The Mighty Kurzweil lives!

[poltr1]

Years ago, I had the idea of stacking a few Kurzweil K2000 keyboards, adding an AGO pedalboard, MIDIfying the pedalboard, and adding some Kurzweil rackmounted equipment and a computer. It would be called "The Mighty Kurzweil", paying homage to the "Mighty Wurlitzer" theatre organs of old.

Of course, what stopped me from realizing the dream was available time, money, and the space to put it.

Well, it's been realized. By one of the most influential people in electronic music -- Wendy Carlos, and a team of talented engineers from several different companies. Check out her WurliTzer II unit orchestra, also called "Wurly II". Here's a picture.

Comments

[folkmew.livejournal.com]

Did you now that Ed wrote his own midi-pedal controller software so he could practice pedal parts at home? I'll have to send him your post to check out. Getting an old pedalboard is alarmingly easy unfortunately.
Also - if you have any interest in PIPE organs you should check out Ed's http://www.organstops.org which has been the proud receipient of pipe sampling software donated by the author so he has samples of the various stops going up! Hey - I'm proud I admit it. :-) The most fun was when my sister gave Ed a NYTimes well reviewed novel called "ALl the Stops" which is a funny and interesting book about pipe organs and the world of pipe organs (including some amusing stories about the flamboyant Virgil Fox) anyway - at the end, unbeknownst to both my sister and Ed, in the acknowlegments he thanks Ed Stauff and his Encyclopedia of ORgan Stops!! Hee. :-)

[poltr1]

I knew he was a church organist (by avocation) but didn't know he was a technonerdboy like the rest of us! Go Ed!

Getting an old pedalboard is alarmingly easy unfortunately.

Eep! Meanwhile, the Moog Taurus II pedals are getting harder to find.

That's one of the few things I miss about Catholic services -- the organ music. Both of the churches I went to -- St. Edmund's in Tonawanda NY, and St. Francis of Assisi in Centerville, OH -- had Allen organs. And talented people to play them. (The one at St. Francis even had a punched-card reader for loading certain sounds.)

Some of the organ stops had unusual names that I couldn't figure out what they were, as I didn't speak German and therefore couldn't map them to traditional instruments. Like "Lieblich Gedeckt".

[folkmew.livejournal.com]

Ed has his computer degree from Yale and has worked as a software engineer for over 20 years now. But he also studied music very seriously and he is the "music minister" at St. Stephen's Episcopal so I guess that makes it a real "vocation" eh? (I sure know we count on those weekly paychecks! :-)

Apparently there is a prejudice amongst professional organists that *most* Catholic churches do not have nice organs. They tend to have what is disdainfully looked down upon in the trade as "toasters" (meaning electronic organs). Having said that I am pretty sure I've heard Ed say good things about Allens. In fact, I think he almost got a job programming for Allen which would have been the perfect merging of his two loves. But alas, it did not pan out.

Do check out the organstops.org site, if nothing else it is worth checking out "vox cetacea" which is Ed's invention. :-)