Artisan uMIDI

[don60]

Does anyone here have experience with Artisan's uMIDI ("micro-MIDI") control system? I am particularly interested in applications as a pipe relay, i.e., transporting console MIDI messages to the chambers and running rank drivers to activate pipes. Has anyone else attempted to write the software needed to run this system? You can PM me if the reply would be considered incendiary or impolite.

[John Vanderlee]

We have two Wurlitzer pipe organs that run on Artisan uMIDI. But we never did anything to the software. I have a feeling it's proprietary. We love the system, by the way. MIDI and record/playback and transposer all included.

[don60]

OK, comments (including a PM) so far seem to be favorable. My reason for asking is that I just scrapped a legacy Artisan Organ Control (the console and chamber computers) and replaced them with a uMIDI system at Mark Anderson's urging. The chamber driver cards could be reused, a big cost and labor consideration.

After the hardware was installed and tested, I sat back and waited for Mark to finish the software. However, I started thinking that I should probably learn to program in this proprietary language myself so I could maintain the installation. Although I found the software manual to be a bit disorganized, I figured out everything and wrote a perfect program--that would not compile. It keeps kicking out error messages when I attempt to use program changes to generate on/off events, which is sort of a problem given that the Johannus console (with full MIDI) uses program changes rather than note on/off messages for the stop tabs. To my horror, Mark (who is looking this up in his archives) says that some trick that he cannot remember offhand is needed to work around the problem. The real kick in the gut is that the software manual includes an example of exactly what I want to do, implying that it is acceptable syntax.

I wonder now what other bugs and omissions are lurking. I am spending my own money to replace the old system because I assured the church initially that it could be reused and reprogrammed. (Well, it can be if one wants to spend days cobbling up a DOS-based host computer from the 1980s.) The charm of uMIDI was a somewhat modern host program albeit with a quaint text-based configuration language.

The fact that some of you are using uMIDI and getting good results gives me some hope, but I am considering other options at this point including a MIDI translator box to convert all program changes to note on/off, as well as a full replacement with yet another system--this time from a larger vendor that has more support.

[don60]

I am getting closer. Mark emailed and called yesterday to discuss a work-around for program change messages. It is not documented in the software manual because, as he said, it is needed very, very rarely. (Thanks, Johannus, for being different--most every other builder uses note on/off messages for the stops.) I still have a related error but mostly have a clean program that I will try with the hardware early next week.

I have been corresponding with Opus-Two, the company that installed systems for the Atlantic City and Wanamaker organs. They have a Universal Translator (not the Star Trek kind) that can, with the addition of their small processor card, live between the console and the Artisan rank drivers and replace the uMIDI if necessary. My sense, given the lightning-fast tech responses from them over the past three days, is that they are very aggressive in supporting their products and have a well-thought-out system. It does come with a higher price than the uMIDI, but as the saying goes, "cost is more than a price." Fiddling with a buggy system in the name of saving some dollars is not a good deal for those of us who try to make a profit at the old organ game.

Having said this, I believe the uMIDI is a good system for many purposes, but it needs the knowledge and devotion of an expert or a highly-skilled hobbyist to install and, to a lesser extent, maintain. In this regard, I liken it to Hauptwerk (although the latter is clearly more refined and comes with somewhat more tech support). I think that uMDI would even be OK for simpler commercial installations that are done once and forgotten, but I would be concerned about making future changes unless Mark were right there to hold one's hand.

I confirmed with him on the phone yesterday that he is the author and developer of the uMIDI system and the programming language/host environment. He said that "a few" other people in the world know the system as well as he does. Again, I am not sure that this is a solid model for a commercially-viable system. Then again, the reality of the organ business is that even the big players are relying on a handful of experts (or even a single one) to support a far-flung empire. Johannus again comes to mind--despite their publicity and the Rodgers acquisition, all tech support for GOG prodcuts EXCEPT Rodgers still comes from the Netherlands and is handled entirely by one person.

On an unrelated note, some of my acquaintances are saying that they are selling organs like mad; others have not done a thing this year. Clearly, some market still exists for new sales, but it is spotty and dependent on the diligence of the sales staff.

[John Vanderlee]

Interesting take on uMIDI. Just be aware that when you write, I believe the people in question are following this thread.

[John Vanderlee]

I might just add I have no financial interest, other than the fact that both systems perform as intended for us.

[don60]

We all remember that whenever someone here pointed out an "irregularity" in the Florida Flipper's eBay listings, they would be magically fixed in a matter of minutes or removed entirely.

I write these posts as if the subjects were reading them. My mom always said "Drive as if a cop were sitting next to you."

Mark Anderson is obviously a very bright and skilled engineer, and I have always found him to be friendly, personable, and helpful. But he is one person trying to maintain an empire. I can sympathize because I am up to a year behind on some of my jobs. That's the nature of the organ business--too few workers and too many vineyards. If we wanted "easy," we would take up the guitar.

[Admin]

I didn't see anything disrespectful in your comments and appreciate your candor. Obviously, if someone disagrees with your opinion they are free to post their own. The difficulties and successes others have had using Artisan products, and Mr. Anderson's helpful role in the process, is pretty well documented in several topics on this Forum.

[John Vanderlee]

Guitar?
Did you consider that in today's "music" market, general appreciation of an organ would be enhanced if it looked like a guitar? :o:devil::-B

[don60]

OK, John, I will run with that thought. Last year, two of my students (electrical and mechanical engineering programs at a small university) proposed and started to build what they called a "MIDI Guitar." The intent was to make a MIDI controller that played like an ordinary guitar so that guitarists with no skills on keyboards, wind instruments, etc., could produce sounds from those other families. Too bad their idea did not come to fruition, as I would have enjoyed some good organ music during class.

Face it, if Eddie Van Halen had played classical organ in his band, organ sales would still be through the roof. There is just no glamor in the instrument for today's younger people because the technology is no more impressive to them than a smart phone, and the music is seen as the quaint preference of stodgy old people. It does not help that classical organ is tied so closely in most minds to Christian churches, which are losing young people in droves.

[John Vanderlee]

Yet, it is interesting to note that when they actually see an organist playing (instead of being hidden) they often stand with their mouths open. "He plays with his feet!"
We experienced that with an (Allen)organ in our shopping mall these last Christmas' past.

[don60]

Agreed--youngsters are not stupid, they are just underexposed to aspects of our society and culture that were taken for granted in decades past.

I notice on You Tube that many favorable comments are posted by teens and 20s regarding music from our youth that I still consider among the best popular songs every written in any era. They say things like "just found this song and cannot stop listening." There is still hope if we can find a better way to transmit our culture and values through the imposing wall of the main-stream media, which want to blot out the past and create their brave new future.

[Admin]

MIDI guitars have been around for quite some time and MIDI controllers like the one below can be easily retrofitted.

There are many well known rock organists, Ray Manzarek, Keith Emerson, Jon Lord, Rick Wakeman, Billy Preston, Booker T Jones, Steve Winwood, Brian Auger, Al Kooper, Garth Hudson readily come to mind, but lets' face it, the guitar, with its greater stage mobility and performer visibility, has the theatrical advantage.

[don60]

My students were aware of these products. They were trying to build something into the guitar so there was little to no visible evidence of the retrofit. One of their solid accomplishments was that the mechanical engineer laid up carbon fiber to build a replacement neck with a channel for the wiring that would be needed to detect the fretting. We grappled with the issue of pitch detection, as alluded to in the description that you linked, and concluded that detecting the string frets is more reliable and faster than any sort of FFT approach to analyzing the tones. In their proposal, the strings did not have to be in tune or even make real guitar noises; they only had to vibrate enough to trigger a detector that said the string was vibrating with a given amplitude. I thought the project had much promise, but they did not have the backgrounds to pull it off. Maybe next year.

My point was that CLASSICAL organists are not celebrities these days, with one or two possible exceptions such as CC. In the distant past, everyone knew Virgil Fox and E. Power Biggs even outside of the music profession.

[Admin]

The disadvantage to tying the pitch to the frets is that guitarists, classical and rock alike, frequently employ note bending by stretching the strings with their fingers or bender bar.

In general, there are very few classical musician celebrities today, so that's not something specific to classical organ world, just an unfortunate comment on today's musical culture.

[don60]

Mark found the last of my programming errors just now. I will try the result at the church next week and let you all know what happens. To reiterate, he has been uniformly pleasant and helpful throughout the saga of the relay upgrade. If I had listened to him a year ago when he suggested the uMIDI as a replacement for the old system, I would have been done long ago.

Some of the Forum readers may remember that Artisan started out making kit organs, first with vacuum tubes and later with semiconductors. I believe this business endured well into the 80s, by which time the company had been acquired by an outfit called AOK Industries. Unlike Heathkit/Thomas and Schober, Artisan used individual keyed oscillators and an architecture reminiscent of Allen's smaller instruments with a handful of oscillator ranks and tone-changing circuitry to give some variety in the resulting voices. And unlike Heathkit and Schober, they did not confine themselves to stock configurations, although some standard models were offered as a starting point. One could design and built a very large organ using their components, ending up with something every bit as impressive as an Allen Custom of the era. The quality of their components did not match Allen's, but then again neither did the cost.

Artisan eventually migrated to free-running oscillators with keyers, much like the Rodgers instruments, in order to reduce costs while providing a wider tone and pitch variety. I never experienced one of these late-generation organs to know what it sounded like. They also were offering lighted stop tabs by that time to upgrade from the "moving" tabs with blind combination action that came standard in the earlier organs.

When I showed some interest in and aptitude for the organ, my parents bought me a used Artisan three-manual theater organ built by one of my dad's coworkers. I still have it back at their house but have not tried to play it in some time. It has two manual ranks, a unit flute (with the ability to tone-change it to diapason, string, or reed) and an 8' Great rank. Obviously, it is unified within an inch of its life, but it provided enough resources for me to do some very credible practicing at home and take lessons at the local college while still in high school. The circuitry was simple enough for me to maintain and modify (I changed a number of the stops using published filter schematics from Artisan) while offering enough sophistication to give reasonable sound.

I still think of Artisan in light of my early experiences with one of their products: They provide a great source of parts and information for the enthusiast with significant knowledge of electronics. Someone with no background is going to become overwhelmed or frustrated in short order when inevitable glitches show up. Mark Anderson does what he can, but meeting him half way by asking KNOWLEDGEABLE questions and trying to do things yourself before involving him are always going to get a more helpful response and a better result. If one does not have the stomach for a project organ, he should look elsewhere.

In the hands of a good dealer, Artisan products can be suitable for light commercial use, but I am not sure that I would install a uMIDI in the Wanamaker organ. That scale of project is not what Artisan supports.

A member just expressed to me privately that he worries about the company's future once Mark is out of the picture. I do not personally know the other key players but realize that Mark is responsible for much of the technical content of the business. As such, I worry a bit too. It would be a shame to lose them since they fill a unique niche in the organ supply market.

[AllenAnalog]

In my early years of engineering work we did many custom and unique designs for clients. As I hit middle age I realized that some of my projects would outlive me and I shifted to using as much off-the-shelf hardware as possible and programming platforms that were commonly used. That, with lots of documentation, assured me that my creations could be maintained by reasonably intelligent people if I got hit by the proverbial bus.

When I was on a committee to recommend a relay system for a pipe organ, one of the criteria we had was to understand the support structure of the maker and to be assured that it was not a one-man show, subject to zero support if something happened to that person.

I had that situation occur with my big fountain project. The show control software was written by a guy who kept it all a big secret and 8 years later, when he died unexpectedly, his son knew nothing about how it worked. The company went out of business. So to accommodate some lighting upgrades we had to install totally new software and pay someone to re-write all of the show files.