Organists press the keys of the pedal with their feet to produce the bass notes of church organ music.
This project is about the midification of a church organ pedal board utilizing an Arduino Duo micro controller and readily available, inexpensive IR-sensors. Latency is negligibly small in this setup. Polyphonic pedal play is possible.
Sample-based pipe organ software like GrandOrgue or Hauptwerk offer excellent sound reproduction in real-time, making it possible to play professional organ works on reasonably priced MIDI-keyboards hooked up to a computer. I was in possession of a JOHANNUS analog electronic organ from the 1980's with a solid oak wood pedal with 30 keys. This project details the midification of the pedal board utilizing infrared reflection sensors (TCRT5000).
Ten of these sensors can be had for less than 7 Euros on internet sales platforms.
3. DesignThere are different types of TCRT5000-sensors. I opted for one, that has no means of adjusting the sensitivity and is intended to detect a reflective obstacle within a distance not greater than a few centimeters. I placed the sensors on a strip of wood, 10 x 20 mm in thickness, extending over the entire width of the pedal board.
The distance between an IR-sensor and the end of a pedal key is only a few millimeters.
When the pedal is up (not pressed), the IR-sensor detects the pedal as a reflecting obstacle and signals HIGH. When the pedal is pressed, the IR-sensor sees no obstacle and doesn't signal (= LOW). HIGH or LOW states are read by the Arduino Due and are there translated into MIDI messages that trigger notes in GrandOrgue.
4. WiringThe TCRT5000 sensors come with 3 pins (V-in, ground, out) and are intended for 5 Volts input. When 5 Volts are applied, status HIGH will cause the outpin to send 5 Volts. The Arduino Due, which is especially suited to be set up as a MIDI USB host, requires 3.3 Volts on its input pins. Luckily, the TCRT5000 sensors work reliably with only 3.3 Volts and will then send 3.3 Volts as HIGH.
30 IR-sensors, each drawing around 20 mAmps, is too much load for the Arduino Due, so I installed an external 3.3-Volt-transformer. The ground lead of the transformer is connected to the ground pin of the Arduino Due. This common ground makes it possible, that the HIGH signals of the IR-sensors can be directly fed into the Arduino Due's digital inputs.
The USB port on the top right end of the Arduino transmits the MIDI signal to the computer and also supplies the power to run the Arduino board.
The top left port is a USB port, through which the following code was passed to the Arduino Due.
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