MIDI
     
 
Welcome To My Computer/Music Page

Photos of my "Virtual Pipe Organ" rig and Computer

This collection of midi equipment, computers and software is used primarily for my own enjoyment of theatre pipe organ music. Its audio output is a home stereo system with two 200 watt powered subwoofers for the pedals. The software used on the computer includes:

  • MidiTzer
  • Hauptwerk
  • SCPOP
  • My own home-grown "relay" program that plays soundfonts (like MidiTzer) as well as "hardware" sound modules like Roland SC-8850, Roland SC-88VL, and Roland D-110 with Theatre Organ samples.

 
The top keyboard is an inexpensive Radio Shack Concertmate-1000...But I really don't use the sounds, rhythms and audio built in to this unit...only the midi features. The lower keyboard is an Evolution MK-261 -- a good but inexpensive midi keyboard (about $150 US new -- if you can still find it!).

The 25-note Hammond pedalboard was found on Ebay ($50). I had to install magnetic reed switches on the rail at the front of the pedal assembly, and small magnets on the front of the pedals, wiring the reed switches, matrix-style (i.e., with isolation diodes) into a midi encoder circuit.

Note the Behringer FCB-1010 foot controller (about $130 US new) located just above the pedalboard. It has programmable toe buttons on the left and TWO expression/volume shoes on the right.

The computer (to the right of the desk) is a "Roll-Your-Own" Athlon XP 2700 with 1Gb of main memory, two 80 Gb hard drives and one 160 Gb hard drive.

Note the really nice bench. I found that on Ebay as well -- for only $40 US...and it included the pad (shown at the extreme left against the wall).

 
Here's a straight-on view that gives a better look at the keyboards and the X-Keys 58-key button pad that I use for stops and pistons. Note that I don't have any labels on the buttons yet...So I have to memorize them. I keep changing the button definitions, and I don't want to make labels until I am satisfied with the arrangement.
 
This shot has the bench removed so that the pedals show better. Also note the partial view of the computer monitor at the extreme right. On this computer I usually run MidiTzer, but right now it is displaying the control window of my own home-written "relay" -- a program like MitiTizer "on steroids" that provides the interface between the midi controllers (keyboards, pedalboard, button pads, expression pedals), the soundfonts/Sound Blaster card, and the external sound modules (Roland SC-8850, Roland D-110, and Roland SC-88VL). What you see in green are the stop buttons. The red buttons at the bottom of the screen are presets (pistons), and the black buttons are couplers, trem on/off, and reverb on/off controls.

Before you ask, I am not distributing this program to others -- not because I don't want to -- but because I don't have the time now. In addition, my relay would not be as easy to install as Jim Henry's MidiTzer, mainly because it is not a typical Microsoft Windows application (and its control panel is nowhere near as attractive as MidiTzer's graphical Theatre Organ "console").

It is written in Perl (ActiveState distribution), and uses MIDI-OX as its midi engine. Its window management tool is Perl-Tk (an open source, freeware, package). Even if the two preceeding sentences seem like a lot of mumbo-jumbo to you, you may see why it would be difficult for me to try to distribute this program publicly.