The Organ Forum

I called the Syndyne company and told them that I wanted midi on my 1970's electronic analog organ.

 They said the LS6,400 MIDI piece would do that (see bottom of page on link below).

http://www.syndyne.com/products/products.htm

That sells for $270.00 (you need to contact them directly to get the prices).

 

Anybody know of any less expensive options? (maybe in the 100 dollar range?) I am aware that most MIDI organ technology is more expensive than this.

 

 

 

That's a very nice and complete system, certainly worth the money. However, you need one of these for each manual or pedal division, so it will take 3 of them to do your organ completely. That's a lot of money.

There are cheaper options, though when you go cheap you may wind up having to do a lot of extra work to get it going, and you may find a lot of functions missing or hard to implement, such as expression, transposition, easy voice selection, etc.

But if you want to explore some less expensive options, there are some European MIDI suppliers that have very bare-bones MIDI-out adapters. One that I have personally done business with is Roman Sowa of Poland. I've used a couple of his very cheap adapters, and they did the job. Just no frills. Here's his website:

http://www.midi-hardware.com/products.html

John

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Rodgers 890 at church.
Baldwin D422 at home.
Scads of old organs in the shop! H E L P !!!

You can midify your whole organ (assuming it's a II/P) using Midibox for around $120.

 One Manual would cost about $60

 One Manual and pedal would cost you about $75

 -Trevor

Hello

Thank you both for those websites!
 

For the MidiBox, could you please link me to the specific piece(s) you were referring to?

 

Thank you!  

Realize that you would probably lose the ability to use the sound generation that the organ contains and have to generate all sounds from the attached MIDI devices.  These modules will not work for organs where keys actually gate the audio signals.  They are designed for keying systems that send DC signals to pipe organ magnets, etc... Essentially you woould gut the organ and connect the key contacts to these modules.

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Fred

Really?

 

No, I want to keep the sound generation already installed in the organ.

I am not planning to do anything more complicated than connect the organ to my laptop.

would I still need to "gut" it just to be able to run a MIDI- USB cable from the instrument to my computer???

Fred,

That's good information to know.  I was considering the possibility of adding MIDI capability to my old Gulbransen in the future.  The tibia generators in the organ are not constantly running; they are DC keyed (unlike the main gens which are always running and diode-shunted to ground unless keyed).   So I imagine to keep the internal sound system I would have to somehow split off the existing DC keying voltage lines (provided I get the voltage low enough).  Is this correct?  I didn't know the MIDI boards will not work with the gated keying.

- Jim

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Jimmy Williams
Gulbransen Model D, Leslie 204, hobby organist/technician

Before any mods, one must investigate just how keying is done... This is an electrical engineering matter to make sure that if the organ gates audio from the generators via DC voltages from the keys, that whatever is connected has the right interface voltage levels and does not load down the circuits in the basic organ.  It looks like the device in question was designed for a pipe organ where there is plenty of drive to magnets... but where logic levels, or worse, audio switching is done, all bets are off until the compatibility is checked.  First place to start is with schematics of the organ.

Many of the digital organs use a matrix scanning of the keys... those also would not work with the device that was suggested...

Here is one other caveat:  Many of the MIDI sound generators like piano modules for instance use "velocity" sent from the keyboard.  The keyboards that do this have two switches per key and measure the delay between the closures to measure velocity... These devices do not really support velocity... So please be aware of that limitation.

 In the past there were MIDI convertors that placed a set of switches under the keyboard independent of the electronics in the organ.  Those work IF you have the room for the switches.

 

 

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Fred

fredy2:

 In the past there were MIDI convertors that placed a set of switches under the keyboard independent of the electronics in the organ.  Those work IF you have the room for the switches.

 

I am also interested in doing a MIDI conversion on my organ, but the old sound generation system still works and still sounds good.  I would rather be able to switch between MIDI and analog.  I have heard about MIDI converters that can be used to convert pianos, or placed under the keyboard.  Do you have a link to any site that still sells them?

 
 

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Thank you

Jon Benignus
Houston, TX

Owner of a Wurlitzer Series 20 Organ
built circa 1945

I don't have a link but you should be able to find one with google...

Search for

 "MIDI convertor"  keyboard

as a start...

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Fred

Look at Midiboutique.com  and midiworks.ca.  Midiboutique can help you out by doing a custom tweak for unique keying voltage requirements, etc., I think at no additional charge.  Since they're in Bulgaria, email is the best method to contact them.  And I'm reasonably sure they can provide a high impedance interface to that you can piggyback them on existing keying systems.  Many Hauptwerk users use these products, and no one has reported any issues at all, either up front on delivery, or post install. I plan to use their SAM driver boards for my own virtual organ.

The encoders from midiworks.ca are absolutely first rate (I use the encoders in my Hauptwerk instrument --  pedalboard, manuals, pistons, and stop tabs).  They are flexible, reliable, user configurable, and can handle just about anything.

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Grant
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Hauptwerk on a Rodgers 750BE shell.

here's a page for some information on midifying analog organs

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php/topic,10105.0.html 

Check out www.midi9.com.   For pianos & organs.   Group of Gulbranson engineers.   Mount under keyboard with velocity sensing.

 

Al,

Funny you mention MIDI9.  I wrote to them the other day as their site only had the piano product listed.  They wrote back saying they have a dual 61-note sensor strip/control unit available - price for the whole shebang is not "cheap" however - about 2 grand.  But I guess the only other alternative is to use the cheaper boards and wire them up yourself to the existing organ electronics.  I asked if there is a pedal unit and they said that it is not available yet but they will have one available soon.  The only manual I found online was for the piano unit; I wrote and asked if they had any installation guides/literature for the organ unit.  Since this mounts under the keyboard, I don't even know if it will work with my organ since it has a pratt-read keyboard with hollow keychannels; I mentioned this too -we'll see.  I'll post back when I get more info.

-jim

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Jimmy Williams
Gulbransen Model D, Leslie 204, hobby organist/technician

Your post sounds exactly like my experience with MIDI9. Please keep us informed, as I never did get any further with them than you are so far. That was a year ago.