It's on the road!

If you look back at the posts on this blog, you will see an entry dated March 2007 where I talk about a blue Sylva Riot with the engine from a rolled Ford Focus.
Well 8 years and 3 months later, the car is on the road - my longest build by a long shot.

 The car is very dirty in this shot. The heavens opened just before my first drive.

Thanks Jeremy for your patience! I got there in the end.
Here's the inevitable list of to dos.

• Steering wheel not straight
• Various rattles
• Alternative catch arrangement for engine cover so I don't burn myself when opening
• Heat shield between exhaust manifold and engine cover to stop number plate melting
• Water channel above ECU to stop it getting wet when engine cover is opened
• Re-paint lower rear wishbones where powder coating has failed
• Fit screen
• Fit anti-intrusion side bars
• Fit radiator grill

A kit car is never finished!

Here it is! Opus 5 (or is it 6!). I'm very pleased how the console turned out. The whole thing can be assembled and broken-down in a matter of minutes. The monitor is mounted on a VESA arm.
The pedalboard caused some consternation! The Midi Gadgets mpc32xrs controller failed causing nasty cyphers. Luckily I have a spare.
The first outing for Opus 5 will be Tyntesfield Chapel this Sunday. There is no organ in the chapel. We are having to install our instrument in a corridor! There will be many pictures.
Future enhancements will include a 17" monitor and new bumper felts for the pedalboard.

Back to a favourite topic, audio. I've been experimenting loading wet sample sets in different ways.
My favourite sample sets are Haverhill OIC Extended and Willis 50 from Lavender Audio. Both sets are not very wet, merely moist! I feel that attempting to reproduce stereo in a reverbrant space is futile; it works very well in your living room but not in a church. Another aspect about stereo that disturbs me is the utilisation of speakers. One of the really cool features in Hauptewerk is pipe to speaker routing, you can configure the algorithm that makes best use of your speakers.
If your channel format is stereo, you need a stereo audio output group. So every pipe will be routed to a stereo pair.

For a normal size church, we use 4 powered speakers and a sub. 4 speakers would yield 2 stereo outputs. Using cycled routing with this configuration is silly. Better to manually route divisions and ranks. However loading the sample set in mono yields a few desirable side effects, it halves memory use and permits more effective cycled routing. 4 speakers now yield 4 outputs. Cycled routing now makes sense.

In conclusion, we now load moist sample sets in mono and truncate releases. This gives must better results in reverberant spaces.

Portable organ table is coming on well. Very pleased with the hidden screw-less connectors.

I have designed it to be as compact as possible whilst maintaining RCO dimensions.

Will fit some rubber feet.

Need to fit the swell pedal. The keyboard stack is slightly offset to the left. Middle Ds are aligned on manuals and pedalboard.

Will look quite smart once varnished.

The Geo Osmond pedalboard an bench look good.

Below are some early pictures of our new ultra-portable console.
The current console works well, but is a challenge to set-up and break-down.
The requirements for this console are to make it as small as possible and to be able to set it up in less than 5 mins.
The pedalboard used is 30 note CR by Geo Osmond. It is very compact.
Romsey OrganWorks will custom-build consoles of this design to match the dimensions of your pedalboard. Prices will start from £400 for unvarnished birch ply.



Feet will extend toward the player to ensure that it is rock-solid.

The top of the console will extend toward the player and will fully support the keyboard stack.

The support rail has been carefully positioned beneath the centre of gravity of the keyboard stack.

Romsey OrganWorks is up and running!
We specialise in organ rental and the fabrication of virtual pipe organ products.

We have two instruments available for hire, a single manual continuo and a 3 manual with pedals. We have a variety of sample sets to suite any need. Romsey OrganWorks uses Hauptwerk installation licenses and fully licensed sample sets.

We specialise in the fabrication of key-cheeks for M-Audio Keystation 61es, Yamaha YPT-210 and Fatar TP-60 keyboards.

M-Audio based 2 maunal statck with oak cheeks.

Single manual YPT-210 keyboard.
Visit our web stite for more information.
http://www.organworks.co.uk/

Below is a continuo organ based on a Yamaha YPT-210. Details of the chassis modification was shown in my previous post.

 Here's the finished product. Will be on ebay soon.

During our stay in Bristol, we went to Musicroom where they had a Yamaha YPT 210 for £89. Now, if you have read this blog you will know that I'm a fan of M-Audio Keystation 61es keyboards. At that price I just had to buy the Yamaha keyboard and give the competition a go. I must admit the Yamaha has a much better feel. However that's only part of the story. One of the benefits of the M-Audio product is its convenience; the keyboard was almost made to be used in a virtual organ. This can not be said for the Yamaha! As can be seen below I had to completely dismantle the keyboard and spend at least an hour cutting and filing the plastic chassis. Not sure if I prefer cutting the M-Audio keys or modifying the Yamaha chassis!

I decided to remove the keys, and contact boards so I had unhindered access to the chassis. I then removed the plastic key cheeks and the key slip with a hacksaw. I used a file to finish things off. 

Below is the modified keybed with mockup cheeks. Unfortunately the height of the keys is 68mm above the base. This will make it tricky to achieve an AGO spacing in a 2 or 3 manual block.

Another Yamaha downside is the circuit board layout. The M-Audio boards are very compact. I can't see an easy way of eliminating any of the 3 boards.

This keyboard will be used in a single manual chamber organ. I'll use an X-Keys Stick for stops and the Prib sample set. Should be a very nice little organ.

Needs to be finished by 24th September for a concert at Romsey Abbey. Better get a move on!