Converting a Conn 650 into a Virtual Theatre Pipe Organ
My friend Jim purchased this particular Conn 650 in the mid 1990s; after a few months of restoration work, we had it playing again.
The stop rail was changed to provide a more suitable range of stops; a year or so later midi encoders were added to the solo and accompaniment keyboards.
The stop tabs in the Accomp lacked a few important voices; namely the Flute and its Celeste, Oboe Horn, Clarinet, Quintadena and the Vox Humana.
These stops replaced less useful voices.
Mid 2005, Jim posed the possibility of having his own virtual theatre pipe organ. We spent a few months in the planning stage and because there is only so much room on a Conn 650 console, we utilised every stop tab, rocker tab and piston to achieve a good result.
It took about 3 months of spare time to install everything and get it playable.
The instrument now represents a 3 manual 19 rank Virtual Theatre Pipe Organ.
All samples were wave files converted into Gig files and run in GigaStudio v3.2
This is the final spec and according to Jim, the organ sounds fabulous.
Not so final; 10/11/2009, we adjusted the strings trems to a shimmer; and now the Vox String chorus is just heavenly.
The 16' Strings tab on the Great now has 4 strings as in most theatre organ; The 8' Strings tab on the Solo has the same; just gorgeous.
We removed a couple of Celeste ranks made that organ sound muddy.
- Saxophone
- Brass Trumpet
- Clarinet
- Concert Flute
- Open Diapason
- Post Horn
- Kinura
- Oboe Horn
- Orch Oboe
- Quintadena
- Salicional
- Salicional Celeste
- Tibia Clausa
- Tuba Horn
- Viole Celeste
- Viole d'Orch
- Vox Humana
- Chrysoglott
- Glockenspiel
- Wood Harp
- Xylophone
Stop List
| Pedal | Accomp | Great | Solo |
|---|---|---|---|
|
16' Diaphone 16' Tibia Clausa 16' Bourdon 16' Violone 8' Tibia Pizzicato 8' Flute 8' Accomp to Pedal 8' Great to Pedal 8' Solo to Pedal |
8' Diapason 8' Tibia Clausa 8' Oboe Horn 8' Clarinet 8' Soft String II 8' Quintadena 8' Concert Flute 8' Vox Humana 4' Tibia Clausa 2' Piccolo Harp Chrysoglott 4' Accomp Octave 8' Solo to Accomp 8' Great to Accomp Bass Coupler |
16' Tuba Horn 16' Open Diapason 16' Tibia Clausa 16' Strings IV 16' Vox Humana 16' Bourdon 8' Brass Trumpet 8' Tuba Horn 8' Open Diapason 8' Tibia Clausa 8' Orch Oboe 8' Oboe Horn 8' Clarinet 8' Saxophone 8' Viole d'Orch II 8' Quintadena 8' Concert Flute 8' Vox Humana 4' Tibia Clausa 2 2/3 ' Nazard 2' Piccolo 1' Fife Glockenspiel Xylophone 16' Great Sub Octave 8' Great Unison Off 4' Great Octave 8' Solo to Great Melody Coupler |
8' Post Horn 8' Brass Trumpet 8' Tuba Horn 8' Open Diapason 8' Tibia Clausa 8' Strings IV 8' Clarinet 8' Kinura 8' Vox Humana 5 1/3 ' Tibia Clausa 4' Tibia Clausa 2' Tibia Clausa 16' Solo Sub Octave 8' Solo Unison Off 4' Solo Octave |
| Tremulants | General |
|---|---|
| Main Tuba Solo Tibia |
Celestes Off Map (Switch) Set (Piston) Set Enable (Button) All Notes Off (Button) Transpose - + (Pistons) 11 Blind CA Pistons |
The Audio section has 11 channels driving 39 loudspeakers. 660 watts RMS of audio power.
The samples are stored on a high speed personal computer using two high speed hard disks configured in a SATA RAID 0 array.
The sound engine is GigaOrchestra version 3.2.
The Audio System is an M-Audio Firewire 410.
The digital relay was supplied by Artisan Instruments Inc.
Jim enjoying playing his new organ.
