Many home organ consoles are equipped with thumb pistons. Some of them are dedicated to control combinations. When being pressed, they usually also send some MIDI command to MIDI out. In case of this Johannus console (branded as Kisselbach), the pistons send a SysEx command. In GrandOrgue, Ctrl-click on a combination slot, then »Wait for event«, then press the desired piston and the piston is connected to the combination slot. This works well for memory bank 1, pistons 1 through 8.

However, this is not the case for all the other memory banks. Here’s the SysEx commands:

Mem: 1, Pistons 1-8

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 00 10 09 F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 00 10 0A F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 00 10 0B F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 00 10 0C F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 00 10 0D F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 00 10 0E F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 00 10 0F F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 00 10 10 F7

Mem: 2, Pistons 1-8

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 01 10 09 F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 01 10 0A F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 01 10 0B F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 01 10 0C F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 01 10 0D F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 01 10 0E F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 01 10 0F F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 01 10 10 F7

Mem: 3, Pistons 1-8

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 02 10 09 F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 02 10 0A F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 02 10 0B F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 02 10 0C F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 02 10 0D F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 02 10 0E F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 02 10 0F F7

F0 00 4A 4F 48 41 53 02 10 10 F7

The tenth byte always is 0x09 through 0x10 (the eight pistons). The eights byte contains the memory bank. However, the auto detection of GrandOrgue fails to recognize it properly. Fortunately it is possible to configure it manually by the field lower bank.

GrandOrgue has a total of 50 general combinations. I recommend to configure all of them. Do not forget to save the organ settings. From now on, the console controls can be used to control all of the 50 general combinations of GrandOrgue, not only 1-8.