CLONEWHEELS - External keyboard as *upper* manual

[konaboy]

Hi,

My Electro allows for connection of external midi keyboard for control of lower manual.

But I would prefer to use the Electro keyboard for lower manual, and external for upper.

My reasoning, the Electro keybed is the superior 61 waterfall action, and I spend most time on lower.

For the upper manual, any old 49 midi keyboard controller will do just fine.

 

However, I don't think this is possible. Is there a trick to solve this?

 

Seems to be same issue on most clonewheels sadly.

[konaboy]

i'm no midi expert, but some of you may be.

 

i have a hunch this could be solved with MIDI trickery and a MIDI merge device.

 

For example,

+ Set LOCAL OFF on the Electro

+ Connect Electro MIDI OUT to MIDI IN on merge box

+ Connect upper manual MIDI OUT to MIDI IN on merge box

+ Connect MIDI OUT of merge box to MIDI IN on Electro

+ Now configure the merge box so that all the MIDI channels are correct for upper and lower manual

 

It should work, right?

[konaboy]

haha, figured out a real nice "hack"!

 

Electro is completely unrealistic in that you can put perc on the lower manual...

 

you can see where we're going here.

 

so external keyboard controlling lower manual. but just "pretend" that it is upper and set up drawbars, chorus, perc accordingly. for the upper manual, set up the typical bass+comp drawbars.

 

good to go! dream come true, been trying to nail this for years!

 

hopefully this thread may help others.

[stoken6]

45 minutes ago, konaboy said:

external keyboard controlling lower manual. but just "pretend" that it is upper

That's what I was thinking. Just fool yourself that "lower" means the one on top, and you're good to go.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Old No7]

20 hours ago, stoken6 said:

Just fool yourself that "lower" means the one on top, and you're good to go.

 

Isn't that position called "Reverse Keyboard" ? ? ?

 

Old No7

[Baldwin Funster]

 When they call them Great and Swell I forget which is which anyways. 

[SamuelBLupowitz]

I remember in one of the other organ threads that someone (@Outkaster?) was explaining the differences in approach between jazz organists, who generally play bass on the lower manual and melodies on the upper, and gospel organists, who generally do the reverse (and also tend lean more heavily on the pedals for basslines).

 

I'm always interested in how these tendencies and approaches develop for different styles of music. It's always felt more natural to me to play basslines on the lower manual (because the drawbars for the lower manual are more convenient for my right hand to grab, and because it's physically closer to the pedals), but since I started using a synth for the basslines in my organ trio, I'm now reaching up for the left hand bass anyway...

 

55 minutes ago, Baldwin Funster said:

 When they call them Great and Swell I forget which is which anyways. 

Same! I mean, it basically means the same thing when someone tells you your playing is great or when they tell you your playing is swell, am I right...? 😉 

[drawback]

1 hour ago, Baldwin Funster said:

 When they call them Great and Swell I forget which is which anyways. 

That's easy. One means Awesome and the other means Pretty Good.

[AnotherScott]

 

[Baldwin Funster]

1 hour ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:

.....it basically means the same thing when someone tells you your playing is great or when they tell you your playing is swell, am I right...? 😉 

One is Tony the Tiger and one is Dennis the Menace.