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Playing Hauptwerk on a Viscount Prestige V dating from 2000 (3 replies and 4 comments)
If your Viscount has a midi output which outputs all of your stop and keyboard events then it can drive Hauptwerk or GrandOrgue without much trouble. If the couplers output similar events to the stops and the swell pedal/s output midi when they are moved then these will work too.
Simply connect your midi output to the console input of HW or GO and set them up as normal. Everything you set up correctly will work. However the labels on your stops are unlikely to correspond to those of the HW organ. If you intend to play a lot of different organs then a large touch screen monitor is by far the best option.
If your Viscount has a sound input socket then you can feed the sound back into your organ.
You will need to find a way to silence the normal output from your organ. Disconnecting the speakers is one easy option but you would then need a separate amplifier and speakers for the HW sound.
I suggest you go ahead and try things out. You would be better off experimenting with GO because it is free.
Thank you so much for this most helpful guidance.
I am bound to say that I am a complete beginner when it comes to this sort of thing and got stuck even at 'connect your midi output to the console input of HW or GO and set them up as normal'. However, from what you say it is clear that it is certainly worth my experimenting with GO, particularly if it is free, just to see if my console will support it.
I wonder if you could direct me to a suitable forum to total beginners like me, or whether I might contact you privately to talk through these suggestions ?
Many thanks,
MAB
Most Viscount organs have a facility called 'local off'. This allows you to silence the internal voice generation on all or just selected stops. As you have the manual check if 'local off' is available on the model you have. I am pretty sure it is. Regards David
Many thanks David. I don't think I have a specific switch for 'local off' but from a close reading of my manual, combined with one of the helpful Viscount You Tube videos, I think the following may help under the heading of 'Function Set + Cancel'
'When the MIDI is connected to another Viscount organ, the activation of a register on the transmitting organ will (through the sending of an exclusive system message) activate the same register on the receiving organ. If you wish that some registers will not pay on the transmitting organ but, when selected, will play only on the receiving organ, follow this procedure (Presse Set and Cancel at the same time, then switch off the tabs on the receiving organ you want to silence, then press Set + Cancel again).
Does that sound right to you ?
Following the helpful suggestion of CSW900 above, I am going to play around with Grand Orgue on a laptop just to see if I can get it working in some basic form before deciding whether to take the plunge with HW
Local off is not a single switch. Hand draw the stops you want to be silent and the press and hold down together to cancel and set pistons. That will turn off the sound of the selected stops. To recover the sound select the stops and press the two pistons together again.
There is a lot of useful information on the GO forum. I also use this myself. You will probably find most of what you need by searching the forum. I or somebody else can answer your questions about GO if the forum has not already got an answer.
GO is very easy to use and normally works "Out of the Box" but you will have to set it up to use the outputs of your organ. You may find Midi OX is useful for observing the midi output from your organ. You will need a midi to usb adaptor cable to connect Viscount to GO console input.
Thank you ! Since your kind reply I have been exploring the GO forum and it is, as you say, helpful and intelligible for the beginner. It will be my Christmas project.
Back to Viscount Organs Forum...
I play a two manual Viscount Prestige V dating from around 2000 (Serial number 0144900).
Whilst I love the instrument I would also like to explore Hauptwerk but it is hard to establish whether it will work fully on my generation of instrument.
Having discussed it with a Hauptwerk engineer, he said that a possible outcome was that the keyboards and pedals would transmit a Midi signal sufficient to control the stops and notes. It may well be possible to assign HW stops to the Viscount stops, but the couplers and swell pedal might not work.
What I would hope to achieve would be some way of 'switching off' the Viscount stops so that I could control HW either by hand registration on the touch screens, alternatively, by managing the HW stops direct from the Viscount combination pistons (ie, by-passing the Viscount stops). This would also overcome the problem of being limited to the number of stops physically on my Viscount.
It would also be helpful to be able to feed the HW output back through the Viscount internal speakers.
I have read the Midi implementation chart at the back of my Operating Manual but am bound to say that I am none the wiser.
Can anyone help me ? I would be most grateful for any direction.
Thank you.