Written: August 27, 2026

At some point this stopped being a story about finding an old organ.
It became a story about building a station console out of one.

THE NITETIME ORGAN SCORE

Standard MIDI files can be sent directly to the Lowrey:

                aplaymidi -p 28:0 song.mid

The Lowrey manual also documents General MIDI support, including drum
channel 10 and the usual channels 1-9 and 11-16. Downloaded arrangements
can potentially play through the Lowrey's internal sound engine.

To make original Nitetime music easier to write, a custom score format
has been started. The file extension is:

                .nite

The idea is not to write hundreds of lines of Python every time a song is
composed. Instead:

                SONG.nite
                                    |
                                    v
                niteplay.py
                                    |
                                    v
                MIDI
                                    |
                                    v
                LOWREY

The reusable interpreter currently understands UPPER, LOWER, BASS, SOLO,
DRUM, EXPR, and PROGRAM. It handles notes, chords, rests, fractional
beats, drum notes, CC11 expression, program changes, velocity, proper
Note On / Note Off handling, MIDI file generation, and ALSA playback.

A score can look like this:

                TITLE = Dies Irae: Nitetime Organ Transmission
                BPM = 112
                PORT = 28:0

                BAR 1 UPPER D5:1 D5:1 D5:1 C5:1
                BAR 1 LOWER [D3,F3,A3]:4
                BAR 1 BASS D2:4
                BAR 1 EXPR 1@34 4@42

Experimental compositions already include:

                dies_irae_nitetime.nite
                nitetime_bass_drop.nite
                the_chapel_under_the_lake.nite

The first is a public-domain Dies Irae melody with a Nitetime
arrangement. The others are original gothic, bass-heavy, and horror
organ experiments. This is also a format that ChatGPT or Gemini can
compose directly while one stable program handles translation to MIDI.

THE BROADCAST ORGAN

The eventual plan is to put the organ against the wall and make it the
visible physical console of the station. The Linux workstation can hide
behind it.

To somebody visiting or watching Nitetime, the control system would
simply be:

                THE ORGAN

It could control music, software synths, sound effects, backing tracks,
station IDs, movie playback, video cues, OBS scenes, projector content,
lighting, scripts, network commands, and possibly DMX. Anything Linux
can trigger from MIDI is at least theoretically invited to the party.

The aesthetic rule is:

                DON'T SHOW THE MACHINERY.
                SHOW THE RITUAL.

The goal is for somebody to watch Nitetime and wonder why pressing an
obsolete button or playing a particular chord on a giant home organ
causes the entire station to respond.

Need to queue up some movies? Let me tap this key for a while.

THE AUDIO LOOP

The Lowrey has AUX OUT LEFT and RIGHT, AUX IN LEFT and RIGHT, and a
Bypass/Thru function. The studio already has a Yamaha MG-XU-family mixer
connected to Linux over USB.

The planned route is:

                LOWREY AUX OUT L/R
                                                    |
                                                    v
                YAMAHA MIXER -> effects -> Linux / recording / streaming / OBS
                                                    |
                                                    v
                YAMAHA MONITOR OUT L/R
                                                    |
                                                    v
                LOWREY AUX IN L/R

That opens the door to reverb, delay, chorus, EQ, software processing,
recording, streaming, and returning the processed sound through the
organ speakers. Audio feedback and MIDI feedback loops will need to be
voided, because the station does not need to become an amplifier with
opinions.

WHY THIS BELONGS ON NITETIME

This combines old consumer technology, modern Linux, MIDI, home-organ
culture, AI-assisted music creation, physical control surfaces, old Web
aesthetics, broadcast equipment, weird garage engineering, UFO/gothic
music, and the reuse of abandoned hardware.

The original organ cost $3,999.

Nitetime got it free.

Now the plan is to use it to run a station.

The station is operated by organ.