It’s more of electronic organ than pipe organ… but in my ignorance, between the sound clips I wouldn’t know the difference.
OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#12"Look mum no computer" on Youtube is wrapping up a series[0] where he bought an old church organ and rebuilt it. He cleaned it up and rewired it to interface via midi as well as the console. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PwwRR8deHk&list=PLluPQLh1xz...
Old chruch organs can often be had for 'free'. Many churches arw throwing them away. Free is in quotes because often you can't remove it yourself and so it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to remove it. If you can remove it yourself you will discover professional movers are not getting rich charging that much labor to remove them.
The biggest problem is they are designed for large rooms, so much as i'd love one I have to admit I don't have room (and I can't afford an addition big enough)
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a simulator. Download here.[1] Runs on a Raspberry Pi. Playable from a MIDI keyboard, or keyboards. Additional button boxes and controls can be hooked on. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not earth-shaking. The article also mentions someone who built a mini pipe organ from plastic pipe and laser-cut wood, but that's not what the project is about. [1] https://openpipes.org/2021/08/20/pipebian-headless-pipe-orga.…
> Nothing wrong with that, but it's not earth-shaking. Just turn the volume up!
You need a great speaker system to really make it sound good. Organs can put out a large range. Your typical sub and midrange speaker system can't produce good bass in that area too high for the subs and too low for the midrange. Note that subs is plural, you probably want more than one unless the room is tiny.
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#14"... majestic ... remarkable ... empowering ... worldwide ... accessible ... innovative ... democratizing ... traditional ... like never before ..." Turn the hype generator down from 11, please.
Don't forget Arduino - twice in two consecutive sentences! Someone really wanted to hit all the buzzwords and the result was definitely not pleasant to read. After reading all that, I'm still confused whether this is a physical analog pipe organ, or a software pipe organ simulator. In these times, I find myself asking "Is this LLM output?"
It is a physical console and virtual sounds. The best of both worlds as it plays like a real organ (unlike most keyboards with an organ sound or 3), but doesn't need a massive room for pipes.
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#15"... majestic ... remarkable ... empowering ... worldwide ... accessible ... innovative ... democratizing ... traditional ... like never before ..." Turn the hype generator down from 11, please.
Yeah, I think it would be good to change the url to the project page and have done so now.
(The submitted article, which is generating these allergic reactions, was https://makezine.com/article/craft/music/openpipes-revolutio....)
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nothing wrong with that, but it's not earth-shaking. Just turn the volume up!
You need a great speaker system to really make it sound good. Organs can put out a large range. Your typical sub and midrange speaker system can't produce good bass in that area too high for the subs and too low for the midrange. Note that subs is plural, you probably want more than one unless the room is tiny.
I had the privilege of playing on one of the largest mechanical pipe organs in the world and no sound system comes close to the kind of raw power that thing put out in the low register. Just unbelievable, to the point that you start wondering if it can damage the building itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_xrOKMr-7k for a quick tour
'backstage' it is even more impressive, the size of those pipes is just amazing.
The organ is all mechanical so the force on the keys is many times larger than on a piano. The regular organist said she loses significant weight when practicing a new piece (and that's with the 'pneumatic assist' the organ has, which is kind of like powersteering for Organs...).
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#17It’s more of electronic organ than pipe organ… but in my ignorance, between the sound clips I wouldn’t know the difference.
Subtle difference: GrandOrgue uses samples of actual organs, pipe-by-pipe. It can direct its output to many different channels and has software mixers to map the outputs onto the number of channels you've got. An 'electronic organ' is a device that creates organ-like sounds, either using tonewheels (for instance: Hammond) or some electronic oscillator and then uses various methods to mix in or filter harmonics. This can create sounds that closely approximate a real organ but it isn't quite the same because you don't have that massive soundbox called a church to go with it (I see churches as very nice instrument casings).
Moddarts 'Organteq' comes very close with their virtual organ simulator, it uses a whole pile of math to recreate the sounds of a real organ. Using that + a multi manual setup gives you a close approximation to a real organ which you can configure to your hearts content. But the software used in this project, GrandOrgue which uses samples is also very good (and is the one I use).
Playing an organ is - in my opinion - a lot harder than to play a piano, the learning curve is very steep and the added footwork is a serious complication if all you've ever done is play the piano. I suck at both ;) But it is a lot of fun.
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget Arduino - twice in two consecutive sentences! Someone really wanted to hit all the buzzwords and the result was definitely not pleasant to read. After reading all that, I'm still confused whether this is a physical analog pipe organ, or a software pipe organ simulator. In these times, I find myself asking "Is this LLM output?"
It is a physical console and virtual sounds. The best of both worlds as it plays like a real organ (unlike most keyboards with an organ sound or 3), but doesn't need a massive room for pipes.
The 'organ' section for most keyboards is unusable for anything except for short effects. Usually the samples (if they use samples...) are extremely short and the presets are boring. On some models you can even hear the sample loop points. I have the same irritation with most wind instruments in keyboards, they sound terrible and aren't even close to what an actual instrument sounds like.
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#19Story time: I briefly worked in a school that, incredibly, didn't have a working bell system. Since this is obviously idiotic, I decided to hack something together. I got a vacuum cleaner from the thrift shop, an old keyboard for free from the Geek Squad at Best Buy, and hooked a solid state relay up to one of the LEDs to drive the vacuum cleaner (credit to Cryptonomicon for the idea, just with a louder outcome). Cop…
A source of compressed air and a rubber membrane, when used in the appropriate manner, will very quickly make you widely disliked, in an even more compact package!
Re: OpenPipes: Build your open-source virtual pipe organ system
#20It’s more of electronic organ than pipe organ… but in my ignorance, between the sound clips I wouldn’t know the difference.
Subtle difference: GrandOrgue uses samples of actual organs, pipe-by-pipe. It can direct its output to many different channels and has software mixers to map the outputs onto the number of channels you've got. An 'electronic organ' is a device that creates organ-like sounds, either using tonewheels (for instance: Hammond) or some electronic oscillator and then uses various methods to mix in or filter harmonics. This…
As an aside, I wish there was a way to get Modartt software in a low latency stand-alone enclosure. I wonder if someone has DIYed a thing