Beautiful! Congratulations on that magnificent pedal instrument. What will be your sound source?
I well remember practicing for years in freezing cold churches late at night during the winter months, all while wearing cut-off garden gloves and half the clothing I owned.
For my first tests and hours of play yesterday, I used my Kronos as sound source and plugged in an AKAI midi keyboard as second manual. Playing this setup is really fun... especially when using other sounds than pipe organs. I recognized that the Kronos doesn't have much pipe sounds at all. Most of them are sounding very unnatural and the few usable sounds are all tutti-registrations. Either I have to find some more good pipe organ samples to put on my Kronos, or I will have to find another sound source for this setup. I think my Kurzweil might have more detailed samples with single stops so I could map them on different layers an use the sliders as draw bars.
Or perhaps I will try Hauptwerk (hauptwerk.com) and use my laptop as a source. I think this could be the best sounding option. But I have no experience with that software. I only know it from Youtube Videos until now. Hauptwerk + 2x midi controller + bass pedal... this would also reduce the required space in my living room, compared to the Kronos 88 that I would put back in my office/studio room. There is a 14-day trial of Hauptwerk. I will try this first, since the prices then are pretty high in my opinion. A free solution seems to be GrandOrgue. Perhaps I should try that first...
I can report to you per PM after my testing is done, if you like.
The last years I didn't play in church very much, so in the winter month I simply didn't practice very much. But because of the covid things I play church services regularly now and I don't want to only play chorales that don't need much preparation. I always play classic organ pieces at the beginning and the end and that needs a lot of practice since I'm not a professional. And now after 30 minutes I'm frozen. So I needed a solution for practicing at home. For a little more money I could have purchased a second hand electric "pipe" organ, but I wanted to have the hole system as portable as possible. If there are ever gigs with my band again, I could use this pedal on stage, too. It's heavy, but not too heavy. I don't have specs in my head now, but carrying both around yesterday I would guess it is not heavier than my Kronos. So I went with the pedal and can now practice all day and night in the warmth of my house.
I went with the 27 straight one, since it is most similar to the pedals in the church where I am living. We have a very old organ from about 1850 with completely pneumatic control (ohhh the lag).... I guess the bigger radiating concave pedals were not invented by then ;-)
@all others... sorry for being so off topic ;-)