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!

So the pedalboard now works....well sort of! I have now broken 2 reed switches. It is probably just me being clumsy but I think a more robust solution is called for especially as I plan to use the pedalboard as part of my organ rental business (more about that later).

Instead of reed switches I'm going to use reed sensors. What's the diference? Not much really. A reed switch is just the fragile glass capsule. A reed sensor is a reed switch mounted in a housing. They are used for burglar alarms, limit and level sensors etc. The ones I'm planning to use have the switch epoxied into a plastic case. All of those wooden blocks I carefully crafted all for nothing!

I'm just about to order 3 pistonless CMK3 keyboards from Classic Organ Works. I was tempted to buy Fatar TP/60L keyboards from one of the UK suppliers but the price of the CMK3, which includes MIDI controller, was just too competitive. The only downside is that I'll have to pay and wait for delivery from Canada.

I'm going to use either Klann or Syndyne pistons and arrange them in a more traditional layout than the Classic keyboards. Cool thing is the Classic MIDI controller is the same for all of their keyboards, with or without pistons. This means that I don't need another controller for the pistons. I will, however have to diaode matrix wire the switches. Luckily 1N4148 diodes are 1p each from Farnell!

I have had a 30 key pedalboard awaiting midification in my workshop for a while. In order to get things moving, I ordered reed switches and loom csr32p from Midiboutique. As with all of their products, it is beautifully executed. However there are a couple of unanswered engineering concerns,  how to mount the reed switches and how to mount the magnets, adjustability is key.

There are many ways to activate the reed switch. I chose to move the magnet at 90 degrees to the switch. This minimises the possibility of cross-talk between adjacent magnets and switches.

I decided to replace the supplied magnets with magnets mounted in a plastic casing. These were attached to the lower face of the pedal with some 10mm x 10mm aluminium angle.

In order to mount the switches, I cut some 20mm x 10mm hardwood strip into 25mm lengths. 2 holes were drilled, one into which the reed switch is inserted, and the other to attach the mount to the pedalboard. 

Once I have the reed switch in a suitable position, I'll secure it in the block using silicon. Any future adjustment will be made by slotting the mounting hole.

Picture above shows the magnet in the off position.

As above but in the on position.

The magnet lines up with the switch.

30 reed switch mounts. 

One down, 29 to do!

As can be seen from the above picture, the pedalboard has been midified. I used an mpc32xrs MIDI controller and a csr32 reed switch loom from Midi Gadgets Boutique, their products and service come highly recommended. Over the weekend one of pedals began to stick, probably a weather thing. Fixing the problem was easy but in the process I broke one of the reed switches. Jordan from MGB offered to send an FOC replacement but suggested it would be quicker to obtain a replacement in the UK, MGB are based in Bulgaria. Farnell shipped a replacement next day.

If you look carefully at the picture above, you may notice that the reed switches are held into their wooden blocks with Blu Tack, it just stops them from falling out. This temporary solution has worked quite well! I will of course use a more suitable location method now I'm sure of the switch position.  Next job is to enclose the fragile wiring in a wooden case.

I've just ordered 30 Miyama DS-412 switches. I have also modified the great keybed and piston rail to accept appropriately positioned pistons.

The X-Keys stick has performed well, but is ultimately unsuitable for the task; it is too deep and the buttons are too sensitive.

 

I'm getting quite good at modifying the keys! 

I posted this information on the Hauptwerk forum, but wanted to put all of the organ info in one place.


I have connected a Yamaha FC-7 expression pedal to the swell keyboard MIDI controller volume connector. I did not want to cut the FC-7 cable so I bought a 6.35mm Stereo Long Reach Chassis Socket from Maplin http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223988 .
I connected the socket as follows.


Socket : Keystation volume control wires
Tip ----> red crosses
Ring ----> white
Sleeve ----> red dashes


I was very surprised that it worked first time!

I needed to make a stand for my keyboards in order to accomodate a 30 key pedalboard. I have read on the Hauptwerk forum of members using a computer table from Ikea named Galant. I went to the Southampton Ikea and found out that one can purchase just the steel frame and adjustable legs for £40. This is what I bought. However when I got it back to my workshop it looked massive. I needed to achieve 125 cm clearance between the legs so I removed 14cm from the frame and MIG welded it back together.

Here is the finished fame complete with a quick coat of Hammerite.

First mockup in the workshop. The keystack has a prototype music stand in the picture below.  The most important thing about this modification is the resultant stand fits in the back of a Ford Focus.  The top is  50cm composite pine board from B&Q. 

The finished item. Quite pleased with the result. Just need the pedalboard.

Pistons!

X-Keys Stick works brilliantly but... It was a real pain to fit and I'm still not completely happy with its position. Also the buttons are too close together and the feel is so light that it is easy to press a piston by accident! Better for gaming than a virtual organ!

So the plan is to use momentary push switches from Miyama Miyama DS-412. These seem to be the correct dimensions and can be obtained very cheaply. In the UK you can get them from Mouser Electronics.

I plan to use an mpc32xrs MIDI controller from MIDI Boutique to scan the switches and send note-on / note-off messages to Hauptwerk.

I plan to use the following layout, 10 generals, 6 divisionals, pedal coupler and clear and set on the great. Thats 25 switches.

Swell       1 2 3 4 5     SW/PED   123456
Great   S   6 7 8 9 10    GR/PED   123456   C

It had to be done, I bought another keyboard. I now have a 2 manual stack that conforms to the AGO 2.5" and 4.25" keyboard spacing. Below is the new case for the great keyboard. I wanted both keyboard cheeks to be the same height. So I made them both 2.5" in order to get the correct vertical spacing. Unfortunately this meant that the ply boards that support the keybeds are no longer flush with the bottom of the cheeks.  If I did it again, I'd make the keybed supports from 10mm ply.

Another thing I'd do differently, the X-Keys. Not that they don't work well, as the do. It's just their dimensions make it quite difficult to incorporate without encroaching on the lower keyboard. Discrete piston switches are the way to go.
I have also invested in a 15" touch screen monitor.

Next jobs, finish the wiring, a coat of varnish and get a pedal board.

Over the weekend I installed the X-Keys Stick and made a very rudimentary music stand. As Im using a Mac, I had to download ControllerMate to program the X-Keys Stick. This software is superb.  It allows real-time graphical configuration. I now have 10 pistons configured using the Haverhill Mini sample set. I'm very pleased with the result.

The picture below attempts to show the overhang of the swell keyboard and the relative position of the X-Keys Stick. This was the reason for removing the waterfall front of the keys. With the fronts in place, the key front to key front dimension would have to be at least 5.5" (4.25" being AGO standard) and the Stick would protrude too much. It was a tedious task, but I think it was worth it.

Next the expression pedal.

Not cars this time, but virtual organs!

Ok, stop sniggering!

I've recently been playing a virtual organ called Hauptwerk. The remarkable thing about this piece of software is that it attempts to reproduce the actual sound of an organ by recording every pipe on every stop, a massive task. The sounding of each pipe is triggered by MIDI. The problem for me is to get suitable keyboards to trigger Hauptwerk. There are commercial products on the market but they are costly. So I decided to investigate less expensive options.

I initially used my trusty Yamaha NP30 piano, a MOTU MIDI interface and an Apple Mac Book with the free version of Hauptwerk. I was hooked. The reality of the sound is amazing.

Next job was to add a second manual / keyboard. I tried to get hold of some Fatar keybeds. However these proved to be very difficult to obtain. My second choice was an M-Audio Keystation 61es MIDI controller. These are readily available and inexpensive. There are a couple of problems going down this route. The first is that the keybed has "waterfall" piano style keys. This makes it very difficult to arrange the keyboards with appropriate spacing and allow for pistons. The second is the plastic case. This is ugly and has to go. I decided to with AGO (American Guild of Organists) spec as this is freely available on the internet.

So my plan was to add a Keystation 61es to the Yamaha NP30 and use an X-Keys Stick for pistons. A Yamaha FC7 pedal will be used for the swell. The FC7 can be connected directly to the M-Audio MIDI controller in place of the volume slider. I'm going for function rather than tradition.

Removal of the keybed from the plastic case is easy and has been well detailed on the Hauptwerk forum. However when I attempted to place the keybed on top of the NP30, it was obvious that the swell keybed would have to overhang the great in order to get close to an appropriate spacing. This was not going to happen with the waterfall fronts of the keybed. So out came the hacksaw!

Removal of the key front allows the top keyboard to overhang the lower whilst allowing space for the pistons. The X-Keys stick is 18mm thick. I did not want the piston buttons to protrude past the front of the upper keybed. 

Removing the keys was the worst part. A screwdriver needs to be inserted as shown above to disengage a small plastic clip. 

Job done! The upper keybed can now overhang the lower. There is plenty of room for the X-Keys stick. The front to front dimension is about spot on. However the vertical spacing is about 10mm too great. Not much I can do about that.

I knocked up a case with basic wood from B and Q (Home Depot). Not a Vidarf but I did it in one day with no tools other than a jig saw! The piston rail is an 1" x 1" aluminium angle. If you look carefully, you'll see the upper keybed overhangs the lower by nearly 1". 

The X-Keys will arrive next week.

Next job, the music stand.