Introduction
By Robert Hopp
After observing the MMD a little bit and finding it very interesting, I try to introduce myself :
My name is Robert Hopp, I am organbuilder since the age of 16 years when I started apprenticeship in Munich (Bavaria). I worked 5 years in Church organs, especially in voicing (harmonization) in Germany, Switzerland and France. In 1979 I started building mechanical organs of my own design in the Mediterranean part of France. Last year I came back to Germany where my family lives. I build mechanical organs of all sizes in an old-looking style, synsitizing old Italian, French and other Latin and mediterranean styles. I especially like "Commedia dell'Arte" look, my organs are painted by a French artist living half his life in Venezia. These organs are very different from what you can see and hear normally. I use full or at least partial chromatic scales and homogeneous ranks of pipes, so I can play any type of music, not only polyphonic and popular. But I work alone or with my father, so it takes time to make an organ ...
A part from organ-building I invented and constructed in 1990 to 1992 a MIDI- reading- and perforation- system : "AMADEUS". It took me a lot of time and energy but to my knowledge it was the first full compatible multi-standard system. It perforates and reads up to 425 mm (about 17") width and 128 keys, rolls or thick books, paper or cardboard. It takes about 5 minutes to AMADEUS to define a new standard (on textfile), we worked for about 40 different instruments and made already about 350.000.000 holes ! I can say that AMADEUS is driven in. All parameters are soft-configured individually, so it is possible for example to correct departure-times of percussions, late bass-notes, and so on. It works with a precision of 1/100 mm and is musically absolutely exact. The reading system is working with a kind of scanner, optical fibers and light coming from underneath through the perforations, and works real-time. It puts out MIDI 1 and it is possible to re-perforate immediately. We work on the Video-version. AMADEUS works on DOS, Windows 3.11 and soon on Win 32 bits. It needs only a slow computer, I have it working on an old 386. The software is filtering any bad notes and events on demand, so it is possible even for beginners to make music with any sequencer.
AMADEUS (as my organs, by the way) is also for sale, it might interest amateurs and professionals, as well as collectors and museums. If anybody is interested, please e-mail, but be patient, I did not yet translate my different flyers and catalogues. I will keep you informed.
Robert Hopp - Quercus Edition
Erlenweg 16
D-84183 Niederviehbach
Germany
Phone : +49 8702 91183
Fax : +49 8702 91184 |
(Message sent Sun 6 Oct 1996, 01:09:00 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.) |
|
|
Mechanical
Music Digest™ Archives
