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Tricks you used to use for more realistic synth organ sounds


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Heres a fun little trip down amnesia lane. Remember the bad old pre-clonewheel, pre-rompler days of trying to emulate the sound of a B3 and Leslie on various synths? I know, Id rather forget them too. But the TX816 thread got me thinking: what tricks did you use to try to get your cheesy synth organ patches to sound more like the real deal?

 

My best attempt was on a TX81Z. I had programmed some basic tones that sounded as much like a Hammond as that box was going to sound. I took great pains with the level scaling to get the right drawbar balance across the keyboard, and detuned the operators from each other to get a chorus effect. But the real trick was to layer two sounds, one with the lower drawbars and one with the upper ones; pan them fairly hard left and right; and use the LFO not just for pitch modulation, but also for amplitude modulation, panning back and forth from one side to the other  basically a back-and-forth tremolo. It created a nice 3D effect that, while it wouldn't fool a knowledgeable listener into thinking it was a real Leslie, at least sounded a lot more like one than simple pitch modulation did, which was what all the preset organ patches used.

 

Not long after that I heard about this thing some people were using for a Leslie effect called a phaser pedal, but before I looked into it I got my M1 with its unbeatable state-of-the-art organ sounds, so there was no need.

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The JX-8P has OSC2 cross modulation that can add interesting harmonics. Combined with the resonant low pass filter and the questionable chorus and you could get an organ that kinda sorta sat in a mix. You had to squint.

 

I had an 81Z. Your trick sounds pretty cool.

9 Moog things, 3 Roland things, 2 Hammond things and a computer with stuff on it

 

 

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Good old Algorythm 32. :)

 

A DX7II with E! allowed two voices, making a chorusy detuning easier, but limiting polyphony IIRC.

 

I still have a DX7II with patches named "88800000" and so on. Pumped through a real Leslie, it sounds pretty good.

 

Wes

Hammond: L111, M100, M3, BC, CV, Franken CV, A100, D152, C3, B3

Leslie: 710, 760, 51C, 147, 145, 122, 22H, 31H

Yamaha: CP4, DGX-620, DX7II-FD-E!, PF85, DX9

Roland: VR-09, RD-800

 

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I midi'd my JX10 and Juno 106 together. The 106 did the base organ sound, and I used the JX to trigger a legato percussion ping. With the legato setting it would onlt retrigger the percussion sound when you picked up your hand, like on a Hammond.

Live: Korg Kronos 2 88, Nord Electro 5d Nord Lead A1

Toys: Roland FA08, Novation Ultranova, Moog LP, Roland SP-404SX, Roland JX10,Emu MK6

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www.echoesrocks.com

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Not me, but if you listen to Eddie Van Halen's organ patch (clearly not a real organ) on Feels So Good, he was savvy enough to add a click to the attack. I always appreciated that little detail.

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bOp8TqPq7c

 

You can hear it well around 00:34 (at least I think it's a synth organ).

 

Slightly off topic - I think the only time Eddie actually recorded a real Hammond was at the end of Right Now.

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I once tried to recreate a pure hammond, dry sound on a Proteus/2 for fun using the sine waveforms. I could only do 8 drawbar combinations given the limited number of layers on the module (and none on the controller I was using then).

 

I used this as a reference.

 

http://www.jessedeanefreeman.com/drawbardiagram.jpeg

 

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Wow, DanL, that's a cool way to do percussion. I wound up using velocity-triggered percussion. While not at all the same, it was quite usable.

Hammond: L111, M100, M3, BC, CV, Franken CV, A100, D152, C3, B3

Leslie: 710, 760, 51C, 147, 145, 122, 22H, 31H

Yamaha: CP4, DGX-620, DX7II-FD-E!, PF85, DX9

Roland: VR-09, RD-800

 

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I know I used organ from my old Proteus, and even my old analog synth the JX10, but there were no tricks involved...just play and grimace over the bad sound.

 

More recently, with my Motif I just followed this rule: DON'T LEAVE THE FAST LESLIE ON

It sounded "ok" as a organ-y sound, and it sounded "ok" when you let the fast leslie ramp up, but I'd quickly turn it off before it could really get going. It was hideous once it did. Sounded like an LFO on a synth.

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http://c-nelson.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Dynacord_CLS222_12684_001.jpg

 

^^^ Big part of my box of tricks. I still have mine.

 

Before good clonewheels were around, I actually got a pretty decent Hammond sound from my Memorymoog using a single oscillator that was hard sync'd.

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http://c-nelson.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Dynacord_CLS222_12684_001.jpg

 

I used that with a Korg M1 and it was pretty good in a mix out front.

 

Now days a Lester K for Uriah Heep-ish, or Neo Vent for pop tunes on any synth Organ.

Magnus C350 + FMR RNP + Realistic Unisphere Mic
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I had no tricks. I used the KB mag article about programming FM to simulate a Hammond with my TX81Z, and after that I used Joey D's samples on my EPS 16+.

 

That was followed by my first clonewheel, the VK-7.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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Good old Algorythm 32. :)

 

Yeah, I forget the equivalent algorithm number on the 4-op synths I had, but it was the last one all carriers, no modulators. Use three for your favorite drawbars, and the last one (with feedback cranked) for the key click!

 

Does anyone remember Yamaha's "After Touch" magazine, full of patchers and tricks for FM programming? They did a couple articles on emulating a Hammond, where someone had measured the output levels of each drawbar across the keyboard and converted them all into level scaling amounts. That helped a lot.

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I once tried to recreate a pure hammond, dry sound on a Proteus/2 for fun using the sine waveforms. I could only do 8 drawbar combinations given the limited number of layers on the module (and none on the controller I was using then).

 

As a backup in case of organ failure, I did something similar. I built some patches that combined a Proteus 1 and Proteus 2. Controlling them with an A50 gave me sliders, mod wheel and a midi control pedal to manipulate virtual draw bars, add "percussion", etc. I actually did end up having to use these emergency patches on a gig once. Combined with a Leslie 147, this arrangement was better than most sampled organs, but still pretty terrible.

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Does anyone remember Yamaha's "After Touch" magazine, full of patchers and tricks for FM programming? They did a couple articles on emulating a Hammond, where someone had measured the output levels of each drawbar across the keyboard and converted them all into level scaling amounts. That helped a lot.

 

...Which neglected to account for the concept of "robbing" that was built into Hammond tonewheel organs.

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Good old Algorythm 32. :)

 

A DX7II with E! allowed two voices, making a chorusy detuning easier, but limiting polyphony IIRC.

 

I still have a DX7II with patches named "88800000" and so on. Pumped through a real Leslie, it sounds pretty good.

 

Wes

I had the DX7II FD and it had a cool program called Shorgan, used it everywhere, it was awesome. Not a B3 emulation but it sat so well in many songs where a Hammond was used, and I never was concerned about authenticity or replicating the sound cause it sounded great.

Kurzweil PC3K8/ GSI Gemini Desktop/ ESI UNIK 8+ monitors/ QSC K8.2/ Radial Key Largo/ CPS Spacestation 

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Heres a fun little trip down amnesia lane. Remember the bad old pre-clonewheel, pre-rompler days of trying to emulate the sound of a B3 and Leslie on various synths?

I used a D-50 with some of their stock organ sounds and ran it through a leslie 770. Couldn't do without the Leslie.

Some music I've recorded and played over the years with a few different bands

Tommy Rude Soundcloud

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I ran an OB-8 "organ" patch through one of these. I started with one of the stock organ programs, but killed all of the modulation, so it was just this sort of flat/dry tone. The Boss Chorus Ensemble gave the patch all of its body. Kind of sounded like the aforementioned EVH organ patch.

 

srqqqewab2kvtphyhd0j.jpg

 

 

 

 

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- George Bernard Shaw

 

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An analog synth that could do pretty good organ for it's time was the Korg Poly 800. The oscillators had an additive harmonic scheme which worked well for organ sounds. It could do tonewheel with filter envelope percussion, transistor combo organ, as well as pipe organ-like sounds. Not as full sounding but for organ versatility it outdid the Oberheim OB8 and Roland Jupiter 6 I used in the 80's.
C3/122, M102A, Vox V301H, Farfisa Compact, Gibson G101, GEM P, RMI 300A, Piano Bass, Pianet , Prophet 5 rev. 2, Pro-One, Matrix 12, OB8, Korg MS20, Jupiter 6, Juno 60, PX-5S, Nord Stage 3 Compact
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I used that with a Korg M1 and it was pretty good in a mix out front.

 

In the past and when I was a Dynacord endorsee, I used a CLS22, then CLS222 and in the end a DLS 223 w/ manufacturer hardware upgrade to DLS300.

I used a slightly modified (bigger toroidal transformer and differend type military grade tube) Chandler Tube Driver as preamp/overdrive followed by a Rocktron 300A compressor/ HUSH II noise reduction in between the Chandler and Dynacord rotors.

That worked great w/ DX7mkII I had very usable organ patches for as also the KORG M1Rex w/ Organ PCM/program card inserted.

I used a user-programmable (levels & routing) AKAI MB76 7in/6out audio matrix responding to MIDI Prg-Changes to route several instruments to 3 different stereo FX combinations,- the leslie sim combo mentioned above, guitar amp w/ stereo chorus/flanger and a dry stereo-out to the main mixer where delays and reverbs were connected to the auxes.

That was very flexible but needed some rack space as also 6 additional channels on the mixer.

 

A.C.

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I've posted this here before, but I remember back in the early '90's reading in 'Keyboard Magazine' about how to use the built-in "Chorus" effect on the Roland D-50 synthesizer to emulate the "speeding-up and slowing-down" of a rotating Leslie Speaker on Hammond B-3 sounds, (in order to make them sound more believable.) In fact, the original idea came from some of the programmers at VALHALA, (the guys who designed the famous "Screamin' B3" ROM Card from their "ORGANizer Series", specifically.) Here's a quick video-tutorial that I made a while back for anyone that might be interested.

 

 

 

 

 

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I remember reading an article in Keyboard back in the 80s, about how to use the Korg DSS-1's additive harmonic oscillators to emulate a Hammond... and how to engage the single data slider to be used as a single drawbar. I tried that on my unit, and it sounded pretty good.

 

Also, at one point, I used a Roland SC-55 Sound Canvas to "build" my own Hammond tone, by layering a couple of organ presets and adding in a percussive click on the attack.

Kurzweil PC3, Yamaha MOX8, Alesis Ion, Kawai K3M
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My Polysix did a pretty good Hammond back in the 80s, particularly with the attack at 0 and a touch of resonance you got a good key click effect. The built-in chorus and phaser effects helped too.

 

Recently I put my Polysix through a Eric Clapton Crossroads distortion pedal; one of the presets has a rotary effect which is pretty good. Together they made a decent rock Hammond sound as I A/Bed it with my VB3 software.

"The devil take the poets who dare to sing the pleasures of an artist's life." - Gottschalk

 

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Aethellis

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No tricks. I've been on the clonewheel treadmill since retiring my tonewheel from the road in 1979 - organ is that important to me. I just wanted to list them all out to see how bad my sickness is. Yeesh.

 

korg-cx3-original-80614.jpg

 

http://www.datacomm.ch/sitan/styled-24/styled-34/files/vk-1000.jpg

 

http://images.equipboard.com/uploads/item/image/23461/nord-electro-2-73-keyboard-xl.jpg

 

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/sites/default/files/files/products/nord-stage/images/nordstageclassic76-models.jpg

 

http://www.hotrodmotm.com/images/hammond/keeper/controllersm.png

 

11523779_800.jpg

 

7941550_800.jpg

 

11345657_800.jpg

Moe

---

 

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From the late 80's until the late 90's when I picked up a Hammond XM1 and XM1c, I used a Roland D-50 with the Screamin' B3 card through a Rolls Rotorhorn RP-147. I remember being downright impressed with it at the time, but it probably sounded hideous by today's standards.

Live: Yamaha S70XS (#1); Roland Jupiter-80; Mackie 1202VLZ4: IEMs or Traynor K4

Home: Hammond SK Pro 73; Moog Minimoog Voyager Electric Blue; Yamaha S70XS (#2); Wurlitzer 200A

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Actually, the Hammond sound is in the pre-chorus throughout the entire tune. To my ears, it sounds like the real thing.

 

Slightly off topic - I think the only time Eddie actually recorded a real Hammond was at the end of Right Now.

�Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!�

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

 

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