wehtam721
New member
Hello everyone,
As I've been playing lately, I've noticed two things about how couplers are working that seem to me to be less than favorable. I'm not sure how feasible a fix to either issue would be, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I'm attaching two videos to help demonstrate what I'm trying to explain here.
1. I'm guessing that the algorithm for recalling stops and couplers from a general/divisional is really just very rapidly changing the state of the stops/couplers one at a time. Knowing the little that I do about computer programming, running a loop of sorts to take care of this would be my first thought. At the present, it seems that stop changes happen first, then couplers.
In the video you can see the complications of this. When a coupler is engaged, you can hear a "chirp" of stops/pitches that shouldn't actually play because the stops have been switched on before the related coupler was switched off. In the video, I give two examples. First, switching between a flute which is played at 8' and 4' pitch (using a 4' coupler) and a trumpet without the coupler. You can hear the trumpet play really quickly at 4' pitch because the coupler hasn't turned off yet. The second example shows how it could affect percussion stops. The glockenspiel in the choir of my organ plays on the great because (again) it is switched on before the choir to great 8' coupler is switched off. Playing subsequent notes shows that the glockenspiel is only triggered in that instant when the switch takes place.
I'm not sure that there's a good fix for this because simply switching the order so that couplers changed state first, followed by stops would cause a similar problem. I'm guessing that this problem is worse on very large organs because there are more stops to switch on and off before the algorithm gets to the couplers. Perhaps couplers should be triggered immediately before/after their respective divisions which might minimize the effect? Either way, this is not an earth shattering problem because it's only noticeable under certain circumstances, just something that I've run across.
2. The second thing I've noticed is that manuals which are coupled do not respond to low velocity key presses. Most of the time this is not a problem, but I can hear it happen from time to time while I'm playing. In the video, I have one division with stops drawn coupled to the great and no stops drawn on the great at all. You can see that I am pressing keys down on the great (because they show on the GrandOrgue display in red) but the corresponding keys on the coupled manual do not play even though I would expect them to. This happens when I very delicately press the keys down on my keyboards which are velocity sensitive. Just after demonstrating this, I play with normal force, and the coupler functions exactly as expected and you see the keys "depress" on both manuals on the screen. It seems like something in the code might be causing coupled manuals to not respond to the full range of velocities by default. Each manual responds to even the most delicate of keypresses on its home keyboard, even when couplers are engaged. The issue only takes place on the manuals that other divisions are coupled to.
Sorry that this is such a lengthy post. I was trying to be clear about what I was observing. Hopefully the videos help to show what I'm describing, but if anything is still unclear, please let me know. If there's any additional information that I can provide about what I've noticed, let me know and I'll be happy to run some tests and get back to everyone.
Take care,
Matt
As I've been playing lately, I've noticed two things about how couplers are working that seem to me to be less than favorable. I'm not sure how feasible a fix to either issue would be, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I'm attaching two videos to help demonstrate what I'm trying to explain here.
1. I'm guessing that the algorithm for recalling stops and couplers from a general/divisional is really just very rapidly changing the state of the stops/couplers one at a time. Knowing the little that I do about computer programming, running a loop of sorts to take care of this would be my first thought. At the present, it seems that stop changes happen first, then couplers.
In the video you can see the complications of this. When a coupler is engaged, you can hear a "chirp" of stops/pitches that shouldn't actually play because the stops have been switched on before the related coupler was switched off. In the video, I give two examples. First, switching between a flute which is played at 8' and 4' pitch (using a 4' coupler) and a trumpet without the coupler. You can hear the trumpet play really quickly at 4' pitch because the coupler hasn't turned off yet. The second example shows how it could affect percussion stops. The glockenspiel in the choir of my organ plays on the great because (again) it is switched on before the choir to great 8' coupler is switched off. Playing subsequent notes shows that the glockenspiel is only triggered in that instant when the switch takes place.
I'm not sure that there's a good fix for this because simply switching the order so that couplers changed state first, followed by stops would cause a similar problem. I'm guessing that this problem is worse on very large organs because there are more stops to switch on and off before the algorithm gets to the couplers. Perhaps couplers should be triggered immediately before/after their respective divisions which might minimize the effect? Either way, this is not an earth shattering problem because it's only noticeable under certain circumstances, just something that I've run across.
2. The second thing I've noticed is that manuals which are coupled do not respond to low velocity key presses. Most of the time this is not a problem, but I can hear it happen from time to time while I'm playing. In the video, I have one division with stops drawn coupled to the great and no stops drawn on the great at all. You can see that I am pressing keys down on the great (because they show on the GrandOrgue display in red) but the corresponding keys on the coupled manual do not play even though I would expect them to. This happens when I very delicately press the keys down on my keyboards which are velocity sensitive. Just after demonstrating this, I play with normal force, and the coupler functions exactly as expected and you see the keys "depress" on both manuals on the screen. It seems like something in the code might be causing coupled manuals to not respond to the full range of velocities by default. Each manual responds to even the most delicate of keypresses on its home keyboard, even when couplers are engaged. The issue only takes place on the manuals that other divisions are coupled to.
Sorry that this is such a lengthy post. I was trying to be clear about what I was observing. Hopefully the videos help to show what I'm describing, but if anything is still unclear, please let me know. If there's any additional information that I can provide about what I've noticed, let me know and I'll be happy to run some tests and get back to everyone.
Take care,
Matt