ZioGuido

Just make sure that your external controller is sending on a Midi channel that matches lower channel (which in the Mojo61 is TX Channel + 1). If your TX Channel is 1, your external keyboard should send on Channel 2 in order to play the lower channel.

The Gemini allows the panning of DSP1 and DSP2 independently, so you can indeed have an organ on the left output and a piano on the right output, even if this is a "per preset" setting, not a global setting. The Mojo61 doesn't allow panning or splitting outpus.

Of course it is. The DMC-122 has 4 MIDI Outputs, when the Gemini is installed it takes the port n.4 named "INT" (internal), but you still have 3 ports left. If you connect your computer to the USB port and start the Editor, you can have the Editor/VB3 on the first port, the two Gemini engines on the 4th port, and you still have two more ports for other MIDI devices. Considering that the manuals can also be split, you can have four zones and direct them to whatever port or channel you wish. I have recently made a SetUp on my DMC where I have the Editor/VB3 on the upper manual playing the organ upper (with percussion etc.), a synth bass on the left part of the lower manual playing the VA synth of the Gemini, and an electric piano on the right part of the lower that comes from the second engine of the Gemini. I just mapped the upper manual to out USB and Channel 1, the lower on port INT and Channel 1 and the lower split (left part) on port INT and Channel 4. Once you save the SetUp you can also instruct it to send the Program Change messages so that all presets on the receiving devices are automatically recalled.

Pardon if I chime in once again in this thread but someone showed me their concern about the explanation of the various versions of VB3 that are around our products. I'll try to be more detailed. When we think of VB3 or any other software instrument, we generally refer to a "plug-in" which is a kind of executable that doesn't run on its own, because it needs to be opened from within another bigger application called the "host". Hosts, as we know, can be programs such as Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, etc. Every host program uses its own "plug-in format", as there are many: Cubase uses the VST, Logic / Mainstage uses the Audio Unit, Pro Tools uses the AAX, other hosts might use multiple formats at the same time, for example the Mac version of Ableton Live uses both the VST and the AU formats. The VB3 version 1.4 that is available on the GSi website is a plug-in in the formats of VST for Windows (32 and 64 bits) and VST/AU for Mac (only 32 bits). It is a plugin that I started back in 2003, in 2008 it was ported to the Mac platform and was last updated in 2010. The VB3-II that runs inside the Crumar Mojo is a special application made specifically for the Mojo built-in hardware. It is basically an evolution of VB3 v1 that evolved since the introduction of the Hamichord in 2008 until the last update that was released in May this year. The DMC-122 Editor is a stand-alone application that runs on both Windows and OSX. It is made for programming the controller capabilities of the DMC-122 but has a "bonus" function: it can also produce the sound of VB3-II, exactly the same as the Mojo with the only difference of a limited control set. So the DMC-122 Editor is not a plugin, it doesn't host plugins and can't be hosted in other host applications. It's a program that runs on its own, and "includes" (like hardwired in its virtual circuits) the sound of VB3-II. Then there's the Gemini: it is a hardware platform that, among the many sounds that it offers, also has the "core" of VB3-II as one of the 15 available sound engines. Just to summarize, we have - VB3 1.4: plugin VST/AU - VB3 Crumar Edition v2: only for Mojo - DMC-Editor with built-in VB3-II - Gemini with VB3-II as one of its 15 sound engines Now the question: "Why not VB3-II as a plugin for the Mac?" And the answer: because making a plugin, according to a specific format, is a whole different story than making a stand-alone application. The problem is not the audio part, the problem is the "shell" of the program. I could do the DMC-122 Editor for Mac because the technology I used allowed me to make a multi-platform application pretty easily, but making a plugin of a specific format requires a different technology that, momentarily, is not at my disposal. Give me time...

Yes, turning the rotary sim. off is possible even with the Editor version, the control is assigned to button n.17. And button n.18 activates the Pedal-to-lower. If you take the time to give a quick look at the DMC-122 Users manual, you'll find the control map for the built-in VB3-II and some more detail about how to use it.

Hi. What comes with the DMC-122 is not VB3 itself, it's a dedicated stand-alone application that is used to edit the controls of the DMC, much like for any other modern USB controller; plus, this application includes the sound engine of VB3-II, there's a window where you can set your soundcard parameters and start the audio engine. It's not a plugin, and has nothing to do with VB3 v1. The DMC-122 Editor is available for both Windows and OS X. Guido.

Last summer I had some fun recording my own "One Man Band" cover of Superstition, and for the occasion I used my Clavinet D6, Minimoog, did the brass parts on the Prophet 12 and I also played drums. The vocals uses the original track from the multitrack masters (found somewhere on the web years ago). I know I'm not the master of timing... but hey, that was fun! [video:youtube]AcSWHBxHERo

Yes! And, frankly, I have *never* seen and heard a real Hammond organ (with real Leslie) that sounds perfectly clean like a digital clone can do.

There's plenty of GSi Burn videos with a clean organ sound. Marco's videos, on the other hand, mostly show distorted sounds because that's how he likes'em.

That's of course the best way to compare just the basic organ sound, provided that the Hammond is properly connected to the same mixer where all other clones are plugged. I say that because in the last 5-6 years I've seen people trying to do these tests in the most stupid ways, kind of plugging a clone with leslie sim to two Leslies in stop position with the horns up front, or comparing a clone with leslie sim in stop position to a A100 with its internal speakers... and so on...

For me, there are two ways to evaluate Hammond clones: - all with internal leslie speaker - all connected to the same vintage Leslie If you just want to evaluate the quality of the organ simulation and compare it to a real Hammond, all organs (including any original Hammond) should be connected to the same Leslie. But if you want to compare Hammond clones as complete simulation of a Hammond + Leslie setup, you should connect them all to the same PA speakers and use the internal simulations. Leslie simulations alone are another story.

I'm not saying that a Hammond should be one of the objects of the shootout, it's needless to judge the quality of an Hammond at the present day, but if a reference has to be taken, I feel it's important that the reference is the real Hammond, not a fake one. Any real console Hammond (B3, C3, A100). I know that Hammonds are all diferent one each other, but having one over there, turned on and at their fingertip while they evaluate the digital boards, is important because they can compare, at any time, how a real Hammond actually behaves, not what it sounds like. For example, if they have to judge the behaviour of the percussion, or the key click, or any other relevant detail of a clonewheel, they'd have to refer to a real tonewheel Hammond which represents "the truth".

Why don't you include a real vintage tonewheel Hammond organ as a reference? Clones should be compared to a real Hammond, not to other clones, methinks.

Next week I should have a surgery at my nose, after that I hope to manage to sleep at least 7 hours a night

VB3 recreates the crosstalk considering a number of factors, first of all the cross-modulation between wheels residing in the same chambers inside the generator, then the wiring from the generator to the keybeds, and then all the wiring made of resistor wires below the keybeds, which is where the greatest part of the crosstalk is generated.

This kind of measurement only takes into account the amplitude of each tonewheel before this is fed into the rest of the circuit. This is important for the "character" of the organ, and helps the simulation software to recreate the overall organ sound, but doesn't take into consideration the rest of the sound. Crosstalk is only partially present at the generator's outputs. Unfortunately there's no way to "measure" the total crosstalk and leakage of an organ, those can only be measured by ear. By the way, if you make a cable with a TS jack on one end and a female BNC on the other end and use it to connect the probe to an amplifier in order to hear each wheel before it goes trough the rest of the circuit, you can hear the part of crosstalk that is present in the generator already. This of course affects the way the total crosstalk sounds like at the organ's output. Also, the crosstalk inside the generator is influenced by each single tonewheel amplitude. For example, if you have a high volume on wheel n. 61, this will be more present on wheel n.13 as well, since they are mounted into the same "chamber".

The Leslie simulation is the result of what a Leslie should sound like when mic'ed and recorded or amplified in a PA system. Imagine you're mic'ing up your Leslie like you see here in this video, so the Left jack would output the combination of the the bass microphone and the left upper microphone, and the Right socket gives bass plus right mic. If you want mono you can either leave the normal simulation in stereo and pick only one of the two outputs or mix them together in an external mixer. But with Mojo, if you don't have an external mixer, you can turn the simulation off and activate the output split so that one channel outputs the dry organ signal and the other channel outputs the mono simulation (sum of L+R) and use that one.

No, but I've just had an idea: with firmware version 1.3 you can press and hold the Manual buttons of each manual to set the manual in CANCEL MODE, this lets you save a preset since it automatically sets all drawbars values at zero position, but in a next update I could associate this function to a MIDI Channel shift, so for example, if you set the upper manual to CANCEL, it sends on channel 4 instead of 1, and lower manual would send on channel 5 instead of 2. Channel 3 remains reserved to the pedalboard. This is an idea... so you can switch from internal to external sounds with a single button.

The motherboards inside Crumar organs do have ethernet ports but those are disabled and the OS has no support for them, neither you can install drivers or a WiFi USB dongle, the OS wouldn't allow it. Remember that it's not the usual Windows you find preinstalled on the average PC for the family, it's Windows XP EMBEDDED, definitely another story. Just think that it takes less than 200 Mb on the DOM drive, while a full blown Windows would take from 500 Mb to 2 Gb, according to the version and the type of installation, not counting the swap file and the hybernation file. There's no reason for being scary of Windows running inside a Mojo or Hamichord, we have never seen one crashing in 4 years, it's practically impossible to make it crash.