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New Vox Continental


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Hi all

 

I have the new Vox Continental 61 - just wondering if anyone has found an organ sound on it that sounds the Gibson G101 organ also known as the Kalamazoo? It's the keyboard Ray Manzarek played with the Doors from their third album onwards and also live. I'm in a Doors Tribute band - the Vox sounds are great for the early stuff but it would be good to have a later Doors option. If you have found a similar sound on the Vox please let me know which settings and variation numbers on it. Cheers!

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Gibson and the closely related Lowrey Organ are the most overlooked in the sound sets of modern Keyboards. These Organs were used on many famous recordings by The Beatles, The Who, The Band, The Doors, The Animals, The Soft Machine, and Steppenwolf but other than a Lucy in the Sky sound on the Hammond SK series are pretty much non-existant. BTW, the Hammond SK models Vox Continental and is the only one I know of that has Rhodes Piano Bass as a stock sound.

 

I doubt if the New Continental or any other modern Keyboard can model the Gibson G101 sound. The only Keyboard I have that can come very close is the Casio WK3800. Any of the Casio WK series should be able to do this and probably the XW-P1. This is not a stock sound on Casios but requires some tweaking of the Tonewheel Organ section. I can't say enough about how versatile the Casio Organ section is. Keyboards costing thousands more can't do what these cheap Casios do in this area.

 

Casio at a fraction of the cost of top of the line Korg, Roland, Nord, Kurzweil, and dedicated Clonewheels is the only one I know of that allows you to add Release (as well as Attack, Filter Cutoff, and Resonance) to Organ sounds which is essential for simulating the Gibson/Kalamazoo/Lowrey Organs.

 

One thing no other Keyboard including the Casio can emulate is the half-step downward pitchbend pedal function. Actually some can be programmed to do the pitchbend but can't turn off the Vibrato at the same time as on the Gibson/Lowrey. The Casio can do the Repeat function as heard on The Who's Baba O'Reilly and some Doors songs by applying Square Wave Modulation though it's highest rate of speed can't quite match the Gibson/Lowrey. Then you can't have Vibrato and Repeat at the same time as is possible on the real deal.

 

The only other option outside of getting an actual G101 is to load samples into a Keyboard that has this capability and then still you will not get the full range of functions. For years there were G101 samples available on eBay from forum member HammondDave. These are no longer listed though he still has other Organ samples.

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 think Kurzweil VAST should be able to do these things.

 

Im not familiar with organs or the logic of whats happening, but from what youve said and a quick google, the pedal semi-tone drop and vibrato cancel should be possible using FUNs. FUNctions simply combine controllers (and modulation sources) in mathematical ways, so they can be set to things like +, -, AND, OR etc. Pedals/switches can be part of that.

 

A repeat note/chord function can be set with the Kurzweil arpeggiator. (Dont remember off hand but I think the setting is simultaneous). I dont know how the Lowrey works but the Kurz will certainly repeat what ever you just pressed, it will also latch, and since its independent of the sound engine, I imagine it should be independent of vibrato.

 

If there is anything else needed for key-off, the Kurzweil can be set to do all kinds of things; such as trigger a sample (this is how the harpsichord key-up thing works), or affect a mod destination. There are various key states on the kurzweil which are control sources. There is also release velocity, which can be a mod source just like attack velocity.

 

Malc

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I think Kurzweil VAST should be able to do these things.

[...]the pedal semi-tone drop and vibrato cancel should be possible using FUNs.

It's definitely possible -- I have a steel guitar patch in which I use FUNs to pitch bend the highest and lowest keys while letting the middle keys alone.

As a matter of fact, the Kurz (and a lot of other synths) can pretty easily apply a spare pedal to bend all pitches a preset amount without using FUNs at all.

 

What's usually more difficult to nail, on any synth, is any particular organ mixture. So if one's favorite registration on the Lowery was (made-up example) 8' Kinura, 8' Diapason, 16' and 5-1/3' flute, and a 4' violin, and that just in the upper manual, that would be quite a challenge to nail on a generalized polyphonic synth unless it had an engine designed specifically to emulate that particular organ.

 

Even things as simple as vibrato effects can give one fits -- note the huge portion of B3 emulators that fail because they can't quite get the Hammond vibrato/chorus right.

 

-Tom Williams

{First Name} {at} AirNetworking {dot} com

PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
sorry for late reply - thanks! actually my band used to have an original Gibson G101- it was great but like lots of vintage organs you never know whether it would cause a loud hum during gigs or not. we only have the new Vox continental now so guess we'll just stick with the Vox voices. I have found one voice vaguely similar to the Gibson but will run it past the other band members.
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The Audience doesn't know the difference. It is possible we spend too much time being concerned about the sound. It's better to make sure we have what is being played nailed and not worry about duplicating the exact sound.

 

Anyway, I use to working in a music store and there wasn't a Lowrey organ that was worth buying. Their home organs were constructed with particle board and were very expensive junk.

 

 

Mike T.

Yamaha Motif ES8, Alesis Ion, Prophet 5 Rev 3.2, 1979 Rhodes Mark 1 Suitcase 73 Piano, Arp Odyssey Md III, Roland R-70 Drum Machine, Digitech Vocalist Live Pro. Roland Boss Chorus Ensemble CE-1.

 

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