Jim "Miditzer" Henry
New Member
Hi! My name is Jim Henry. I am the creator of the Miditzer virtual theatre organ software. This is a non-commercial project that I started about 20 years ago. I am a bit of a fish out of water here because I am barely a musician due to a lack of talent not effort. I have some credibility as an organ technician if I have to claim some music related expertise. My project, the Miditzer, is about virtual instrument control but probably in a way that is foreign and/or counter-intuitive to most of you.
Organs have a rather unique performer interface because they provide sound selection as well as note selection. The Miditzer was created to translate MIDI and computer screen inputs into MIDI outputs that can be used to emulate an organ performance. The Miditzer does not produce sound by itself. It has been tightly integrated with FluidSynth and the Bruce Miles Cinema Organ sound font for most of its life to simplify getting started for new users. But it is flexible with regard to how sounds are generated.
I am here to exchange ideas for some "cross-pollination" of the Miditzer. The Miditzer's original concept was to faithfully emulate the way a Wurlitzer pipe organ behaves. If you have ever wondered what all the buttons and doo-dads on a theatre organ console do, you can find out by experimenting with the Miditzer on a PC. (Sadly there is no Mac version.) The Miditzer does also enable a very credible emulation of the sound of a theatre organ in real time performance. Ben Model used the Miditzer for a number of years accompanying silent movies at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and other venues and on recordings to accompany silent movies on DVD. An example of his work can be seen and heard here: (He has since moved on to Hauptwerk.)
The Miditzer Style 216 is available as a free download for PCs at https://www.miditzer.org/index.php/miditzer-organs/miditzer-style-216 Here is a screenshot of the interface:
It is a small download, about 6.5 Mb, and a quick and easy installation. If you have any interest in theatre organs, you will learn much more by fiddling around with the Miditzer than I could ever teach you with words. The entire organ is playable with the mouse on the screen. You can also use the computer keyboard to control some keys and a few of the controls. Everything can also be controlled with MIDI inputs but at this point the learning curve begins to bend upward. There is no documentation included to encourage experimentation. There is a Forum dedicated to the Miditzer that has a wealth of information if you are willing to dig for it.
I look forward to exchanging ideas with more mainstream musicians.
Organs have a rather unique performer interface because they provide sound selection as well as note selection. The Miditzer was created to translate MIDI and computer screen inputs into MIDI outputs that can be used to emulate an organ performance. The Miditzer does not produce sound by itself. It has been tightly integrated with FluidSynth and the Bruce Miles Cinema Organ sound font for most of its life to simplify getting started for new users. But it is flexible with regard to how sounds are generated.
I am here to exchange ideas for some "cross-pollination" of the Miditzer. The Miditzer's original concept was to faithfully emulate the way a Wurlitzer pipe organ behaves. If you have ever wondered what all the buttons and doo-dads on a theatre organ console do, you can find out by experimenting with the Miditzer on a PC. (Sadly there is no Mac version.) The Miditzer does also enable a very credible emulation of the sound of a theatre organ in real time performance. Ben Model used the Miditzer for a number of years accompanying silent movies at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and other venues and on recordings to accompany silent movies on DVD. An example of his work can be seen and heard here: (He has since moved on to Hauptwerk.)
The Miditzer Style 216 is available as a free download for PCs at https://www.miditzer.org/index.php/miditzer-organs/miditzer-style-216 Here is a screenshot of the interface:
It is a small download, about 6.5 Mb, and a quick and easy installation. If you have any interest in theatre organs, you will learn much more by fiddling around with the Miditzer than I could ever teach you with words. The entire organ is playable with the mouse on the screen. You can also use the computer keyboard to control some keys and a few of the controls. Everything can also be controlled with MIDI inputs but at this point the learning curve begins to bend upward. There is no documentation included to encourage experimentation. There is a Forum dedicated to the Miditzer that has a wealth of information if you are willing to dig for it.
I look forward to exchanging ideas with more mainstream musicians.
