BBblues

Thanks for pointing that out, that leaves me with no clue, why the external keyboard does not react at all to changes of the velocity offset parameter. Can somebody try on his/her Sk1 if a second keyboard reacts to this parameter? then maybe we could compare configurations?

In the Manual of the SK1 there is this: KEYBOARD ⤠VELOCITY OFFSET (S) Fine-adjusts the keyboard velocity to personal taste. the setting range is -32 to +32. If your touch is heavy, set this parameter to a negative value, if your touch is light, set the parameter to a positive value. ⤡ SOUNDING POINT (S) Set the sounding point if the internal keyboard is played. DEEP All the section sounds on the deep point in the stroke. AUTO The Organ section sounds on the shallow point if the [ALLOCATE] of the Extra Voice section is OFF. NOTE: The External Zone notes on at shallow point, and the velocity value is fi xed at 100 when the Sounding Point is set at AUTO, and the [ALLOCATE] is OFF. That last part was getting me to think if something is blocked that way? For the external zones configuration the manual has this: ⤠NOTE - VELOCITY Sets the character of the velocity to send to this zone. Th e setting range is OF and 1 to 4. At OF, the velocity is fi xed at 100. Th e 'touch' (velocity response) of the keyboard progresses from 1 (heavier) through 4 (lighter). But how do i even get this external zone to affect my lower manual? The midi channel of my lower manual is set to "1".

Hello I have a question with my old Hammond SK1 I want to hook up a Doepfer D3M Midi Keyboard with 61 keys as a lower manual and have the problem that then its velocity is much too high. I found out that controls>velocity offset does only change the velocity of the upper manual (sk1 keyboard), but not at all the velocity behaviour of the second manual. Do you know how I can change the velocity of my second manual? By reading the manual I could imagine that it has got to do something with the external zone configuration but it does not change anything by what i tried there so far? You would help me so much, please help me if you can!! Best regards, BB

Is it possible with the Hammond SK that the bass pedal sound is independent from swell pedal's volume control? I would like to try to play some jazz bass lines with the foot on one constant volume level and still control volume for upper and lower manual via swell pedal. Does anybody know if it's possible?

Hello folks! two questions... 1. I would like to use my hammond sk1 for streetmusic. But for that I would need it to run with batteries. Has anyone of you ever tried to run the SK1 on batteries? Or has anyone experience to run digital devices like the SK1 with batteries? The powersupply provides 12V so I figured that probably a battery holder for 8x1,5V Batteries (type D, MONO) would have to do?! Or might there be a problem with the current/amperage? Can you tell me if it would be save/risky to just try it out ? 2. Do you have any recommendations for recharcheable or battery amps for street use with an organ (needs more or less enough bass for the organ...)?

Sorry, have not been at home the last days, but I see you already found my post which answers the question. Yes the removal of the side panels is no problem at all as you see in the video you posted. Actually the whole design of the SK1's casing/hardware looks very similar to the Nord's (I had an Electro 3 before I switched to the SK1). I still play my SK1 in this setup and I appreciate especially the extra storage which I have under the SK1:-) I can put the power supply, the volume pedal and a mini mixer which can be plugged to the SK1 and an mp3 player so that I can practice with backing tracks comfortably without the need of an amp with multiple inputs. Also the mini mixer acts as kind of a headphone preamp because for practicing purposes the pure signal out of the SK1's headphone jack is a little bit low for my taste..

Congrats for your new organ! I also have a Sk1. I still really like this keyboard and remember quite well how positively surprised I was when I first got it. As the only alternative, I could only think of the Nord Electro 5 (which just now appears on the market) - since it seems to have the features the SK1/2 has but no Nord had so far had in one package (Layering, midi manual+midi pedal, full leslie switch support, physical drawbars etc.). But the SK is simply the real deal - Hammond But I also was annoyed by the hiss problem in the beginning. But I do not really have problems with it in day to day use. It sounds like some sort of digital sample ratio problem (A/D converter,---) to my ears. But I think compared to any analog clones this is minimal noise. You can actually even minimize it with the tricks you mentioned in your post. Any real amp / leslie or even piano which is microphoned has way more noise - except you do it very properly...

That is true, size might be one reason for them, that they might think it is not practical to bring new "huge" piano samples. but still as a user I would prefer to be able to exchange my piano samples (for example the standard stereo piano of the sk1) with other models if they finally offered alternatives. I am always tweaking the velocity settings to fit most with the style of the songs I play. As I said, I find this ok but there is a lot more possible also with the fatar tp08 keybed (as one can see with the nord electros) of the sk1/sk2. I have not tried to connect other keyboards to my Hammond since I use a real piano whereever i find one on stage/in the rehearsal room and chose the Hammond because of its all-in-one concept. I do quite a number of gigs and rehearsals and therefor do not like to have too much gear to transport and set up... Generally I find it cool that hammond still developes and publishes new voices for the sks but speaking freely I cannot say that I find any of those "new" voices practical (usable) for me as a musician who uses this instrument as a substitute for electromechanical instruments (organ, rhodes, wurly, clav) and pianos and NOT as a synth... I already wrote them two times (once 3 years ago and once 1 year ago) in the past but they tell you that your request has been forwarded to the hammond suzuki devellopers and nothing seems to happen at all in this direction :-( There is still literally no other instrument on the market which satisfies my needs as much as the sk, so i still love it but some "usable" extra voice updates for the sk's library would be great...

I do not understand why hammond does not make some other piano samples (some rhodes variations would be great too). Clearly the pianos on the sk1/sk2 are "ok to use" but nowhere near great (though they are still a bit better than the ones on the Nord Electro 2). Some variations would be awesome, so WHY?? Nord is bringing new samples of different piano and grand piano models all the time... All these strange string pad piano samples synths, etc. may be interesting for SOME people but I am sure there are still many people like me hoping for other pianos... I only use pianos, organ and the electromecanical instruments (rhodes, wurly, clav) on my sk1...

Well, that sounds plausible, maybe that I did get that shortcut wrong... Thanks! I am now off to study while the week but I will try that on the weekend!

@Elliot Keys: Yes that is right. But I do not know which part of my post you are now reffering to.. Which function do you wish to achieve?

Ok, I think I understand the problem better now. The main problem as I understand it, is that on the B3/A100 the percussion tabs are wired to work with the "b"-preset but they are not wired to work with the "Bb"-preset. I did not think of that before. Let's hope they will implement it in a future update. @Elliot Keys: I am talking about the 3 Buttons which are labled "upper", "pedal" and "lower" on the upper left next to the drawbars on the SK1/SK2, the section is called "Drawbar Select". Let me know in case you should have any further questions.

I also have been wondering about ways to achieve the behaviour you describe, Hal! Also if one saves presets with different reverbs or other effects this often got me confused and one must be very careful while programming. There actually is a way to achieve exactly the behaviour you describe with the Sk2. But you might probably already be familiar with it: I use my Sk2 most of the time with all "Patch Load" parameters turned OFF and only "PATCH LOAD - UPPER Registration" turned ON. This way only the upper organ drawbar registration will be changing while switching between favorites. So I have 10 preset keys for the upper manual and no effects, reverb, and organsection parameters like percussion, vibrato, etc. will be changed when I switch between the upper registrations. Sadly these "Patch Load" parameters are all global, so if one uses a lot of Extravoices with elaborated effects, this might be a drawback. But I mainly play organ and I found, for me, this works well for jazz organ playing (since lower manual registration rarely varies). But for other contexts of hammond organ playing (for example gospel organ, where one uses a lot of different upper AND lower registrations and adjustments + pedal) this is not fully satisfying, as I find. I always regretted that this way there is no way to achieve "Preset Keys" for the lower manual...: There is a parameter called "PATCH LOAD - LOWER/PEDAL Registration" but obviously this would always change lower AND pedal registration at the same time which might also lead to confusions if presets are not programmed carefully enough. And besides that - as mentioned above - all "PATCH LOAD" parameters sadly are GLOBAL! This means, that if one wants upper preset keys as favorite buttons, one can not have lower preset keys at the same time... My dream would be a firmware update which includes: - patchload parameters non-global -> one can save all patchload parameters for every single favorite button - seperated patchload parameter classes for pedal and for lower manual registration Another thing which annoys me a little bit is: When switching between different organ models by pressing the three drawbar selector buttons (upper, pedal & lower) at the same time, the SK2 switches generally to the "pedal"-postition for drawbar selection afterwards. I would find it less confusing for live situations if it just stayed where it was before. And I also wished that these three drawbar selector buttons were toggle buttons (so that always one of them has to be selected and never all three can be deactivated). I often find myself in live situations changing the drawbars and then realizing that not even the wrong but neither of the drawbar selectors was turned "ON". These are the small things which still make me miss the ease of use of the 4 full sets of drawbars of the real thing...

I downloaded the mellotron library on my usb stick, I like the new sounds, esp. the violin and flute samples are very usable.

Thx for the info, mellotron sounds for the sk1, nice!

Wouldn't setting it to Auto so the organ notes trigger at the shallow point make fast trills easier? Now that you mention it, it makes sense again! xD Sometimes I should reread more carfully before posting...

Thanks guy for the feedback! Very much appreciated! @MoodyBluesKeys: Congrats, I would recommend you to also soon try to edit some of the deeper settings to your liking. Y I find that I am still learning and discovering new things in the SK1 after using it for more than 9 months now. You can edit every parameter through menu or easier through pressing the concerning button for a short period of time. These are parameters I found important to play with: - leslie parameters (I like to make the "rise, fall" parameter a bit shorter because this comes closer to my Hohner ORT leslie and reacts faster) - overdrive settings (not only EpAmp is usable but with the right expression pedal setting I find Tube and Clip also nice models to give your chords a little push) - expression pedal settings (the reaction curve, how low will the volume get, when does it start to distort) - very important feature!! - under the menu "Patch" you can edit if you like to change all parameters or just some of them when choosing another user/factory-preset/favorite. I often like to set it to "change only upper drawbars and no other parameters". This way I can use the favorite buttons like the inverse preset keys of a b3 for the upper manual. - try editing the spring reverb to your likings - set the parameter "sounding point" to "deep" in order to be able to play faster trills have fun!

just added a self-made halfmoon switch to my SK1. it still needs some lacquer/color but it works fine. I used a 3-way megaswitch. i had to try out two models. the cheaper one did not work as good: when going from left to middle - from slow to stop - it caused the SK1 simulation to toggle to "fast" for some milliseconds or so and this resulted in the leslie sim speeding up quite a bit before going into stop mode... but the other switch i use here does its job). It also works fine with my Hohner ORT 100 Leslie.

If you mean the original hammond bag: there is a little space next to the left end cap of the hammond sk1 which is supposed to be used to store the external power adapter (and/or for example a yamaha fc7 foot pedal swell). There is also a protection pad which is in between to protect the sk1's left end cap from getting damaged by the plastic parts of the power adapter, etc.

Hi, Jim! Yes they are custom made, in fact it is a custom case for my SK1 with a second fatar keyboard manual. I described it here.

No rucksack straps but still a nice fit for 33 - Thomann Keyboard Bag 3, I am very satisfied with the build quality for the money. The bag has a nice and defined rectangular shape and provides sufficient protection, I definitely recommend it. I also ordered the Gator GKB61 bag but did not like the looks of it very much. It is a good bag though, but I sent it back...

You are right, in Germany it is 99, still too expensive in my opinion. Very nice pointer with the gun bag! But still I think the Hammond Bag is the best bag for the SK1 and I really do appreciated the rucksack straps... You can walk to the session/rehearsal with the sk1 on the back, very convenient. I sell mine for 50 by the way. Is their a Cabelas Bag fitting for the SK2 also? I am still thinking about getting the original bag for the SK2 (now that I have made my "custom sk2" with my sk1). But I ordered the Gator GKB 61 and will look how it fits, arrives this week... The problem is that my organ is slightly smaller and shorter then the Sk2 and there does not seem to be the perfect fit with any bag...

Nice, congrats!

Thanks Hal! I will contact and ask them!

Thanks all for the input!! My local dealers here in Germany sell this bag which looks slightly different: http://www.session.de/HAMMOND-Softbag-SK-2.html It has the desired rucksack straps. Maybe this is the later improved version by hammond?!