Dale Ramsey Music

Since my last post, I have added to my “virtual organ” two new instruments, plus a harpsichord! I have also upgraded to HauptWerk vs. 4. All these things have greatly increased the fun and joy of my system. The two new organs are 1) the 1928 E.M. Skinner organ of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Chicago, […]

As I enthusiastically stated last post, there are many and exciting good things to say about the Hauptwerk organ, the gear I accumulated, and the “St. Anne” organ. Here are some of the realities or perhaps limitations that took me a bit by surprise. They surprised me only because I had expectations that weren’t realized. […]

The good news is quite good and quite substantive. The Hauptwerk organ with its “St. Annes” virtual organ is playing and the mechanics of the organ are all functioning as they should. It has been challenging and fun getting to this point. Since last post, I’ve fixed some problems and learned quite a lot about this […]

More and more elements of a complete installation are taking place. This project is far from “plug and play”. There is a great amount of hands on/head scratching/fixing up and setting-up that goes on.  And there have been several detours and complications. Here are the most recent ones. I mentioned last post that the swell […]

Today, I am happy to say I played my first pieces on the new Hauptwerk vitrual organ. When I last posted, I had assembled and attached and “wired” all the hardware together. We were ready for software installation and configuration of the console. Not having done anything with MIDI before, I was nervous. Turns out, […]

Some time has passed, now, and much progress has been made on the “virtual” organ building project. The gear has all arrived and the separate elements have been assembled. The biggest among these was the putting together of the organ bench. It arrived in a flat box and required driving wood screws in various places […]

Having brought home the computer, I have been looking for additional pieces of equipment necessary for the Hauptwerk Virtual Organ system. They include: the console (keyboards, pedalboard, combination pistons, expression pedals, bench, music desk). Handily, these are all available at an outfit called Classic Midi Works. Well, mostly. They are currently back ordered on the “furniture” aspect of […]

Linking the console (keyboards, etc.) to the computer requires a simple Midi line-in feed.  Linking the resulting sound from the computer software to the home audio system requires an audio card. These elements are met in one piece of gear–the Echo Audiofire 8. The firewire link into and out of the computer handles all the connectivity […]

Thanks to my lovely wife, Marcia, I received the Hauptwerk Virtual Organ software for Christmas. For several weeks now, I’ve been building a budget and researching hardware requirements and options. Of course, the software is the least expensive part of the package and the easiest to decide upon. I’ve discovered that the computer required to run the software must […]