Velocitty-pressure- sensitive keyboards

[profeluisegarcia]

What would be the rationale behind the use of this type of keyboards in digital organs designed to play organ literature (no popular music)? The harder you play, the louder it sounds. I think this is a"contra-organ-natura" trend.

Thanks for your comments,

Luis

[rjsilva]

I’m assuming it’s primarily meant to provide an option for interfacing with other devices which make use of that information (for instance an attached sound module via MIDI). Also, it is used to some degree in pipe organ reproduction. For instance, some VPO sample sets have samples which are selected based on velocity information to simulate a different release for pipe organs which can be affected by that (although that’s not exactly a necessary feature like velocity or pressure might be for other sound modules).

[don60]

Agreed. The organ builders are simply providing the flexibility to use velocity information on the MIDI data stream. Johannus, for one, builds all of their instruments (to my knowledge) with this style of keyboard, which costs very little more than the single-contact type. Just so everyone is clear--the keyboard is not sensing velocity, per se; it is sensing two successive contact closures that are spaced in time according to the speed with which the key is being pressed. Actual velocity information is developed in the processor that generates the MIDI output.

[ahlborn]

In mechanical tracker action pipe organ, the speed at which the keys are lowered causes wind to enter the pipe differently.
This causes a differentiation in the attack of the sound, or more simply in the "speech" of the pipe.
The possibilities of articulation are greater.

Today, many companies that build electronic organs include the possibility of dynamic attack, to simulate tracker action organs.
That's why dynamic keyboards are installed in modern digital organs.
Previously, their function was to have a compatibility with the dynamic tones of midi modules.

[John Vanderlee]

This is really more about theatre organs. Where Allen uses it, is so it can be used with the 'Piano' stops to provide more realistic attacks.

[profeluisegarcia]

Thanks everybody and Vanderlee: Ok, it is good for theater organ and piano piece pieces, but not for baroque, romantic and modern (not ultramodern) organ literature... Besides, Ahlborn, in any tracker organ this effect is not really noticeable as it is in touch-sensitivity keyboards.

[ahlborn]

It depends, there are tracker organs that have a very high keyboard sensitivity.

[Jack-47]

Several samplesets from Sonus Paradisi for Hauptwerk implement this feature.