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Peterborough and District Organists'Association

Virtual Organs for Dummies!

How you can have a Wurlitzer in the kitchen or a Brindley & Foster in your sitting room - for FREE!

But no guarantees given or responsibility taken.
This is just a record of what I have done on my machine. I hope it's of interest, that's all.

Virtual Organs - Getting the Software to Work


Miditzer Wurlitzer 216
I am assuming you have clicked on its icon, and you are seeing the console in all its glory. When you use the mouse to click on notes, you hear them (you did remember to push down Main, Solo and Crescendo?). I imagine that your keyboards don't work, however, because you haven't yet told the program where they are! Time to do it, like this:

  1. Switch on the keyboards
  2. Double Left Click on the yellow M at the top left corner of the Miditzer Style 216 screen to see a drop down menu.
  3. Left Click on Miditzer Settings and see a window with the Input tab active.
  4. Look in the left panel that says Available MIDI input devices and you should see "USB Audio Device" with a number beside any beyond the first.
  5. One at a time, highlight one of these, then click on Add>> to pass it across to the Active MIDI input devices panel.
  6. Now go down to the column marked Clavier and see the various manuals listed. I'll use Solo as my example. Next to it is its current MIDI input device. If it isn't saying the right one, and it probably doesn't, Right Click on what it does say (MPU-401 or whatever) and a drop down menu will show you a list with USB Audio Device on it. Left click on this, and you should now see it listed against Solo.
  7. Now you need to set the MIDI Channel to 1, unless it already says 1 against Solo under the column marked Chan. If not, right click the number in the Solo line under the column headed Chan. You will see a drop down list of numbers and click on 1.
  8. Do the same now for Accomp and Pedal, setting these to USB Audio Device (2), (3) etc (or to the proprietory names if you've had to run driver software to connect your keyboard). Make sure each manual is set to Channel 1.
Leave anything you don't use on the default settings. Now look at the top of the window and Left Click on Output. You should see all the Ranks set to Miditzer Fluidsynth. Touch nothing! Go to the foot of the window and see "Select Merged Out device:" and this should say something like SBPCI External MIDI. It may say "no device" in which case, Left Click on the little black triangle box next to it and set it to SBPCI ... you may need to experiment with these settings later. Start with this, it works for me.

Click on OK.
to go back to the console. Put on your headphones and play!

When you are done, Left Click on the M icon again, select Save Combo file, then Left Click on Close. Next time, you can load this file to regain your settings, though it will probably remember them anyway.

If it doesn't work, go through it all again from the little Yellow M icon on the top left of the window and make sure everything is set correctly. Experiment, if required, with the "Select Merged Output:" setting. You'll do no harm. After all, you can uninstall Miditzer whenever you want, reinstall it and have another go - all for free.


Hauptwerk - St Anne's Moseley
I assume you have double Left Clicked on the "Hauptwerk (stand-alone)" icon, Left Clicked on the Free Edition, Left Clicked on Continue, and can see the Hauptwerk screen. Now here's what to do next:

  1. Left Click on the Organ tab at the top of the window. Left Click on "Load stand-by organ 1: StAnnesMoseley".
  2. Wait for the instrument to load, which takes a bit of time. (If very slow, Cancel and reboot to clear the memory, then try again. This may happen if you have run Miditzer before it.)
  3. You should be seeing the console. Left Click on the swell pedals to push them both down.
  4. Put on your headphones, or listen to the speakers, and click on the manuals to hear notes and try out stops etc using just the mouse. If this works, you are well on the way! (If not, there may be a deeper problem such as your computer can't cope.)
  5. Now look for the "General Settings" tab at the top of the console window. Left Click it.
  6. In the drop down menu, Left Click on Keyboard MIDI inputs and see a list of manuals to the left. I will use MIDI manual (Great) as my example.
  7. You should see MIDI manual (Great) highlighted. On the right side of the window, you will see MIDI input path with an entry under it in a box with a downward triangle at the end. Left Click on it to see a list of Audio Devices. Find your USB Audio Device and Left Click on it.
  8. Do the same for the next manuals, selecting the manual in the left panel and the USB Audio Device of the correct number (if more than one) on the right.
  9. Left Click on OK
  10. See the console and Left Click on the swell pedals again so you can see if you can hear anything again using the mouse. One or other of the keyboards may also work.
  11. Left Click on General Settings again. This time Left Click on MIDI input paths.
  12. See the Configure MIDI Input Paths window. Select one of the keyboards you have already set up. It will appear as something like "USB Audio Device:01 'Keyboards: div 1 (Pedals)' or whatever. [The ...:01 is the MIDI channel number and should read 01 for each manual you are setting up (if more than one).]
  13. On the right hand side of the window, Check that the MIDI channel is set to 1, if not, make it so by left clicking on the up or down triangles next to the number.
  14. Left Click on OK when each manual is correctly set to channel 1.
  15. Left Click on the swell pedals again when you get back to the console.
  16. Put on your headphones, or listen to the speakers, and try the keyboards. If one or other is playing the Swell instead of the Great, or Pedals instead of Swell, or whatever, you have set the wrong USB Audio Devices to the manuals. Go back and revise.
If it all works, enjoy yourself! When you are done, Left Click on File at the top left of the console window. Left Click on "Save any unsaved settings changes" and then choose Exit, or Shut down or Restart.

GOOD LUCK

I hope it works for you, it did for me, and on an old Celeron 1.7 with 2GB of memory, with 3 keyboards, one a USB mini MIDI keyboard Controller which I shall wire the pedals into.
You may find your particular keyboard squirts its MIDI out of a channel other than 1. If so, find out from the manual what channel it is using and use that instead of 1 in the above instructions.

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