4M Modular

Our latest installation is a 4 manual modular console – now known as “The Charterhouse”. The customer, a former employee of Salisbury Cathedral, wanted a replica console to use with the Milan Salisbury sample set. We retained an existing Osmond 30 note pedalboard and bench. 2 x 22″ Iiyama touchscreen monitors were used to accurately replicate the organs stop jambs. A Mac Mini was internally mounted reducing the external wiring to just a power and firewire cable. The audio interface is an Echo Audiofire 12 which is connected to 6 x Mackie HR824 powered studio monitors and a KRK sub.

There were some teething troubles with the Mac (2Ghz quad core i7 Mac Mini Server with Intel HD3000 graphics not supporting 2 rotated monitors). After replacing the Mac with a later 2.6Ghz machine with HD4000 graphics, all is well. Again we used Touch-Base drivers for the touchscreens.

This minimalist console looks fantastic in the newly decorated music room. A very satisfactory installation.

We have just delivered a 2 manual key stack that has turned out particularly nicely. Specification below. The customer already had a MIDI pedal board, expression pedal and Viscount and Content expanders, sadly no Hauptwerk (yet). Total ex works cost was approx. £1880 + VAT.

• • • 2 Fatar TP/60 keyboards
    • 6 divisional pistons per manual
    • 10 generals
    • 3 reversibles and combination setter and general cancel
    • Removable oak music desk
    • MIDI in and out supporting MIDI merge
    • 2 continuous controllers for expression pedals
    • USB (can be bus powered if required)
    • Toe piston connectors (up to 28)
    • Renatus serial pedalboard connector

When designing an organ, one of the variables needing consideration is piston layout. Annoyingly, there is no definitive specification.

Clive Sidney has come to the rescue by providing a suggested British piston layout . Click on the link below.

brit_console_piston_layout

Bear in mind that  we use a piston spacing of 28.5mm instead of the suggested 32mm which yields a greater piston density, particularly useful when using touchscreens. This gives 29 piston positions across the keyslip, combination setter at position 0, the first divisional at position 12 and general cancel at 29.

Romsey OrganWorks can create any piston layout including user defined nomenclature.

Update, Touch-Base have updated their drivers and documentation to better support Hauptwerk. For more information, click the link below.

Touch-Base Hauptwerk Support Documentation

Without question, a Mac is the superior choice when it comes to a computing platform on which to base a Hauptwerk organ. However unlike Windows 7 and 8, OS X has no touchscreen support, a Steve Jobs legacy, iOS devices have touchscreens, OS X devices don’t.

When 2 touchscreens are connected to a Mac, it “sees” 2 displays and 2 USB HID controllers it has no idea that these 4 devices are actually 2 physical touchscreens.

A custom driver is required to map the USB HID controllers to display areas and calibrate the touch coordinates with monitor.

Touch-Base are market leaders in this area. Their drivers are commercial, but the expense is well worth it.

The first thing to do is to work out what USB HID controllers are installed in your touch monitors. To do this, connect the touchscreen USB connections to your Mac. Then click on the Apple logo in the top left of the screen and select About This Mac, More Info…, System Report… Then click on USB in the Hardware section. Navigate the USB tree until you find the HID controller(s). Make a note of the Manufacturer and product ID (PID). 

Then go to the Touch-base download page. Add your contact information and find the controller. You may find that there are multiple drivers for a given manufacturer. In that case, select one and you’ll see the PID for the selected driver. Compare it to the PID in the system report. Below is the driver that matches the system report above, 3023.

Then click Request Download. You’ll be emailed a link to the driver.

If you have difficulty locating your driver, Touch-Base will help identify the touch screen if you email support@touch-base.com the USB vendor and product id.

Please note, that the driver from the download site is a trial driver with functional restrictions (100 touches) and supplied to test out the hardware.

Install the driver. Then run UPDD Console.

The primary job of UPDD Console is to associate the HID controllers with their respective displays. The mapping between display and HID controller is static. See the Driver/Device settings – the UPDD Console in http://touch-base.com/documentation/MacOSXPlatformNotesV5.htm Note, changing configuration requires a re-boot.

To complicate matters, display configuration is dynamic, OS X will automatically configure the displays. This default configuration can be changed in System Preferences, Displays.

Whenever monitor configuration is changed, the mapping must be reestablished with associated HID controllers. So once a working configuration has been achieved, monitor and USB configuration should not be be changed.

Once configuration is complete and the Mac has been re-booted, run UPDD-Calibration. This is a simple affair,  just follow the on-screen instructions.

Below is suggested installation sequence.

1. Check USB Configuration in USB tree (Manufacturer and PID)
2. Download driver and install
3. Configure Monitors in System Preferences, Displays
4. Run UPDD Console and associate each HID controller with each display
5. Re-boot
6. Run UPDD Calibration
7. If all functions as expected, purchase the driver
8. Play!

Announcing our Charterhouse Console for organists that require a minimalist piece of furniture.

4 Charterhouse Modular

The curved legs support 2 to 4 Fatar or UHT manuals. Curved toe sweeps incorporate toe pistons and up to three expression pedals. Cables are neatly concealed in the legs.

Touch screen mounts are supplied with adjustable VESA mounting plates.

An internal power supply feeds the manuals, pedalboard and pedalboard light and also switches the power to the monitors. Alternatively, the console can be USB bus-powered.

The music desk can either be of oak or toughened glass.

A bench with legs that match the curved legs of the console is also available.

Please contact us for more information.

Charterhouse Console

The organ below was originally built by Wyvern with Bradford internals. We were approached by the owner to make it Hauptwerk compatible. We investigated retro fitting MIDI to the existing electronics. However this strategy was rejected due to the limitations of the Bradford hardware.  The instrument was completely stripped down and rebuilt at the Renatus factory. The only components retained were, the casework, pedalboard, expression pedals, drawstops and their associated power supplies and pistons. 4 Fatar TP/60s were installed with new key slips, key blocks and Renatus MIDI encoders that also control the stops, expressions, pedalboard and LCD display. The instrument was completely rewired.

As the instrument was to be used with the Hereford Cathedral sample set from Lavender Audio, some of the stop heads needed to be re-engraved and the piston layout was also altered.

The console also drives 4 real ranks of pipes. The owner wanted these ranks to supplement the digital Hereford ranks rather than replace them. This required a custom organ definition that included the new stops so their state could be maintained by the Hauptwerk combination action, and MIDI output to be directed to decoders controlling the pallet solenoids.

Hauptwerk and the Hereford sample set was loaded onto an Apple Mac Mini with a quad core i7 processor, 256Gb SSD and 16Gb ram. An Echo Audiofire 12 drove 4 Behringer amps which in turn powered 2 pairs of Def Tech tower speakers and sub and 2 pairs of Jamo speakers.

The organ will be inaugurated at a concert on Saturday 7th September 2013. Details below

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We are proud to announce that we will be sponsoring the Diocese of Salisbury Music in Worship seminar.

We will, in conjunction with Robert Fielding and Rentaus, be showcasing the latest Hauptwerk technology including our latest console design.

Corpus Christi Boscombe.

I was very sad to find out that the organ at Corpus Christi had been pronounced beyond repair. The Mary Organ was not up to the needs of a big wedding, so we were asked to provide a suitable instrument. Once we had got the pedalboard up the narrow spiral staircase, the installation went smoothly. The Hereford Cathedral sample set sounded wonderful.

Rental organ at Corpus Christi

St Katherines Southbourne, Bournemouth

A blown blower motor has put the organ at St Katherine’s out of action. We are providing a long-term rental whilst the instrument is repaired. Colin Davey gave the organ a good workout with a fine performance of the Whitlock Fanfare.

Rental Organ at St Katherine’s Southbourne

Rental Organ at St Katherine’s Southbourne

To keep up with the renal demand, we will be add in a 2 manual instrument to our rental fleet.

We have just completed the MIDI-fication of a very nice Compton pedalboard. We have used a Midi Gadgets Boutique mpc32xrs MIDI encoder and our own sensor system.

It is probably the heaviest pedalboard I have every worked on!

Compton Pedalboard

Just before Christmas I visited the Wyvern showroom to setup one of their new Sonata organs with Hauptwerk.

Wyvern supply 2 organ ranges. Their standard spec organs are built by Content in Holland  and their custom organs are built by Renatus here in the UK using the Phoenix WPx system.

The Wyvern Sonata is a Content-built organ. A couple of things of note. These new instruments have a new tone generation system with per-note samples and excellent voicing capabilities. They also have a Hauptwerk mode, the reason for the visit.

Wyvern Sonata and Hauptwerk

Once the secret menu option to enable Hauptwerk mode was located, the integration task was probably the simplest I have ever encountered. It just worked! I was very impressed.

Watch this space. There will be more exciting developments in this space soon!