Absolute genius!! I could tell by your voice that you were quite young, but I didn't guess you were still in high school. And then you took on this project with an outstandingly simple and inexpensive solution! I'm honestly in awe of your skills. I wish I'd seen your solution a few years ago, as I had a huge three manual Allen theater organ with many, many stops and presets in which something bad had happened to the sound processing capabilities. I sold it to someone for only $400, at a time when one like it in good working order would sell for close to $8,000. I'd have loved to do what you did with my organ, but, alas, it is king gone. Great work!!
An issue I’ve found with Rodgers organs is that the keyboards fail. Notes stop working and the technician tells us that replacement parts are not available. The only solution is to replace the whole keyboard which is cost prohibitive on a fifteen year old organ. Mine was a C series which I believe has Roland innards.
Very, very cool! I am retired now, but in another life I was a Rodgers technician, and this is one of the models that I had worked on. That was many years ago. In the time since I have been an engineer designing electronic audio and digital products for a couple of small electronics firms (both now out of business) here in Oklahoma. What you have done is, in my opinion, nothing short of genius. By the way, I also have a Rodgers console of my own, a model 870, which was built in the early 80s. It was given to me by a church that used to be a customer of mine, so it is one that I had worked on a few times before. I restored it and made a few modifications, but it is mostly in its original form, with all the generators and keyers and formant circuits. I would like to MIDI-ize it like you did to this one. This has given me some good inspiration! God bless you!
Wow, fantastic! I'm in a similar situation myself, I have an old electrical church organ from England dating from the 60s I think. Needed it to practise without the stress and time lost of trying to find a church close to me that would let me in to practise, etc. The old thing was fine until just like you, something went BANG! I lost a speaker and all the stops for manual I. Now, other notes are starting to go.... Today I looked at a new organ, completely digital with stops that can be pulled, a full church or chapel grade organ, two manuals, swell pedals, pipe organ feel-alike key action, etc the works, but they want 13,000 Euros for it! Yikes! I'd love to convert my old organ casing into a digital organ as the next option, perhaps even add some extra features such as a volume knob and transposer knob for choir practise, (transposing sheet music on sight is not one of my gifts, LOL!) It has a nice wooden case, but I don't think anyone in Portugal knows how to do digital conversions, and I certainly don't. You're blessed to be able to figure out how to do it yourself! Cheers!
I am considering a similar project. I have two consoles available but will probably use the Rodgers which is of better quality than the Galanti. The latter has some MIDI capability already but is deteriorating rapidly due to age. I don't want to mess with designing my own encoder so will probably use DTS encoders. A few hundred dollars is worth it in my case. I have both GrandOrgue and jOrgan both of which are quite good but will probably get new computer hardware for the project.
Got any more details on build list, stl for you bracket and sketch you used? I got the free organ and pay 1200 for organ mover to move it and lots of out of tune keys.
hello! beautiful project. I saw your website with your project. Its incredible! I would like to do the same with my organ. Could you explain whit is there lots of resistors please? Thank you and congratulation!
What model organ was it originally? It looks a lot like the organ in my church which is a late ‘70s early ‘80s Rodgers 115. We’d love to have a digital someday. If this was a similar model organ this gives me hope it might be possible for way less than we thought!
I believe you are right, it looks like a 115. I have repaired one or two of these in a previous lifetime. I have access to a proprietary Rodgers website that has information on all of their products, and it says that the 115 was produced around 1973. By the looks of the keyboard wiring in this video, it is completely discrete (one wire per key) and does not use any timesharing functions, so that would help date the production to the early 70s.
@@billnorman1704 So it’s even older than we thought. We’re having a heck of a time finding anyone willing to work on it. It’s beginning to show its age!
Not only do you play magnificently, but you're an electronics whiz! Bravo, young man!
Woah!! I'm so impressed by your ingenuity -- not only with electronics, but with programming too! Excellent job!
Absolute genius!! I could tell by your voice that you were quite young, but I didn't guess you were still in high school. And then you took on this project with an outstandingly simple and inexpensive solution! I'm honestly in awe of your skills. I wish I'd seen your solution a few years ago, as I had a huge three manual Allen theater organ with many, many stops and presets in which something bad had happened to the sound processing capabilities. I sold it to someone for only $400, at a time when one like it in good working order would sell for close to $8,000. I'd have loved to do what you did with my organ, but, alas, it is king gone. Great work!!
An issue I’ve found with Rodgers organs is that the keyboards fail. Notes stop working and the technician tells us that replacement parts are not available. The only solution is to replace the whole keyboard which is cost prohibitive on a fifteen year old organ. Mine was a C series which I believe has Roland innards.
Very, very cool! I am retired now, but in another life I was a Rodgers technician, and this is one of the models that I had worked on. That was many years ago. In the time since I have been an engineer designing electronic audio and digital products for a couple of small electronics firms (both now out of business) here in Oklahoma. What you have done is, in my opinion, nothing short of genius.
By the way, I also have a Rodgers console of my own, a model 870, which was built in the early 80s. It was given to me by a church that used to be a customer of mine, so it is one that I had worked on a few times before. I restored it and made a few modifications, but it is mostly in its original form, with all the generators and keyers and formant circuits. I would like to MIDI-ize it like you did to this one. This has given me some good inspiration!
God bless you!
Brilliant, you are an inspiration! Well done.
Thanks for posting. I have and old Allen at home, but zero engineering skills.
Same here.
Really enjoyed this video❤️
Wow, fantastic! I'm in a similar situation myself, I have an old electrical church organ from England dating from the 60s I think. Needed it to practise without the stress and time lost of trying to find a church close to me that would let me in to practise, etc. The old thing was fine until just like you, something went BANG! I lost a speaker and all the stops for manual I. Now, other notes are starting to go.... Today I looked at a new organ, completely digital with stops that can be pulled, a full church or chapel grade organ, two manuals, swell pedals, pipe organ feel-alike key action, etc the works, but they want 13,000 Euros for it! Yikes! I'd love to convert my old organ casing into a digital organ as the next option, perhaps even add some extra features such as a volume knob and transposer knob for choir practise, (transposing sheet music on sight is not one of my gifts, LOL!) It has a nice wooden case, but I don't think anyone in Portugal knows how to do digital conversions, and I certainly don't. You're blessed to be able to figure out how to do it yourself! Cheers!
The term "pipe organ" refers to an organ that has least some "pipes."
Wonderful video
I am considering a similar project. I have two consoles available but will probably use the Rodgers which is of better quality than the Galanti. The latter has some MIDI capability already but is deteriorating rapidly due to age.
I don't want to mess with designing my own encoder so will probably use DTS encoders. A few hundred dollars is worth it in my case. I have both GrandOrgue and jOrgan both of which are quite good but will probably get new computer hardware for the project.
Is Grand Orgue similar to Hauptwerk?
It seems my Farfisa organ that I am reforming. Have you some info how yo connect the keys to the arduino?
I have a question. How did you modify the manuals?
Thanks
Hi Ben, Can you help with the Circuirt diagram of the midi controller?
Got any more details on build list, stl for you bracket and sketch you used? I got the free organ and pay 1200 for organ mover to move it and lots of out of tune keys.
hello! beautiful project.
I saw your website with your project. Its incredible!
I would like to do the same with my organ. Could you explain whit is there lots of resistors please?
Thank you and congratulation!
Hi Romain, could you possibly direct me to his website? I can't seem to find it... thanks.
What model organ was it originally? It looks a lot like the organ in my church which is a late ‘70s early ‘80s Rodgers 115. We’d love to have a digital someday. If this was a similar model organ this gives me hope it might be possible for way less than we thought!
I believe you are right, it looks like a 115. I have repaired one or two of these in a previous lifetime. I have access to a proprietary Rodgers website that has information on all of their products, and it says that the 115 was produced around 1973. By the looks of the keyboard wiring in this video, it is completely discrete (one wire per key) and does not use any timesharing functions, so that would help date the production to the early 70s.
@@billnorman1704 So it’s even older than we thought. We’re having a heck of a time finding anyone willing to work on it. It’s beginning to show its age!
Or buy a digital keyboard