UPDATED 05/17/2013
Now accepting credit cards>
 
Frequently Asked Questions

How do you select music for concerts?
I work with several elements: length (they should be about an hour long), opening and closing pieces (not just flashy and long, many criteria can be involved—including surprises), key (third related, dominant, subdominant), variety of organ in the 9 major concerts, variety of composer if the concert itself is not all one composer, and mood. The biggest problem is too many in the key of G. The old idea of a chronological arrangement is one I no longer use, but is certainly valid.
How do you finance Virtually Baroque?
Until the financial meltdown in 2008 I was able to fund it from my own discretionary income. Thereafter I started writing blurbs on each track encouraging people to donate (some repeat their donations, for which I am grateful). When that wasn't enough I started selling MIDI files, but since MIDI usually needs fine tuning, sales have been pretty much limited to other MIDI hobbyists. Other thoughts I've had and rejected: Coffee Mugs and Printed Clothing Items (most of the money goes to the fulfillment services), *Premium Subscriptions, *Releasing Source Files, *Corporate Underwriting, *Adopt-A-Track (fans of a piece can sponsor it, which may or may
not include a link), Accepting Jiggly Advertising (not only annoys but drives away listeners),
*Selling Out To The Highest Bidder (so far that is $1600).
* I may reconsider these.
Can others make CDs from your MIDI or MP3 files?
This is now eminently doable, but only with permission from me and the samplers. I have created some  CDs of concerts, using Trepstar. Perhaps soon you'll be able to:
  1. Commission a CD of a Concert and/or print a short dedication directly on the disc, to honor a person, memorialize a departed loved one, musician or organ builder.
  2. Upload your own graphic for the background on the disc (if you own the rights to it). Template and specs.
  3. Make your own playlist (max. 70 minutes)
Why are your MIDI files so many different prices?
I had many rationales, but because I'm losing money each month I decided to make them more consistently $.50 apiece. There are still a few bargains, but you'll have to find them.
Why do some of the Vendor Demo links lead nowhere?
I am no longer a "hot item." It's too much for me to fix by hand, and the website is no longer automated. If you're interested you can see a list here. OAM has long since replaced my MIDIfied tracks with live performances and the Contrebombarde listings mostly work, so I have omitted those in the listing,
What is your latest project?
Stop by stop demonstration of brand new sample set.
Why use a notation program to make MP3 files?
If you were talking about Finale, I would agree with you. I entered keystrokes for two hymnals in Finale, and never figured out from their 600 page manual how to make them look right on the page—the person I was working for had to do the finishing touches. Sometimes in Note­worthy Composer, you'll run into a combination of notes don't look quite right, but if you're using it essentially as a MIDI track sequencer, it's pretty easy to get around, you can manipulate dynam­ics, tempo and futz with articulation using familiar notation symbols (for the curious, the last 3 tracks here show the results of my manipulation). I capture my Note­worthyComposer files directly from Hauptwerk or other sample playing software, sometimes add reverberation using n-Track Studio and SIR, then trim/convert to MP3 with GoldWave v. 5.67. It also works great with a MIDI pipe organ. Since Sibelius is now out of the picture people are now looking at Cubase to create an entirely new music publishing software. Perhaps it will tackle turning printed music into machine readable format perhaps by that time HD-MIDI.
What did you learn from your very brief  linking to Facebook and Twitter?
I wrote a program to search every file I had embedded with Twitter and Facebook links and list them for modification or deletion. My first Tweet, preserved here, was a wish that they hire a typographer on the Twitter staff. I found both of them too diffuse, distracting and time-
consuming with no real reward.
What inspires you musically?
Often it's Performance Today. Also Soul Music on Sunday mornings and From the Top on Sunday evenings.
Can I hear your MIDI files on some of the latest organs?
Thanks to my friend Jonathan Orwig, yes—here.
What software do you use in working with your MIDI or MP3 files?
When I decided to start giving away and then selling MIDI files I discovered a batch utility that made this easier for me, called of course NWC2MIDI.exe. Of great use are also MF2T.exe which allows me to conduct search and replace operations on the MIDI code itself and reassemble it with T2MF.exe. Another free utility is MIDICSV.exe/CSVMIDI.exe but it uses a different syntax. I also have experimented with MIDIMAP.exe (a precursor and subset of GNMIDI). Score showing how my metric track has evolved over the years. Some may want to remap using MIDI-OX. Audio files are trimmed with Audacity v. 2.0.2.
Why do you use another server for most of your MP3 files?
I measured the speed in Firefox: Zion (1.4mB/sec) Click to Listen vs. PowWeb 300-320 kB/sec = Zion was c. 3 times faster. Thanks to Bob Collins for donating it.
Does your handle  jocr  have anything to do with the Batman character?
No, it was a play on the abbreviation for Optical Character Recognition (James's OCR). Since  I was a touch typist able to sustain 110 wpm accurately for long periods of time, the loss of functionality in my right hand was a real loss of income. I had experience of an industrial OCR shop which used IBM Selectrics with OCRA type balls to input copy to be scanned into a typesetting system, and I naively thought I could use off-the-shelf software to scan words and/or music to continue my career. Obviously it didn't work out, so I invented my own system.
You claim to be in your twelfth year as Virtually Baroque. How do you count that?
I count the first archived appearance, December 4, 2000, as being within the first year. Check it out on the Way Back Machine.
Are you ready for Hauptwerk v. 4.01?
I've evaluated the new embedded MIDI playback feature and expanded registration system and submitted requests to make my and other MIDI files more playable. One minor update was made, incorporating my feedback. My first "true" HW4 collection is now available by pushing the MIDI Files 4' drawknob at the left.
It was really a very bad surprise to hear about your stroke. I do hope you are recovering and getting better day by day!
I am online in a very limited way. All the equipment is in storage, and I'm making do with a mini­laptop. In fact this last episode was not a second stroke—just a "complication of diabetes" and my favorite diagnosis, "failure to thrive." Note­worthyComposer 2.5.5 is now running on the ms I U160 computer, now with 2GB memory. I'm doing a little consulting for Frog Music, have posted a few tracks on ContreBombarde Concert Hall and just handed off Daily and Weekly Tracks to Thomas Gentry. Since breaking my hip, I've been mostly bed-ridden.
How are organ works produced on files from specific churches?
I am enjoying listening to organs all over the world playing music of the masters. I am confused as to how the organ works can be produced on files from specific churches. How for example can a per­formance on the Mehmel organ in Germany be captured on a file by a sampler such as Prof Helmut Maier. Does he actually play and record the work? Are microphones used to record the work? I would appreciate your response to help educate me. God bless you and the work that you do for the enjoy­ment of organ music lovers.
Thanks for asking. Prof. Maier records every pipe and creates the elaborate interface for a pro­gram called Hauptwerk. He then ships that "Organ Sampleset" on a DVD to his customers, or trades them to me for work I perform on the organ: in the case of the Mehmel, I prepared all my Reger for Prof. Maier and my money went for the scores. I can hear the music every step of the way and make adjustments in my MIDI files according to what I hear. They are captured in the Hauptwerk interface. I can also reuse the MIDI files with other instruments, making lots of adjustments, adding dynamics, adjusting for missing notes, slowing up, redoing trills and artic­ulation and rubato, according to my experience as an organist and techniques that have evolved over the years.
How do you choose temperaments?
When available I use the original temperament of the sampled instrument. If the last chord sounds too peculiar, or the piece is totally chromatic or in an unusual key or the leading tone is embarrassingly flat I will play around with the well-tempered solutions. If the sampleset is originally in equal temperament I tend to explore more options. It's really quite subjective.
Is your website really ecofriendly?
PowWeb has qualified for that sticker with the green leaf, and all of my html files reside there. For a while I used only CFL bulbs.
Do you have an official biography?
It ain't Wikipedia, but how's this? I captured my first organ recital at Nicki's church by patching into the speaker output wires. Nicki's husband, Mitch, said "Couldn't it use a little reverberation?" For more about my work with Frog Music, see an early press release.
What goes on in your recording studio?
Lots of stuff that can't be heard on the recording, because it's captured directly to disk. This is still true, even in bed with a laptop sitting on my chest.
Why do you have so many versions of the same track?
To show the versatility of the music, the organs, and my MIDI files. The comparisons aren't necessarily apples to apples, since speeds change, my techniques have evolved over the years and so have the samples. I use the resources available and sometimes ad lib a pedal note or two, or even compensate for a missing pedal note. Harpsichords present totally different workarounds, usually involving a second virtual player. Dynamics can be added or ignored, temperaments explored, mechanical noises suppressed or added.
How do you create the MIDI Files for your Virtual Performances?
These files were input from a regular computer keyboard using software called Note­worthy Composer, but it was used as a virtual organ, not as the music publishing program it was designed to be. I worked in tracks, up to 6 per manual, so the scores look like orchestral scores. The articulation native to NWC was fairly primitive, but there are three levels of staccato which I supplemented with rests. I created a basic algorithm on a separate track which I call "Metric"—
usually 2 or 3 measures based on agogics, then adjust according to structure—slowing for fugue or chorale entrances, lower notes that take time to speak, the quicker note in a dotted pair, triplets, and then adjust for the actual sound I hear. I usually play the NWC file back on my organ computer and record directly, but sometimes I have set too quick or slow a tempo and must export the NWC file to MIDI, since I have so much work invested in creating the actual metric track that I prefer not to redo it. The metric track has grown more refined over the years.
Are you trying to put working organists out of a job?
No, I'm trying to supplement their options (preludes while warming up the choir in another room, for instance). The piano player who was drafted when the organist took a better-paying job could use devices like Bass Coupler and Solo Coupler when playing hymns, and a few of my less extrav­agant voluntaries to supplement their repertoire. I recently received a thank you for my "Quiet Bach" series from an organist who had broken a finger. In my live-playing days I was occasionally called in to render complex accompaniments like "Laud to the Nativity" by Respigh I and some­times used players more adept than myself when conducting bigger pieces. Our fee was always $100, no matter how much work was required. The month of August was quite active for me even when I didn't have a church job. I think that MIDIs, captured or my prepared ones, could be useful in these situations, and as study tools. Note that a MIDI device in the hands of a skilled liturgist has a much better chance of not being embarrassing in public worship, but we're all dependent on computers not hanging up and power not going out. That's why they invented pianos, reed organs, virginals and harpsichords, used in the days before electricity (the entire baroque period).