100 year old church organs had programmable presets! I BOUGHT A CHURCH ORGAN - part 15
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- TIME TO WIRE IN THE ORGAN PRESETS
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#restoration #howto #organ
Sam, now you’ll never need a burglar alarm in there. Just wire it up so the organ starts playing manic carnival music and the teletubbies start crooning if somebody opens a door or window. The most hardened criminal in the world would nope tf out of there in a second
Oh man he needs to do this! He's also got stuff like the furby organ as well, definitely potential to make the most cursed burglar alarm in the world!
I wouldn't even feel comfortable watching it in a YT video. That's some next-level creep right there. * shudder *
@@mrrandomperson3106 And the GB synth could activate and provide a low square-wave roar to underscore the cacophony.
And some creepy looking old dolls with their heads slowly spinning around
LMFAO!! That would be straight out of your favorite slasher flick! .🤣
11:44 The technology behind that stool’s adjustable height is really the _height_ of human ingenuity! 😮
Thought the same. It is even self-adjusting since a shorter person will have shorter arms and thus place themselves closer to the keyboards.
One thought that came to mind watching this is to suggest you put together a small box for future generations, stocked with some extras of the parts you're introducing to the build. That includes a spare Arduino, which might not be available in 50 or so years. Mark it "Do Not Open Until Christmas - 2075!"
This is a really good idea.
And add a magnetic hard disk or burned DVD with all the code and software on it. Not an sd card or solid state drive, they'll start to lose data after several years of being unused.
@@FPSlackero will a burned DVD as the chemicals degrade, and a magnetic hardrive isn't immune to data rot either, and who knows if it'll still be good mechanicaly if left unused for an extended period.
Paper and ink is probably a good idea too if you want longevity.
Yeah good idea. I had thought about how to put the code in it. Maybe solid state not sure! But yeah good shout on spare arduino. I have designed it with future tech in mind. I mention in an early vid. Purposely avoiding multiplexers and complicated circuits to reduce wires but increase troubleshooting. In theory if something dies someone can replace it with a modern alternative with ease. That's my thinking with how it's wired anyways. But I do need to include paper of the midi allocations and stuff. And as you say code incase and good idea on spares
One word……..Cracking👍🏻
I never imagined spending hours watching videos of you messing with an antique church organ, would be so interesting.
That's why he'smade 15 parts!
Interesting the bright spots we find in this darkest timeline.
Late for work again.......
BBBUUTTT SSSAMMMMMMM, YOUR DOIN IT WRONG SAM. SAMMMMMMMMM
NOOO DON'TT DO IT LIKE THATT SAMMMM
You can't do that Sam! You'll fail! You'll ruin a piece of history!
when he did the voice thing of this first time, i laughed so hard and hear it in my head every time i watch a video and he gets something else working on the organ xD
@@simon515have you ever heard of Sam's FU song? It is in the previous episode and I am not joking with you!
BUTTTTT CARRRRLLLLLLLLL
The pretentious painter bit had me laughing so hard. :D
Me too. And then I started to actually like it... 🤔
Hirst is spinning in his urinal right now
The 'unknown' button under the swell keyboard is probably an 'all stop clear', which may be indicated with a zero. Does exactly what you intend to use it for!
I came here to say this. Many organs have a “General Cancel” piston which turns all the stops off, although they would usually be off to one side. It could also be a Swell to Great coupler.
Not exactly the same task, but no reason why it shouldn't do both. well, except that when you clear a stuck midi note then you have to re-select your last preset.
Given that the button has two wires, it would say it is a Swell to Great reversible, so when it is pressed it toggles on or off the swell to great stop if there is one. The toe piston might be swell to pedal or great to pedal reversible too. I find these couplers not super useful on a small organ like this but sometimes they exist.
"MIDI SCRAM" was the suggested name :)
Even Hauptwerk has a 'midi release/reset' function that you can assign to any key or switch.😉
This organ is really starting to check all the boxes.
Fun fact: that option to leave a stop in the state it's in regardless of position is unique to that style of setter mechanism. Most newer digital systems aren't capable of that, they can only set a stop on or off.
I don't know whether I'd say "most", as it's very common to have a "map" facility that allows you to program which stops will be affected by any particular piston. I use that feature regularly to program pistons that will, for example, turn all tremulants on or off, without changing the actual registration at all.
@@rknud007 There are probably some advanced systems somewhere that can do it, but every digital setter system I've seen in the wild has consisted of a "set" button that commits the current state of all the stops to a piston. Far as I can tell that's the norm for combination actions that don't have the switchboard that Sam's organ has.
@@mrrandomperson3106 Opus-Two, Uniflex, Artisan and probably most other modern systems allow 'mapping' or 'ranging' what stops will be controlled by a given piston. Sometimes it's done in software, and sometimes via the use of a MAP or RANGE piston, but no matter what, the functionality is generally there.
I don't know that much about organs, but there's quite a few tri state things (on/off/high impedance.)
30 odd years back I discovered a channel four series called The Secret Life of Machines. A weird artist called Tim Hunkin, and his mate Rex Garrod who was helping to invent a stupid concept of robots fighting each other. I loved that show. Tim is still going. Rex has left the chat. You, mate.....you are the feller doing their work. And also your own work. Similar work. Tim is still going but I can't imagine even the late Rex would look upon your work with anything but approval. You 'apparently' don't know what you're doing whilst you either did it just now, or a bit later. Love the channel.
When you had just purchased the organ I doubted you'd ever get it to work properly.
Hard work, attention to detail and perseverance have turned this into a unique project.
And as usual it's absolutely bonkers. I love it.
It goes all back to looms🤗 A bar, strings with rocks at the end and loops and sticks, to group certain strings. This is how it started, before we even got metallurgy😎
Nothing more satisfying than a zillion midi notes playing and almost not a single hang. Well done chaps, that's special right there.
Back in the day with the 1040st and pro 12 it happened all the time
I think this is one of the coolest series you've done so far.
Especially since _it's never going to work_ and _no no no_ and _you're doing it all wrong_ !
So awesome to see it in action!
For those interested in a longer description of my approach to the organ brain:
To start, we read all incoming MIDI messages and maintain the state of each keyboard so we know which keys are being pressed any given time. We also read and save the state of every stopswitch. Now that we have the input state, we can calculate what notes to output on each pipe rank.
We use some mapping logic to calculate every output note that should be on or off for every pipe rank based on the inputs and save the results. By comparing the new results with the previous results, we can see which notes changed from On-to-Off or Off-to-On and send a MIDI On/Off message to the corrsponding pipe rank.
Because of the limited serial buffer on the Arduino Nano (64 bytes or 32 MIDI note messages), we must read and clear the input buffer as much as possible to not miss any messages, which would result in stuck notes. An output ring buffer is used to send the output notes in batches to prevent overwhelming the serial output and dropping MIDI note messages.
So it's the midi equivalent of fly-by-wire, maintaining a virtual state of the organ, recording the inputs, updating the model and affecting the real world to bring the real organ in line with the model.
AMAZING Sam! Circus Gallop seems like the "can it run Crisis?" for organs, great stuff. 🎶👍
I think the term 'mad genius' is an understatement. Have watched you for the past several years and seen you coming up with ever crazier ideas. This thing sounds so good!
If you are gonna get microphones for recording then you can create a way for people over internet to pay a fee to play the organ a song they want and get a record of it.
When we did the Federation Bells project in Melbourne (>20 years ago) there was a constant live stream and people were able to upload thier own midi files to play on the Bells. IIRC someone manually handled the process but it would be a cool thing on this project too, manual or automated, but I'm not sure is Sam would want the organ running 24x7 😮
The new OAAS business model, aka Organ as a Service
@@mgaborio Don't let the pharmaceuticals industry hear about this idea.
@@andybrice2711look up Repo: The Genetic Opera - you might dig it, if you’re here
@@mgaborioorgasm is always a service
Sam the Multimedia Artist! Love your babbling as the painting becomes darker and darker :)
The switchboard looks lovely, simple, and pretty steampunk too. And again, I love your cable lacing! Stay determined and Keri on :)
You could say Sam has really pulled out all the stops on this project!
"Man overclocks organ" 😂😂
This is amazing, each update just brings the whole thing to a level that wasn't imagined prior. Brilliant work!
Bonking mechanisms to make them start to work again is so satisfying
If in doubt, give it a clout. Bit of percussive maintenance.
And hammers hitting the various bits of woodwork could also make some interesting percussive sounds
The 3rd painting in the series, made me think of sitting in a cave looking out over a lake as the sun sets...
I think the misterious piston you were talking about is the general cancel, wich is a piston that turns off all the stops no matter what preset or memory level you're on, that's why it's called general cancel hahahah. I think the organ isn't liking all this changes and this crazy speeds cause I've seen a lot of unplugged pipes resting on the chests haha!
I agree and was going to post the same thing as a comment.
@@petedenton9434 he also said he could use it as a midi panic button, but I think he didn't know that it's sort of does what he wanted to do hahah
That last musical bit had some serious Monty-Python-on-coke vibes
Sam's going to be world famous for his magnificent organ soon...
Who knew that I would watch and thoroughly enjoy 15 videos of a man playing with his organ!
Sam! Great video as ever! Don't put yourself down because you don't have every skillset (i.e. advanced programming skills) to achieve what you have achieved. You have created an epic project, involving: pneumatics, electrics, electronics, mechanics, software, vision, design and your own unique style of barking madness with all your hard work, that has been so entertaining to watch! Keep up the good work mate!
In my chuch's organ, that switch in the pedalboard with the blue wires makes all the stops go. I call it "Beast mode"
I just love wire lacing and lacing the wire looms, I once had some contracts for fitting warden call alarm systems in sheltered housing schemes, I had done half a dozen of these jobs and got a phone call one day to tell me the last job I had done had different specs and I had to travel halfway down the country to change the lacing for plastic cable ties, I was very pissed off!
i love it too, i learned at deutsche telekom, we laced the big telephone cable to learn, 2000 DA(doublewire) in office centrals, a means to bring order into chaos, sure we laced all our small projects too with jsut handful 20-50 wires, but the big cable will always be in my memory
I love the subtle easter egg of the numbers on the wall. Nice one Sam.
They're 0-indexed. hahaha
My 100 year old Estey has a fantastic rube-goldberg preset combination action. Behind each stop is a rod with a small lever for each preset with on, off and stay. Running parallel is a rod for each piston attached to a pneumatc ram.When the ram moves the rod, it hits the levels, and flips the stops open or closed, or "stays". Completely internal, with a "setter" button. You hold the setter button, with the preset button, then it flips the levels to whatever you have set. So complex... but no wires, and it still works 100 years later.
Love it when Sam shows off his organ, it really is starting to come together. 2x👍
Absolutely friggin awesome, especially the whack it in the side to fix it at the end after such a complex and fast performance 😂
That circus gallop sounds like classical breakcore
I still dont understand over half the things that you do but your channel is brilliant i watch in awe. There some really clever people out there.Ive particularly enjoyed the whole church organ build.
I came across this by chance and have been totally engrossed with every episode simply wonderful!!!
Dude, with all the stuff you do and can do i'm pretty sure you got more cogs spinning than most of us :D
I thought your organ was going to have a stroke playing that insane MIDI file. Very fun to watch all of your adventures with this organ. Thanks for sharing with us. Loved it.
Man, that's awesome! The attention to the detail, the creativity of the upgrades and of course, the valve shutting at the end.
Every episode of this organ's project leaves me with a bigger smile on my face. This is absolutely astounding!
I FINALLY just showed my church organist mother some of these pipe organ videos - most of the first episode of pulling it out the house, a bit of the 6th or 7th vid with a recap of progress so far, and most of this one.
In her 50-plus-years as an organist, she's played everything from electric church organs (mostly), to pipe organs, to even the dreaded foot-pump parlor organs back in the day! We talked about the presets on specific organs she played, some I remember from being a little kid, and she emphasized those were all *electric* organs (although I know they weren't *digital*). She'd never seen anything like that manual preset switchboard.
Also, since she's a short lady who has struggled her whole life to reach the pedals wherever she's playing, we both laughed a LOT at the "fully adjustable" bench part!
I love this channel, been watching right along the last few years without commenting much. Just HAD to say something tonight. I'm an organ & synth fan, my mom is the organist I've been watching perform my whole life, AND she's the one who first introduced me to synthesizer music ages ago. It was amazing to watch these vids with her.
Thanks so much for these videos, and thanks for rescuing this organ & making it part of your museum!
The LEDSs were a great idea, epecially for an instrument that spends as much time being seen as it does being heard. Sure Bach's Toccata in Dm will look beautiful with its big sweeps up and down scales. All the switches moving by themselves looks awesome and kinda reminds me of the NINA by Melbourne Instruments
The "painting series" was so funny!! It's so good to see it all coming together, and the brain is so ingenious! I love that everything is based around MIDI which will make it able to talk to other instruments, play back performances and other MIDI files, etc.
After seeing you take a hacksaw to the cables in the original video I thought oh boy, incredible what you've managed to do to this thing.
Another great project, I love seeing your mad scientist crazy art mind at work! Lots of love from Canada!💜💙💚
Those lights on the tubes were so much work but they keep giving and giving to the videos.. Such a good idea.
Sometimes I think about what we're leaving behind for others to find... Imagine a world ending apocalypse, whether man made or natural, that kills off everyone but leaves many cities standing.
When the survivors find your museum in 100 years they are going to be very confused. Teletubbies, furbies, and an old organ. Slightly creepy vibes. Keep doing what you do and leave your best legacy!
The explaining the painting part cracked me up :)
Great job mate!
I’m so looking forward to visiting your museum next month. It’ll be amazing to see all this. O_O
The pedal piston is probably the tutti piston which activates all stops
7:02 that was actually quite a great explanation, what's important in such a program is your state being described very clearly, not implicit, not to be guessed from rules, one clear source of truth, and this design identifies important points of the process in which the state reflects what needs to happen, directly based on what happened at the previous stage.
- keys buffer, i guess one bit for each key, enough to know what the keyboard is doing, you can update this when you get a midi message, or however you learn about the state of a key.
- pipes puffer: same for pipes, if at least one key for a pipe in the previous buffer is up, then we need to be up
- pipes: for each bit in the pipes buffer, if the pipe is in a different state, we need to update it, so you can send a midi message, or whatever signal you need to send to update the physical world with your will.
and of course yeah, while doing all that you want to not let messages accumulate, so you poll for new messages as often as possible.
I'm sure you have all the cogs you need, but they are already pretty busy, i'm a programmer and i certainly couldn't do what you do with electronics :D. Well, at least not without spending a lot of time getting up to speed.
18:57 regarding the blue wires for that extra piston: Most probably, this might have served as a "general cancel" piston, i.e. turning off all stops at once. Most pipe organs with electronic or pneumatic stop controls (and especially those with presets) do have a GC piston like this. Besides providing a quick way to disable all stops before you get off the organ (...in case you accidentally hit some pedal notes...), another neat use is to quickly change from a preset registration to a manually selected one. Just try it on your own. :)
Remodeling it into a MIDI panic button sounds like a good idea to me, as it effectively does the same as a GC plus sending "note stop" signals for all keys (which the end user wouldn't even notice since stops are off).
Also, THANKS for sharing this huge and highly interesting project with us! Fun fact: A few years ago, I almost started to build something like this -- an extension to my Hauptwerk virtual pipe organ with two ranks of real pipes. Didn't have the knowledge to build all that wiring and Arduino stuff, tho. So, in the end, this was just a pipe dream (pun intended, lol)....
Strange having it on the swell manual though, most organs have the GC on the far right of the lowest manual.
@@mrrandomperson3106 Exactly my thoughts. The only reason why I did suspect this to be a GC piston is the fact that it has a bit more space to the group of three preset pistons than the individual preset pistons have between each other.
This is an epic project. I had no idea there is so much involved with an organ like this. Just amazing and awesome to watch and see it develop.
Thank you for including a full version of the Circus Gallop at the end! So good
This is such a fun series. I've really enjoyed watching you resurrect this old beauty.
I love this series! As an organist myself, good luck voicing/tuning all the pipes, dont get too frustrated 😋
I think when you're finished working on Joan's Organ you really need to rerecord the'you don't know what you're doing' song!
Love this series man thanks for the work you are putting into this project
Im amazed that (most of) those mechanical valves kept up with the nearly-black MIDI.
I've watched many of Sam's vids over the years. I've watched him grow and learn. An absolutely amazing kid! So talented. Not only with electronics and programming, but he can play some pretty witty tunes as well! Keep it up!
The last presets I saw had a foot pedal which rotated a pillar behind the pull-in-and-out stops. Cams, one for each stop, were bolted to the pillar in such a position that as they rotated it pushed the stop in or out.
im so excited to see you set up the "staircase" shelves, I commented a while back demanding this so I'm thrilled to see you have come around lol
Not fully staircase I still need to see if they can move around but let's see :D wooopwooop
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER im sure its gonna be grand, gotta keep it modular, but I know you want to display all that goodness
You may have already realised but the preset switches have three positions, on, off and NEUTRAL. If you leave the switch in the middle (not making contact) then that stop will not be affected by the combination button (piston), and will stay in whatever position the organist left it. Love the channel - keep up the great (and barmy) work! Hope to visit the Museum again in the future.
Yeah it's cool :D I mention it in the vid Woopwoop :D
No longer a journey. An Odyssey ...
Fantastic work!
Now you need to add midi controlled actuators to the keyboards ...
Just imagine watching the organ play itself 🤪
THIS!!!!!!
Version 3 of your painting was truly a masterpiece.
The percussive tap at the end. Best way to fix any stuck relay!
One of those was probably for a general cancel (all stops off). Sometimes there is also a "sforzando" piston (all stops on). ALso, when will you add a swell box? Great job by the way!!!!
You are a true inspiration for all of us !!!!! ❤️
This is great info for anyone who likes technology. It shows all of the complexity that went into the old church organs.
I enjoy seeing your work and learning from you. 🤠
loving this series!
Now you need to feed Rush E midi file to the beloved organ!
Oooh, now I'm wondering whether it can/will play Rush-E as well! Awesome series, keep it up!
There's been music like this on real church organs here and there before, but it's such a cool thing to have one dedicated to the genre!
@7:38 - Love your vids! Your abilities with the Mini puts my 4 Runner and my abilities to shame!
I would absolutely love to hear 'Lullaby Of The Leaves' on the church organ. It would be so mesmerizing and create such a peaceful atmosphere. Please, make it happen!
Fascinating craziness!
Love the hymn choices on the board... 😉
That troubleshoot at the very ending is top notch :D
Flippin’ brilliant Sam! 👍👍
Incredible work!!
Complete madness! I love it!
Hello Sam !
You were referred to me by someone on youtube as a person that will be able to solve our dillema...
I am not an organ player, I play the recorder, mandocello and euphonium, and I use a small church pipe organ as an accompaniment source. I used it in the past (about 10 years ago), quite successfully, using a Mac titanium laptop and a MIDI interface -I do not remember the name or brand.
After a long absence, I would like to use the pipe organ again like before, but with a HP 360 Spectre and even with a new Mac Powerbook - the MIDI files no longer play satisfactorily. I have MIDI files with some 3-4 up to 16 staves, and only a couple of staves play and the rest are somehow muted. I tried several MIDI interfaces and the result are always the same.
The electronics controls / MIDI circuitry is built by a renowned company called Syndyne, and the catalog number is LS5600K Keying System. Quite unbelievably, the company was not able to give me any idea of what might be wrong. From the organ console, the organ plays perfectly, my MIDI files play perfectly to an electronic piano /keyboard, and yet on the pipe organ, connected via the MIDI connection only couple of staves play.
Any idea of what might be wrong ? I would greatly appreciate your comments. Thank you. Valerian Buducea in California.
well today i learned that slapping a wind chest stops ciphers!
i'll remember that when i next work on an organ and it decides to do that...
wow, that's looking fantastic! the organ is really coming along!
Black MIDI on a real organ is BRILLIANT! I want to see more!
Still loving this project. An amazing amount of work!
Get in, congratulations. Yeah life is grand if you appreciate little things😉 cheers and good luck on your next.👊🏻
Your vids about your house organ always reminds me of a childhood visit to St David's cathedral in Wales, while the massive organ (giggidy) was being played.
The thing which struck me the most was the bass from the biggest pipes. It really was felt rather than heard, from these absolutely enormous wooden, box shaped pipes.
Amazing vid as always. Ta.
Really coming together now! So cool!
You're a very good - and top - engineer in all what you do and invent. And you are also a repair genius. I'm very impressed by all your skills. Captain Nemo in his Nautilus...
You should submit your artist part of the video for the Turner prize! It would definitely win! Watched all of this series in one day. ABSOLUTLY CRACKING AND INSPIRING LOVE IT!
I’m a church organist, and whilst my regular Sunday instrument is a digitised Italian job from the 1990’s (Viscount) I do play other instruments on request.
I’ve seen several preset boards on electro-mechanical pipe organs that use model railway track as the on and off bus, and one organ used brass picture hooks as the movable contact between these. I guess the organ maker back in the day used what they could get hold of?
Have you considered adding bracing to the rear of the console skeleton? Like a stage set piece, reduce the wobble to increase longevity of customer abuse.
sam you've done really well with this whole project
Recommend going to see the organ in person at the museum - it’s so cool!
I love this series. So simple but yet so interesting with all the beeps and bops.
May have to make a trip to the UK one day to see it in person ^^
Just a few of my favourite out of context moments, some of them only work with audio not in text form:
3:05 "You need a few more 🐓s spinning up there than I have. But luckily there are people in the world that do have those 🐓s."
7:20 "I had a problem down there, and initially i couldn't get to it"
“Cogs”, you numbskull.
What an interesting, fascinating, nightmarish sound! I love it!
Aw, man, this thing just gets cooler every day!
Like I said previously, I hope you keep at least one of Joan's presets.