drill press with the square chisel removed, did the drilling of the holes with no problems.  The pistons are another set of eBay come-from-the-other-side-of-the-planet purchases.  I got 100 buttons, including postage from China to the UK for £20.  I'm planning on having 18-20 on each manual depending on the manual it is.

I've made a list of what I want each button to say and have found an engraver in a local jewellers who has the necessary machine to do the job very accurately and cheaply.  The little plastic ends pop off with a little persuasion so that's an easy job for me for once!  Pull 'em off, take 'em to the jeweller, pick 'em up and push 'em back on again.  If only the rest had been so easy!

What I did discover a few days ago was that now the console is unrecognisable from the first one and significantly bigger, lots of the wires aren't long enough.  VGA cables - too short, MIDI leads - too short, you get the picture.  So, longer cables bought all round.  I've now started to install those today.  I'm trying to keep the wiring relatively neat but I am still only 'mocking up'.  It'll all have to come apart down to the last screw anyway once I start lacquering...

No doubt there'll be more to follow in a year or so.

POTS Potential

Well, further developments - although only ickle ones.

Swell/crescendo pedals. That's what we're talking about now. Bet you're excited aren't you?

What is a swell pedal. It's dead easy, it's a volume pedal. Nowt more to it than that really. The crescendo pedal, however is a little more complicated. That adds more stops the more you push it forward. So if it's right back, it's very soft but if you push it all the way forward you get 'full organ'. It's basically a quick way of pulling out all of the stops. The pedals just look like sewing machine pedals. There are pictures further down on the original posting.

Now you know all about that I can explain what I'm on about. Because the pedals are part of a virtual instrument they also need to have midi connections. Sent off to Ron Coates to do the complex stuff, they arrived looking all lovely. That's where it all started to go downhill! I've been trying to configure them to the organ setup I've got and have managed to get nowhere. I do know that they're sending the signal but it isn't being recognised by the software. Oh well, keep trying. I'll check back in with you once it is done shall I?

If I don't get chance to say it before, 'Happy Christmas for 2010!'

The early joys

Hello, dear reader.

I suppose I'd best start at the beginning.

Many years ago I was a very rubbish church organist. However, I did have style so managed to make a modest living at it. It was lots of fun. I loved a good funeral but strangely, I hated weddings. My theory is that it's very unusual for the corpse to arrive late whereas a bride...

After moving across to Cumbria in 1999 I sort of stopped playing apart from very occasionally helping out in a church or two in Carlisle. Of course, as in most places, organists (or even pianists who can busk a bass accompaniment with the pedals) are pretty few and far between. After lots of thought I decided that it wasn't worth me playing classical organ any more as what folks expected in return outweighed both the pleasure and the remuneration... £10 offered for two hours on a Sunday morning with a twenty mile round trip? Not for me, ta! Especially as I'm a great big atheistic heathen to boot!

A few years go by and of course the enjoyment of organ music hasn't gone away - nor has the want to play. I accepted a post as an organist in a tiny little parish church. I only did it for a few weeks until sadly there was a huge personal family crisis that took me out of normal life for well over a year.

It was during and after the 'recovery' process that I started really getting into YouTube. Now this, to me, was fantastic. It was here that I looked at organ videos and eventually stumbled across Hauptwerk and MidiTzer. WOW!

As soon as I heard what the technology could do (in 2008 when I discovered it - yes, I'd been living under a stone 'til then) I wanted to start to use it. I mean, what could be better? Get the stuff together to build a basic virtual pipe organ at home? "Wuhoo!" as they say in the Houses of Parliament. I had a Yamaha keyboard that I use for concerts. That was a good start. Don't want to spend money until I'm sure, do I? So, I downloaded the free version of Hauptwerk and plugged my usb doo-dah in and off I went... or not. It's at this point I have to tell you that I'm TERRIBLE with technology.

Did I check the cable?
Yup.
Did I check the other end of the cable?
Yup.
Did I check that I had the right configuration on the Hauptwerk settings?
Yup.
Did I know what I was looking for when I did it?
Nope.

After lots of argy-bargy I flicked the MIDI button on the digital display of the keyboard, pressed a key and STILL nothing happened. "Aah", I thought. I drew a stop with my mouse and it worked! HURRAH!

Now, this setup was acceptable for about 24 seconds. I didn't want to be clicking the mouse pad on my laptop every time I wanted to change registration. However... Christmas was just around the corner and what with my birthday being only a fortnight before then I felt brave enough to ask 'Mother Dearest' if she knew what she wanted to get me as gifts 'cos if she didn't I wanted an Oxygen 61 thingy keyboard. So, I now had two keyboards and one of them now had the capability of changing pistons with one push of a button right above the keys. RESULT!

I was really enjoying this little setup. For a good few weeks but I was very aware of a couple of problems.

1. I was only using the crappy monitor speakers from our old PC.

2. The alligator double keyboard stand, although solid enough, wasn't the most appropriate thing as jumping from the great manual to the swell seemed like miles apart.

3. No pedalboard.

4. Because the setup wasn't quite right for me I was starting to get my old, old problems - bad back.

Back onto eBay I went...

First thing to address was the speakers. At the time I wasn't so flush so I didn't want to spend more than £100 or so. I found (brand new) some Roland Edirol MA-150 studio speakers. FANTASTIC pieces of kit for the money. Wired them up and instantly the whole thing sounded much better.

The keyboard stand I simply had to live with as for the short-term there wasn't a sensible solution as we'd just decided to put the house on the market. With that in mind, in our naivity we thought the house would sell by the end of 'Murder She Wrote' so we tidied up by moving the grand piano out of the living room (very small house/very big piano doesn't really work when you're getting house viewings) and the basic organ set-up had to be pretty easy to take apart and hide away to reclaim the spare bedroom it was living in.

After a few weeks I discovered http://www.classicorgans.co.uk/ . Wow, they have two manual setups from reclaimed organs. That means that at least part of the keyboard stand problem would be resolved. I gave them a nudge and started my longterm dealings with Ron Coates who runs the show. Fantastic and really helpful bloke whom I'd highly recommend. He sold me two keyboard stacks. No, not two keyboards - two keyboard stacks which means four manuals in total. I never do things by halves tha' knaa! I wanted to have as much practical input in building the organ so I bought the computer hardware from him and rapidly learnt how to solder.

So here I was with four keyboards that were being recycled from older instruments, which I wholly approve of. Why get new when you don't really have to - especially if you're going to be bastardising it regardless? After hours of wiring up the solder connections and working on the PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards, no less... notice I was becoming technical) I had four manuals that eventually were up and working.

Now, what do I do about a pedalboard? Oooh, look, there's one. Already midifyed too. No-one's bidding on it. How strange. I'll stick a bid in. Ooh, I've won it. BUGGER, where do I store it ? The house was still on the market and we were getting a trickle (and I mean a trickle) of viewings so a great big radiating concave 32 note pedalboard strewn about isn't a good look. The garage wasn't an option as by that time I had my boudoir grand piano in there (6ft 2") and a recent purchase of a 9 foot concert grand piano as well as several hundred books. Hmm, won't go in there then. "MOTHER!!! Are you home on Tuesday?" "Yes, why?" "Oh, that's good, you're getting a delivery for me. Will you keep hold of it until it's convenient for me to pick up please?" "Yeah, of course." So, the pedalboard stayed in her hallway (she couldn't move it anywhere else!) for two years!

Two years since putting the house on the market we still hadn't sold so I thought, "Sod it. I'm going to build that organ." I gathered together all of the bits that had gradually become stored out of the way and laid them out in front of me. I went to my mother's house 90 miles away to collect the pedalboard that would fit in neither of our cars... One of them was my Rolls Royce and it wouldn't even go in the boot in that!!! So out came the precision instrument... A hammer. I unscrewed all of the screws that could be unscrewed, removed the pedals and gave each corner a good knock. It all came apart with no damage at all. I brought it the 90 miles back home (yes, it's the same distance back) and brought it into the house to reassemble. It looked great. And still big.

We plugged the pedalboard into the laptop, put on Hauptwerk and played bottom 'C'. Nowt happened. I worked my way up the pedalboard until I got to the 'F' and then it started to go up the rest of te scale no problem... Apart from it being a major 4th out of sync. ie the 'F' on the pedalboard was showing and playing 'C' below. After lots and lots and lots of faffing about over the course of weeks I came to the conclusion that I'd found the reason why the bloke was selling it! It wasn't a problem with MidiTzer as I just independently transposed the pedalboard but I was unable to find a way to do that with the Hauptwerk. I gave Ron Coates a nudge and he sorted me out with a new PCB for it, out came the soldering iron again and 'et voila' I was off... Apart from I didn't have an organ bench...

I think at this point you realise that there's always something else I want.

EBay yet again. I discovered someone was selling a hideous old Livingston organ but without the bench. I let the auction run and saw that the organ sold for £1 (a quid!). Whoever bought it even for that was ripped off in my opinion. I used to play the exact same model every Sunday over in Hartlepool and by the time it was got rid off there was only one manual working and none of the 'F's on that manual, or the lowest octave were working. None of it repairable. ANYWAY.... I gave the guy who was selling the organ a nudge and asked if he had the bench. He had. I asked what he wanted for it. I offered him £20 and he not only sold it to me but gave me back a fiver 'cos he thought I was paying too much. Needless to say, I KNEW I was getting a bargain so shut my gob and drove back across the low-lying Cumbrian Fells the short distance home.

So now I had the manuals, the pedalboard, the bench, the programme and what else? Hmm, now what happened to those two touchscreens I bought off eBay when I first got into this? Oh, they're in the loft. Up I went. They had originally been part of some sort of fruit machine game that you needed a touch screen for. I wired them up. Both faulty. Oh well, £100 wasted. Never mind. Into the bin they went. Online, two brand new fantastic 19" widescreen touchscreens with plenty of change out of £350. ALWAYS do a bit of bartering. I did pretty well out of that deal as the asking price was £250 each.

Hmm, how do I get a console started? I really don't want to build one as we'd STILL not sold the house and I was very aware indeed that we'd still be dismantling the setup if we had a viewing (we'd reduced the asking price by 15% of the original price by this point). I did a bit of research online and read in a really obscure article that if you're lucky you can get the right size thing at Ikea. I'm an Ikea virgin and after my first time there with this purchase I'm thrilled to report my planned celibacy! I hated the joint. However, I DID get what I wanted. We got a large table top for about £35 after taking a smaller one, wandering around the warren to the checkouts and thinking that it was too small. And, what was great 5 individual adjustable table legs. I think in total it cost me something like £70 for the lot + fuel to get there of course. our nearest Ikea is 50 miles away. Got home, a leg at each corner and one in the middle of the back longside just to add a little extra support. I did that as the manuals are heavy. It fitted like a glove. The pedalboard fits very neatly under there and the manuals sit on top with enough room either side for the touchscreens to sit perfectly. It really did look designed for it.

The whole thing can be dismantled in its entirity and shoved in the garage (on top of the heavily, heavily padded and covered concert grand) in 30 minutes. Open the double bed-settee and do a bit of jiggling of the furniture and in 1 hour it's back to a very attractive spare bedroom rather than an organ room!

At present, though, the organ is very much an ugly duckling. It very much reminds me of a Victorian Skeleton Clock. It has all the same bits as the really higly decorative and attractive ones but is only showing the rough basic structure that's needed. For the time being that really is how it'll have to stay.

When (IF!!!) we sell and get a larger house, the ideal plan is for us to have the space for several reception rooms. Ideally we'd like a living room, dining room, music room and a library. I'm sure that with some juggling a library could easily be the music room as well as to be honest practically all of the books in the house are mine (have a bit of a thing for books - can't resist buying those either!) and around 25,000 individual pieces of music all of which need to be kept handy. If the music room and library were combined that, although ideal in theory would be a pretty tight fit... especially as I'm really, really, really hoping that I just might be able to bring my 7ft harpsichord home from work although I doubt that'll happen if I'm being realistic. So, with the tight-fit situation in mind I thought about integrating the organ into a library so having the console and shelves around it all as one huge piece of furniture. By doing that I can also have as much access space for the guts of the organ by just having a couple of cupboards underneath and beside the organ that will indeed look like they belong there especially if I build them into a continuous feature. You know, 7ft library shelves with low cupboards all the way around. Perfect. How the hell we'll get the two pianos, the organ, a library of about 28,000 pieces of music and books combined and potentially (but still very unlikely) harpsichord into one room I'll never know but hopefully that's where a dining room will come in... Maybe that can double up as a library instead! Ooh, didn't think of that!

The organ saga still isn't finished though...

All of the setup is now really marvellous but there is STILL something missing. Expression or swell pedals. I'm really missing them. Google search came up with a guy over the big blue pond. After buying something from him (I can't remember what but I'm sure it was hardware of some kind) I happened to mention swell shoes. He asked what type I wanted and I said ideally Allen. I was in luck. He had 6! None of them had the potentiometers on them so they were literally just the swell shoes but I got the lot for... wait for it... including postage from Canada... $75 at the time that was about £48. BARGAIN!. I got in touch with Ron Coates again who is right at this minute doing the PCBs for me so that I can get it all rigged up. Hopefully by early to mid December I'll have probably four shoes set up. I'll keep the other two for the organ at work!

I really want wooden keys rather than plastic ones. A quick shufty on eBay (again but I do have 100% rating) got me a two manual keyblock for £90. They're for future reference as I'm planning on building a second organ for my office at work. Probably just a pretty basic one that I can move about as it'll be very useful for concerts that we do there. I'll need another computer, pedalboard, speakers.....

I've kept a moderate eye on what I've spent. It really does mount up over time but you must bear in mind that it has been over the course of two years with £50 here, £90 there so you really don't notice you've spent it. I'd say that a realistic estimate is £2,000 I'm anticipating spending £500 on getting a really nice console sorted out, another £300 for the toe studs and the thumb pistons (although I've already got the PCBs, again, courtesy of Ron). £800 on a computer specifically for the organ, and another £300-£400 on further speakers.Yes, it's a LOT of money, especially as I've not even bought the software which is around £400. Each further instrument you purchase is a few hundred quid (or more).

I'm not turned on by plasma tellies, or brand new top-of-the range cars. I don't have any children, I earn a good wage with a decent disposable income so I feel that it's worth every single penny. When you look at the 'off-the-shelf' digital organs that will have the same features that mine'll have you'll be looking ar somewhere in excess of £20,000. OUCH!

What's the best bit of it all? That's easy. I get to learn to play the organ again without the joy of freezing cold fingers, feeling heavily leant on to play for services, I have the joy of being able to access the best organs in the world with the press of a button, I can play harpsichord, harmonium, romantic, baroque, Scandinavian or theatre organs at will and all from the comfort of home.