Heres the dilemma. I am not a dyed in the wool organist, although I love to play that B3 clone. I currently have the NS compact which I midi to an external board to trigger the B3 sound. I play LH Bass on the Compact triggering either an internal synth sound or an external bass sample (generally from the top keyboard). I run the B3 sound through a ventilator and out to my K4 or on very small gigs to my Yamaha MSR speakers.

Here's what I am toying with. I am thinking about getting a dedicated clone wheel for top tier board, and using my NS compact B3 sound for bass. The unventilated LH bass sound would still go to my bass amp, the ventilated clonewheel goes as above.

I read on one of the threads something about foldback being a problem on the Nords, and the Nords not having enough low end or balls or both. I've researched online the definition of foldback but am not sure what the problem would be. Can somebody steer me in the right direction since I am not sure this is such a great idea after all!!!

aL

I'm not sure what is all the "deal" with foldback (on a Nord or any other clonewheel, or genuine tonewheel for that matter).

The reality is that most console Hammonds have foldback, except for the early models (A, AB, B-A, BC, D, and a few others).

Does anyone consider foldback a "limitation?" Granted, many players who play bass with the Hammond utilizes the pedals and thus has "beefier" bass sounds than what can be done via the left hand.

If playing a console Hammond with foldback is the "standard", then why would a "faithful" emulation of the same, be cause for concern?

Some of the clonewheels (XK3, for example) can route the bass pedal drawbars to a lower manual, or keyboard split, so that deeper bass can be found for LH playing.

I've played LH bass on my Nord E2, Hammond XK3 and my B3 & C2 (both with foldback) and BC & D (with no foldback), and they're all different, yet totally acceptable for "that particular sound" bass. The BC & D go all the way down and it's full and deep like pedals. The others, while not quite so deep, are fine and quite suitable.

I woudn't sweat that issue one bit.

YMMV

In the jazz idiom, the pedals are mostly used as accents. So the bulk of what you're hearing on Jimmy Smith records and the like is left-hand. You'll be fine.

OK. I think I understand why foldback is perceived as a "problem"... Thanks for the responses gents!

aL

A short explanation of "low" foldback (there is also foldback for the high register) is that the tones for the first octave on the 16' drawbar were absent from the tone generator on many consoles including the B3, C3, A100, etc, so the tones of the second octave are also used for the first octave. To create the "illusion" of the desired notes, you sort of rely on the addition of the 5 1/3' to the 16' and 8'. Without the 5 1/3' the first octave will always sound a bit weak.
Now on many clones you can remove the foldback "feature" and have access to all tones down to low C. I don't know about the Nords, but if it can be removed, you might want to try without it.

To elaborate: Hammond switched to complex tonewheels for the bottom 12 notes in the generator, to help shore up the pedal sound. These wheels don't have the fine teeth that produce sine waves like the normal wheels - instead they are squared off and produce a tone with a lot more harmonics.

This boosts the pedal sound but makes them unsuitable to be used on the bottom octave of the manual - the tone on the 16' drawbar would drastically change as you crossed the octave.

Hence lower foldback was born.