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Pipe
Organs, MIDI, and Electronic Music
Gordon
Minns has a life-long interest in music and musical
instruments. He built his first pipe organ in 1970. He has
used his electronic knowledge to great advantage to create a
number of enhancements to pipe organs, including one of the
first electronic combination actions (automatic stop
selection). He has designed MIDI (musical instrument
digital interface) equipment and software to simplify pipe
organ wiring and permit both real-time recording and
playback of pipe organ performances. These can be easily
installed on conventional pipe organs.
To reduce the
labor of organ tuning, that normally requires two people
(one to press keys, and the other to climb amongst the
pipes) he is currently developing a remote control device
that can be used with both conventional (non-MIDI) and MIDI
pipe organs to sound individual pipes to simplify the tuning
process.
Cool Mechanical Instrument and Pipe
Organ Sound Files
http://mmd.foxtail.com/Sounds/
Site with interesting sound files
Mechanical Fair Organ (MP3,
65K) Short and Fun...Click to play
Pachelbel, Toccata
in E (MP3, 2 megabytes)
Click to play
3
manual & pedal 53 rank tracker, 1849 Hall & Labagh
Photo courtesey of www.organclearinghouse.com
New
Pipe Organ Projects
Gordon
recently acquired a 4-rank pipe organ that will be used to
design an experimental "hybrid" organ that
combines electronically-generated sounds with natural pipe
sounds, using MIDI and audio sampling technology. The intent
of this project is to enhance the tonality of small
pipe organs, by adding additional virtual ranks of pipes
with authentic pipe sounds. This could be a low-cost
solution for upgrade of smaller organs.
 View of
pipe and wind
chests
Console has lots of wiring and stop control relays!
A Bit Of Pipe
Organ History
Before
electrical activation of pipes was a possibility (prior to
the late 1800's), there was a direct mechanical link between
the keys and the air valves under the pipes. This
necessitated locating the pipes above the console, which is
why these organs are so tall. Inside the casework, is a
complex maze of wires, linkages, and sliding valves (stops)
to control the pipes. These so-called 'Tracker' organs are
still being built, because of their charm and special
performance qualities, afforded by the direct linkage to the
valves.
When
electricity became available, an
"electro-pneumatic" system was devised that
allowed remote location of the wind chest (that holds the
pipes). It uses a small electromagnet to control air flow to
individual pipes, with switches on the keys to activate
them. A typical large organ has an enormous amount of wiring
and (by today's standards) bizarre mechanical relays to
control everything.
A further
enhancement was added when the Wicks Organ Company invented
the "direct electric action" to replace the
relatively complicated, and hard to maintain leather
pouch-valve method of the electro-pneumatic system. This
system uses a powerful electromagnet to directly control a
felt air valve beneath each pipe.
About twenty
years ago, with the advent of low-cost microprocessors, the
MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) was
devised to control electronic synthesizers. The MIDI system
has found its way into the pipe organ world, and has not
only simplified the wiring, but also eliminates the
mechanically-complex "combination action" needed
in conventional organs for stop selection. MIDI permits
performance recording/playback.
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