Topic: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

I can see I can map and transpose MIDI into all four organ keyboards, that works intuitively, but I'm a little surprised that I cannot extend the range beyond the five octaves for each keyboard.

Am I missing something? I haven't seen anything in the manual about this, although I haven't read it word by word yet.

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

There's no way to do that, no.

Hard work and guts!

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

Ah, thanks for the reply. I guess this is done to preserve authenticity of the instrument, right?

So I'm guessing one way would be to sample and pitch-shift what I need, which would degrade quality, or more realistically, configure another organ keyboard to the same kind of pipes an octave lower, and MIDI-map it next to each other? I think that might work, as long as there's the same kind of pipes available.

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

You already have 8 octaves of pitches in total, from the 16' 8' 4' and 2' stops.

Organteq works like a real pipe organ, not like a software sampler where you can pitch shift anything anywhere.

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

You're replying to a guy with a picture of a theatre organ console. These guys expect one rank to play at just about any pitch on any keyboard  <ducks>.  "Classical" organists don't.  They also expect their 4' flute to sound different to the 8' flute, even at the same pitch.

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

1. The profile picture was selected in about 2.8 seconds from the selection Modartt gave me when I registered.

2. I never claimed to be an organist of any kind, theatre or classical, or whatever other kinds there are.

3. Pianoteq offers "unreal" ranges of many instruments, kalimba, glockenspiel, etc.

4. I'm not classically trained, educated, or a professional, and never tried to give off that impression.

Now that's cleared, does anyone have the patience to explain a bit more to me?

To explain: I'm trying to learn to play Arvo Pärt's Trivium, 2nd movement, from note sheets and from two youtube videos as a rough reference. Already the sixth chord confuses me, as it's A1 D2 F2 on left hand, and D3 on the right hand. However, since I'm playing a mix of 16', 8', 4' on Grand Orgue, I can't go any lower than that. The A1 ends up sort-of working because I have it MIDI-mapped to pedals, so it gets lost in the mix but it doesn't sound right.

Last edited by analytik (30-11-2019 14:44)

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

In Pianoteq, you can extend the keyboard range to full 128 keys. You can also import multiple scala files for a keyboard with up to 2048 keys (over 16 MIDI channels). I hope these features will soon be added to Organteq.

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

jakn wrote:

In Pianoteq, you can extend the keyboard range to full 128 keys. You can also import multiple scala files for a keyboard with up to 2048 keys (over 16 MIDI channels). I hope these features will soon be added to Organteq.

For a pianist discovering the organ, it is always surprising to find the extreme keys of the keyboard mute, for example with the principal 16' (bass) or the picolo 1' (treble) while most of the organs (at least for the bass) offer an additional octave. (and in the treble for some)
1 octave more in the bass and treble would be interesting:
Illustration with lower octave transposition of principal 16 (pseudo principal 32) and picolo 1 (last octave)  with organteq: link: https://forum.modartt.com/uploads.php?f...Picolo.mp3

Bruno

Last edited by bm (12-12-2019 07:26)

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

bm wrote:

For a pianist discovering the organ, it is always surprising to find the extreme keys of the keyboard mute, for example with the principal 16' (bass) or the picolo 1' (treble) while most of the organs (at least for the bass) offer an additional octave. (and in the treble for some)
1 octave more in the bass and treble would be interesting:

I really wonder if the 1' stop's missing octave is a bug.  I wouldn't mind Modartt weighing in on that.

In reviewing the stop-lists of two (very large) pipe organs in the area where I live, the 206 rank instrument (147 stops) has 15 stops that are less than 2' and the 130 rank instrument (103 stops) has 6 stops less than 2'.  The former even has a 2/3' Mixture and 1/2' Mixture.  In every single rank, there are 61 pipes (183 or 244 in the mixtures), so doing a full rank of 1' pipes seems typical in a large organ.  On these same organs, it's typical to see 12 pipes (one octave) only in some 32' ranks or even as few as 4 pipes in the 64' ranks (these are true 64' and not resultant which is extremely unusual), but the pedals are the only time (understandably) that ranks smaller than the 61-key manual are used.  Both organs also have "top octave extensions" which means that most or all stops (it varies by divisional) that are longer than 2' are extended to 68 pipes, and these extra pipes are engaged by the octave couplers (like Great to Great 4' or Swell to Swell 4' which Organteq already has in the coupler transposition option).  While I can only speak in detail for the American Symphonic organs I know, I doubt that European organs typically shorten 1' ranks, but maybe that's more common than I realize--especially in 19th Century or earlier organs.

My guess is that this is either a bug or there is some technical issue (like too much cpu needed) preventing the last octave of that stop being enabled.

(And yes, I'd love to see at least one 32' stop added--even if it's just a 12 note rank, hopefully it isn't somehow prevented by cpu like some long pedaled bass notes in Pianoteq can be.)

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Pianoteq Studio & Organteq
Casio GP300 & Custom organ console

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

To the OP: the manuals on an organ are usually only 5 octaves (sometimes they aren't even that). So there really isn't a point in extending the keyboards. The ranks should be extendable (if they aren't already). If an organist needs the organ to sound like it's in a different register (lower or higher than the manuals go), they will register accordingly. For the specific chord you used as an example, a regular organist would have registered a manual with 8', 4', and 2' stops, the pedals with similar 16', 8', and 4' stops, then played the A1 bass note with a foot.

Last edited by samibe (28-12-2019 08:03)

Re: Any way to extend the range of keyboards?

samibe wrote:

The ranks should be extendable (if they aren't already).

Ranks are not yet extended (or extendable), but I hope Modartt adds that ability soon.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xHiPcCsm29R12HX4eXd4J
Pianoteq Studio & Organteq
Casio GP300 & Custom organ console