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The virtual console If you haven't already done so, follow the relevant 'quick start' section in this guide. If it isn't loaded already, use Organ | Load organ on the Hauptwerk menu to load the St. Anne's, Moseley organ sample set. It should look approximately as follows:
The left and right-hand panels on the screen are the stop jambs and contain the stops, couplers and tremulant virtual draw-knobs. As you have already seen, clicking on a virtual draw-knob toggles it between the off and on states. A draw-knob is on when it is pulled out. In fact, all virtual switches can be controlled by the mouse, provided that the creator of the sample set has allowed it. A switch is either latching or momentary. Latching switches (such as draw-knobs) change state when clicked, whilst momentary switches (such as keys) turn on when you press the mouse button and turn off again when you release it. Although you would not normally operate the organ by clicking on virtual controls with the mouse, it is a quick and useful way to explore a virtual instrument initially. The left-hand jamb has the stops and couplers for the Swell division, which is played from the upper of the two virtual manuals. The far-right column of draw-knobs has the stops for the Pedal division, which is played from the virtual pedal keyboard in the centre at the bottom of the screen. The next two columns on the right-hand jamb are the Great stops and the Great and Pedal couplers. The Great division is played from the lower of the two virtual manuals. You can click on any of the three virtual keyboards to play their keys. You must have at least one stop engaged for the relevant division in order to hear any pipes when you play a key. For example, turn on the Oboe 8 stop on the left-hand jamb, and then click on a key on the upper virtual manual, and you should hear the Oboe pipes sound. Draw (engage) a stop on the Swell, such as the Oboe 8, but with none engaged on the Great. Click on a key on the Great manual. You should not hear the sound of any pipes. Now draw the Swell To Great coupler and click on a Great key again. You should now hear the corresponding Oboe pipe sound. Note, however, that the virtual keys on the Swell manual do not move because the coupling happens internally, within the key action action, rather than between the manuals directly. With the Oboe 8 still engaged, turn on the Tremulant at the top of the left-hand jamb. Click on a key somewhere in the middle of the Swell manual. You should hear that a gentle undulation is imparted to the sound. The effect varies for each rank, and across the compass of the manual. The Tremulant only affects the Swell ranks. Above the virtual pedalboard are two large pedals. The left-hand one is the swell pedal. Click on the virtual swell pedal near the bottom of its image and you should see it move. The virtual swell box is now closed. With a stop engaged on the Swell (such as the Oboe 8), play a key on the virtual Swell manual and note how it sounds. Now click on the swell pedal near the top of its image and you should see it move again. The swell box is now open. Play a key on the Swell manual again, and it should sound different. Clicking in the middle of the swell pedal image will cause the swell box to be open only half way. The second, right-hand, large pedal is the crescendo pedal. It is moved in the same way as the swell pedal, by clicking at different vertical positions on its image. Try different positions whilst playing keys on the Great manual each time. You should hear more pipes sound according to how far 'down' it is (how near to the top you have clicked). You will not see the virtual draw-knobs move, but note that the Brincradus indicator, immediately to the right of the two manuals, also moves to show its position. These two pedals and the Brincradus indicator are examples of virtual continuous controls, in that they can be in any one of a continuous range of positions, rather than just on or off as with virtual switches. All virtual continuous controls can be operated in the same way by clicking at different positions within their images, provided that the sample set allows it. Note that the Brincradus indicator is an example of a continuous control for which mouse control is not allowed, since it is not itself a user control, but merely an indicator of a state within the organ. The wind indicators (covered later) are further examples. Most continuous controls are set by the vertical click position but others are set by the horizontal click position (none on St. Anne's). Switches and continuous controls are the two possible types of virtual controls available in Hauptwerk. Underneath the Swell (upper) manual and to the right are three latching pistons named Cr To Ped, Cr To Gt and Cr to Sw, each with a small red indicator lamp to show whether they are on or off. The indicator lamps are examples of switches which cannot be controlled by the mouse because they too are indicators and not user controls directly. These three pistons determine whether the crescendo pedal affects the Pedal, Great and Swell divisions respectively. The FF piston underneath the Great (lower) manual is also latching with an indicator lamp. When engaged the full organ registration (tutti) is engaged, adding to whatever registration is shown on the draw-knobs. The PP piston is another playing aid, which entirely bypasses the draw-knob registration, replacing it with a soft registration. On the far right, underneath the Great manual, the piston labelled C is the general cancel. Clicking on it causes all draw-knobs to be turned off, but does not affect the crescendo, FF or PP pistons. The console display has multiple tabs. If you have the Advanced Edition of Hauptwerk you can open up to four tabs at once in separate windows using the Organ | Show another console window menu function:
This is most useful if your computer has two or more touch-screen monitors attached to it. For example, you could display one window (display tab) on a monitor to the left of your MIDI keyboard(s) and another to the right to give a traditional organ console layout with some stops on either side of your MIDI keyboard(s) when using sample sets that have their virtual console tabs laid out in that way. Click on the Generals tab, and you should see the following screen:
You can use this screen to adjust the registrations set by the FF and PP pistons. Click on a switch to toggle its state, as normal for virtual switches. The switches on the screen are on when they are moved to the left. Click on the Crescendo tab:
The switches control the registration at each of the forty possible crescendo pedal positions. When the pedal is fully up (off; clicked at the bottom of its image), the crescendo action will cause no additional stops to be engaged. When it is moved very slightly down (clicked slightly higher on the image), the registration shown in the column labelled 1 will be added to whatever registration is shown on the draw-knobs. Slightly more, and it will be that from column 2, and so forth until it is fully down, when column 40 will determine the registration added. As the pedal is moved backwards, the sequence is reversed. As with the Generals tab, a switch is on when it is pointing to the left. Go back on the main Console tab:
Immediately underneath the manuals and to the far left are reversible pistons for the Sw To Gt and Gt To Ped couplers. If you click on those pistons you will see the corresponding virtual draw-knobs move. Immediately to the right of the crescendo pedal is another reversible piston for the Gt To Ped coupler. To the right of the PP piston are the Sw Mel and Ped Bass couplers. Both are latching switches with indicator lamps. The former causes only the highest key played on the Great manual to sound on the Swell division, whilst the latter causes the lowest key played on the Great manual to be duplicated on the Pedal division. The Ped Bass coupler may be particularly useful if you do not have a MIDI pedalboard. The pistons numbered 1 to 5 underneath the Great manual are divisional pistons. If you click on them you will see the draw-knobs move for the Great stops and couplers as each of the stored registrations is recalled. The pistons labelled 1 to 5 underneath the Swell manual do likewise for the Swell stops, couplers and tremulant. For ergonomic convenience they are also duplicated by the foot pistons labelled 1 to 5 immediately above the pedalboard and on the left-hand side. The pistons labelled 1 to 5 above and to the right of the pedalboard recall the Pedal divisional combinations. If the Gt & Ped Pistons Coupled draw-knob is drawn (near the bottom of the right-hand jamb), pressing a Pedal combination piston also causes the corresponding Great combination to be recalled. Likewise, pressing a Great combination piston causes the corresponding Pedal combination to be recalled. Click on the Divisionals tab:
Here you can adjust the registrations recalled by each of the five pistons for each division. Go back on the main Console tab again:
Underneath the Swell manual and to the far right is a piston marked SET. It is the combination setter or combination capture piston. It is a latching piston, but it does not have an indicator lamp. If you click on it several times, you will see that it moves in and out, and stays in that position. When it is in the 'in' position (on), choose a registration on the Swell using the virtual draw-knobs. Then click Swell divisional combination piston 1. Instead of recalling the combination stored for the piston, your current registration will have been saved to the piston. Turn off the setter piston, and click on Swell pistons 2 and 1 to verify that your combination is now recalled by piston 1. You will also be able to see your updated combination on the Divisionals screen tab. Note also that the word Capture lights up in the status bar at the bottom-right of the Hauptwerk window when the setter piston is on:
Combination capture is a special mode in Hauptwerk, which can be controlled by the Functions | Enter capture mode and Functions | Leave capture mode menu items as well as by the setter piston:
The menu items and the setter piston perform identical functions. The menus are covered in depth in later sections of this guide. For now, note that combinations can be saved to and loaded from combination files, so that you could have different sets of combinations stored for different pieces in a recital, for example. The St. Anne's divisional and general combination settings are saved in such files, along with the crescendo settings and the registration sequencer frames (covered in a later section). The states of virtual controls can be remembered between unloading and loading an organ, defined by the creator of the sample set. However, on the St. Anne's organ all controls (draw-knobs, expression pedals, etc.) always return to their default states to avoid any confusion. The states of the switches on the three combination programmer boards are not remembered between loads because they are instead saved into combination files, which provides greater flexibility. The final screen tab is the Wind tab:
There are no controls on this tab that you can interact with directly. The indicators with numbered scales show the modelled air pressures in water column inches at various points within the virtual wind supply system. The indicators without numbered scales show the extensions of modelled regulator bellows for the system. Hauptwerk's complex wind supply physical model uses fluid dynamics principles and equations to model the movements of air through the air supply system, affecting the sound of each pipe individually as it fluctuates. Hence each pipe can interact subtly and realistically with every other pipe. If you engage the FF piston on St. Anne's, then play and release a chord on the Great manual from a MIDI keyboard whilst looking at the Wind tab, you will see the needles move as the wind supply system adapts to the changes in demand and then stabilises again. [Please note: the wind supply model is only available in the Advanced Edition of Hauptwerk and is not currently available to customers in the U.S.A.] |
