How to use midi to Play Wurlitzer Band Organ Music Rolls
Compiled by: David Back June/July 2012.
Amended and Updated August 2012.
Rearranged and updated October, November 2013 and October 2014.
Updated August 2024.
This Document has been compiled to review the musical capability of midi for the purpose of producing music from scanned Wurlitzer paper rolls which sounds similar to a real Wurlitzer organ.
It is assumed herein that you have a knowledge of music, midi and a good midi editor, such as Cakewalk. For basic source of music you can download a good selection of playable wurlitzer midi files from the internet or if you are slightly more ambitious use rolls from my e-roll archive.
1.0 Playing Wurlitzer 125 Style Rolls
Organ Style 125
Choosing the correct instruments from the midi repertoire is not simple.This lineup covers all the necessary midi variables and results in a playable midi file which makes a reasonable simulation of a 125 style Wurlitzer Band Organ when played with General Midi (GM bank 0) patches.
| Division | Rank Name | Midi Channel | Midi Instrument | Midi Patch | Midi Velocity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bass | Stopped Flute | 1 | Flute | 73 | 65 |
| Bass | Open String | 2 | Cello | 42 | 65 |
| Accompaniment | Stopped Flute | 3 | Flute | 73 | 65 |
| Accompaniment | Open String | 4 | Cello | 42 | 65 |
| Melody | Stopped Flute | 5 | Flute | 73 | 65 |
| Melody | Open String | 6 | Violin | 40 | 65 |
| Melody | Wood Flageolet | 7 | Recorder | 74 | 65 |
| Melody | Brass Piccolo | 8 | Piccolo | 72 | 65 |
| Trumpet | Brass Trumpet | 9 | Tenor Sax | 66 | 80 |
| Percussion | Bass Drum | 10 | Bass Drum | B2 or C3 | 65 |
| Percussion | Snare Drum | 10 | Snare Drum | D3 | 40 |
| Percussion | Cymbal | 10 | Cymbal | A4 | 65 |
In order to produce a more accurate simulation it may be necessary to play the file using a soundfont which has been produced from real Wurlitzer organ samples.
However having experimented a bit with sound fonts I have found that Cakewalk and the sound cards available to me do not work together. The best sound card and its software can handle sound fonts but Cakewalk is frustratingly reluctant to work with it. I have trawled the Cakewalk website looking for details of which Cakewalk versions support which sound cards. I did not find anything useful. Thus, knowing that the Brass Trumpet sound was what I needed I auditioned the entire General Midi bank 0 to find the most convincing Brass Trumpet sound. The tenor sax won the competition.
The midi velocity for every note of every instrument is saved in a midi file. Velocities translate directly to volume.
Finally I have tried to automate this process using the Cakewalk CAL language but have found that in my version (which is quite old) it was incapable of doing anything useful.
2.0 Playing Wurlitzer 150 Style Rolls
Organ Style 153 (October 2013)
The 153 organ has a lot more pipes plus automatically operated stops, shutters and bells. This makes it more challenging to simulate than the much simpler organs above. The benefit is that there is more variety in the music which makes it more interesting.
In order that you can realistically instrument a style 153 organ you must first calibrate your computer's sound card using
a midi patch which makes a continuous sound e.g. any organ like instrument.
The figures for mine are below, you can use this as a guide but yours will probably be different.
| Midi Velocity | db |
|---|---|
| 10 | -24 |
| 20 | -22 |
| 30 | -19 |
| 40 | -16 |
| 50 | -13 |
| 60 | -11 |
| 65 | -10 |
| 70 | -9 |
| 80 | -7 |
| 90 | -5 |
| 100 | -3 |
| 110 | -1.5 |
| 120 | 0 |
It is easiest to add the cymbal into the percussion channel before converting the midi file from type 0 to type 1.
Since there are two sets of violin pipes for both accompaniment and melody each set needs to be set to +3db, corresponding to 2 X power.
You will need to decide how much sound attenuation there is when the shutter is closed. In my case I have used 6db. In a real organ there will be high frequency attenuation as well but midi cannot cope with this so I have ignored it. However it could be introduced later by editing the .wav file.
I have made sure that the instruments I have chosen for each channel are working within their normal musical range.
Since this simulation uses all 16 midi channels I also tried to check the amount of headroom there was within the system. However even with all channels playing at a high level I was unable to reach a convincing limit. With a digital sound system it is not all that important to make full use of the headroom so I erred on the side of safety and used a velocity of 65 as my base level.
Dont forget to transpose the indicated +8va and +16va channels and for perfection transpose all except control and percussion down 2 semitones.
All midi data except that shown in the table below uses the normal midi default values. When the stops are closed the notes do not play so I simply deleted the appropriate notes.
| Division | Rank Name | Midi Channel | Midi Instrument | Midi Patch |
Velocity Shutter Open | Velocity Shutter Closed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trombone | Wood Trombone | 1 | Tuba | 58 | 65 | 40 | |
| Bass | 8' Stopped Diapason | 2 | Contra Bass | 43 | 65 | 40 | |
| Bass +8va | 4' Open Diapason | 3 | Bassoon | 70 | 65 | 40 | |
| Bass +16va | 2' Stopped Diapason | 4 | Flute | 73 | 65 | 40 | |
| Accomp. | Stopped Flute | 5 | Bassoon | 70 | 65 | 40 | |
| Accomp. | Violin | 7 | Callope | 82 | 80 | 50 | +3db |
| Melody | Stopped Flute | 8 | Flute | 73 | 65 | 40 | |
| Melody +8va | Octave Violin * | 9 | Calliope | 82 | 65 | 40 | |
| Melody | Violin | 11 | Calliope | 82 | 80 | 50 | +3db |
| Melody | Open Flute * | 12 | Pan Flute | 75 | 65 | 40 | |
| Melody | Bells B | 13 | Celeste | 8 | 100 | 100 | +7db |
| Trumpet | Stopped Pipes * | 14 | Oboe | 68 | 65 | 40 | |
| Trumpet | Cello * | 15 | English Horn | 69 | 65 | 40 | |
| Trumpet | Trumpet | 16 | Trumpet | 56 | 65 | 40 | |
| Percussion | Bass Drum | 10 | Bass Drum | 65 | 65 | B2 | |
| Percussion | Snare Drum | 10 | Snare Drum | 65 | 65 | D3 | |
| Percussion | Cymbal | 10 | Cymbal | 65 | 65 | A4 | |
| Control | Coin Trip | 6 | Piano | 5 | 5 | E2 | |
| Control | All Off | 6 | Piano | 5 | 5 | Eb2 | |
| Control | Stops Open * | 6 | Piano | 5 | 5 | D2 | |
| Control | Bells on B | 6 | Piano | 5 | 5 | Db2 | |
| Control | Shutter Open | 6 | Piano | 5 | 5 | C2 |
B = Bells, Automatic stop
The easiest way to edit the controls is to add descriptive markers at all the points where the controls change, it is then easy to select the data between these points and edit all the appropriate channels in one go.
Some of the tunes on some rolls begin without having set up any controls. Having observed several 153's in action and seen the shutters snap shut at the end of each tune I am pretty certain that the "Coin Trip" also turns all controls off. So where there are no controls set up at the beginning of a tune assume that controls are "all off".
The best way I have found so far to convert midi files to .wav files is to record the wav file whilst playing the midi file in real time. I have looped "line out" back to "line in" with a T junction to connect my amplifier and speakers.
Playing Wurlitzer 165 Style Rolls
3.0 Organ Style 165/166 (July 2014)
| Division | Rank Name | Midi Channel | Midi Instrument | Midi Patch |
Stop | Stop Note Cancel Eb6 | Velocity Shutter Open Bb7 | Velocity Shutter Closed E2 -6db | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controls | 1 | 5 | 5 | ||||||
| Bass | 8' Stopped & Open Flutes | 2 | Tuba | 58 | No | 65 | 40 | ||
| Bass | 8' Reed Trombone | 3 | Contra Bass | 43 | A7 | 65 | 40 | ||
| Accomp. | 2' Stopped & Open Flutes | 4 | Bassoon | 70 | No | 65 | 40 | ||
| Accomp. | Bass Bells | 5 | Vibraphone | 11 | C2 | 80 | 80 | +3db | |
| Melody | Violin #1 | 6 | Calliope | 82 | G#2 | 65 | 40 | ||
| Melody | Violin #2 | 7 | Calliope | 82 | G#7 | 65 | 40 | ||
| Melody | Flageolet | 8 | Pan Flute | 75 | A2 | 65 | 40 | ||
| Melody | +8va Piccolo | 9 | Piccolo | 72 | A2 | 65 | 40 | ||
| Melody | Stopped Flute | 11 | Flute | 73 | G7 | 65 | 40 | ||
| Melody | +8va Piccolo | 12 | Piccolo | 72 | G7 | 65 | 40 | ||
| Melody | Melody Bells | 13 | Celeste | 8 | D2 or F2 | 100 | 100 | +7db | |
| Trumpet | Bassoon & Viola | 14 | Bassoon | 70 | No | 65 | 40 | ||
| Trumpet | Wood Trumpet | 15 | Trumpet | 56 | G2 | 65 | 40 | ||
| Percussion | Bass Drum | 10 | Acoustic Bass Drum | C8 Loud | 65 80 | 65 80 | B2 +3db | ||
| Percussion | Snare Drum | 10 | Acoustic Snare | C8 Loud | 65 80 | 65 80 | D3 +3db | ||
| Percussion | Crash Cymbal | 10 | Crash Cymbal 2 | 65 | 65 | A4 | |||
| Percussion | Kettle Drum | 10 | Low Conga | 65 | 65 | E5 | |||
| Percussion | Triangle | 10 | Open Triangle | 65 | 65 | A6 | |||
| Percussion | Castanets | 10 | Castanets | 65 | 65 | C#7 |
4.0 Automating The Process, October 2014
I have now produced midi filters which convert e-roll.midi files to fully instrumented and activated playable midi files for all three organ styles. I am currently working on a midi player which will play e-rolls directly and give a state of the art audio output.Update April 2015
The completed e-roll player package, eplay, is now available. Download and try it out from the Wurlitzer Archive page which also contains some of the music rolls which it will play.