SK-1 and 2 Tips, Tricks and Other Cool Stuff.

[tompass]

When SK2 is set to auto, trigger point for organ only is set to higher level but when you select any additional voice, it reverts to lower trigger point. No way that I know that you can maintain the higher trigger point for EV's.

[RedKey]

No way that I know that you can maintain the higher trigger point for EV's.

 

I'd want the EV's to remain at the lower trigger point while the organ stays at the higher point.

[tompass]

OK, I understand.

[tompass]

Wouldn't that result in some delay between voices? Organ sounding just slightly before piano etc?

[RedKey]

Organ sounding just slightly before piano etc?

Yes, a feature I love about my Stage.

 

Curious about the SK2. When you have organ on one manual and the EV on the other, do you get two trigger point? One for each manual?

[JMcS]

I don't know if this will work but it is worth a try. One of the MIDI In modes (pg. 110 #2) is EXVOICE. It tells the SK that whatever it receives plays the EV's. Try using that mode and turning on a LM EZ. I don't think the channel matters but set it for one above 3. Turn the MIDI TX channels (pg. 110 #'s 13 - 15) off. I think leaving the RX channels on wouldn't matter. Connect the MIDI Out to the MIDI In. If it works, the LM should play the organ at the high point and send velocity to trigger the EV.

 

Good Luck.

[keyoctave]

There has been discusion in the past on making an 8 pin cable to control the Neo Ventilator from your SK organ. The hardest part was soldering the wire to the tiny pins on the DIN connector. I made one for use with my XK-1 which used the DIN part to control the vent speed and used a seperate 1/4" cable to carry the audio from the organ to the vent. Since I now have an SK-1, I decided to make one that carries speed control as well as audio and in doing this, found an easier way to construct this cable.

 

I went into this deciding to make two cables (always good to have a spare). I purchased 3' of 1/4" TRS cable and 3' of 1/4" TS cable (also know as stereo and instrument cable) and 10' of 8 pin DIN cable. This will give me two cables of approx 6.5' (you can cut the cable to any length you want or buy a longer DIN cable for extended runs). Since the 8 pin DIN cable wire is colored to industry wiring standards you can assemble this wire without the need of a multi-meter to determine which wire goes to what pin.

 

Here is the 8 pin DIN wire color to pin standard:

 

Pin 1 Brown

Pin 2 Red

Pin 3 Orange

Pin 4 Yellow

Pin 5 Green

Pin 6 Blue

Pin 7 Violet

Pin 8 Grey

Bare wire - metal shield

 

 

Here are the pin assignments that work with the Neo ventilator:

 

Pin 1 Audio out (rotary only, not extra voice)

Pin 2 Leslie detect

Pin 5 Ground

Pin 7 Fast speed

Pin 8 Slow speed

Not used - Pins 3,4,and 6

 

All you have to do it strip the ends you cut and solder/heat shrink the bare ends by matching up the color wire from the DIN cable to the appropriate wire on the TRS/TS cable.

 

 

Here's how it goes:

 

Pin 1 (brown wire) solders to the hot (tip) of the TS cable.

Pin 7 (violet wire) solders to the ring (white or black color) of the TRS cable.

Pin 8 (grey wire) solders to the tip (red wire) of the TRS cable.

Pins 2,5 and the shield wire solder to both shield wires from the TS/TRS cable.

 

You should shrink each wire separately, then shrink the whole cable as one (don't forget to slide the shrink tubing on before you solder). You now have a completed cable with factory made ends.

 

I look at the vent as a Leslie speaker in that I only want organ sounds going through it. By using the 8 pin cable, I can control the vent from the SK's Leslie controls (I also use a foot switch hooked up to the SK to control the speed as well) and the extra voices are now routed through the SK's L/R line out's. The 8 pin cable also turns off the internal Leslie effect when plugged in but when unplugged, the internal effect is back on. This way, you can still save a patch's Leslie effect that can be used if your not using the vent.

 

Hope this helps those of you who do this kind of stuff.

 

[keyoctave]

Something else I found out in doing the 8 pin DIN cable....

 

When the ventilator and the SK's line out are hooked up to a mixer, put on a pair of headphones, select an organ only program and unplug the 8 pin cable while holding a cord. The SK switches immediately to the internal sim. When you plug it back in, it switches right back to Ventilator. Balance the volume of each in the mixer and now you can do an instant direct comparison between the two sims.

[Petes]

Hi!

I have hammond sk and Neo instruments ventilator - great combination for me, but I think that have a problem! I used the stereo cable and also a special hammond Sk to neo ventilator cable. Outputs involved in the stereo amp that also shows on the display which channel is active. When I ,,turned off bypass,, - its important for me, always showed only one single active channel output L. Why not played the second channel output R/mono. In my opinion both channels should play one time to stereo or no? When I ,,turned on,, bypass the both channels are active and sound played stereo. I try out solder - but to my suprise when I off bypass not changed! And when I turned on bypass sound was also mono - played only one channel. I think there was an error, outputs R/mono does not work is it not normal IMO. Thanks for your help and sorry for english! Good luck!

[JMcS]

I don't know if this will work but it is worth a try. One of the MIDI In modes (pg. 110 #2) is EXVOICE. It tells the SK that whatever it receives plays the EV's. Try using that mode and turning on a LM EZ. I don't think the channel matters but set it for one above 3. Turn the MIDI TX channels (pg. 110 #'s 13 - 15) off. I think leaving the RX channels on wouldn't matter. Connect the MIDI Out to the MIDI In. If it works, the LM should play the organ at the high point and send velocity to trigger the EV.

 

Good Luck.

 

I tried this today and it doesn't work for having the organ trigger high and the EV trigger low. I was able to get it to trigger both the organ and EV at the high point without velocity though. So this won't work for pianos or anything that requires velocity but it did work nicely for mixing in synth. voices etc.

[Josh Paxton]

Here's a cool trick I discovered when pairing the SK with a Ventilator. The Vent is known for having better overdrive than the SK, but I've found that using a little bit of overdrive from both sources sounds better than either one by itself. So set the drive in both the Vent and the SK at about half of where you'd normally want them. That gives you a nice warm purr which, to my ears, sounds better than either one individually. I discovered this accidentally, by forgetting to turn off the SK's internal overdrive. But it was a happy mistake.

[Octopus]

I have also made that mistake, but i didnt liked the mixed overdrive (like different frequences or something), the overdrive on the vent is much more warmer.

 

I never use programs. I always have the "manual" button down and when i want EP on the other manual i press solo /upper or lower depends on if i use perc on the organ. I like to play EP on top.

 

 

[kenheeter]

Hi all,

I just got an 8 pin DIN connector and wired up the interface to my Ventilator. I've had the SK1 for a couple of weeks now and I've been enjoying it but I have intentionally avoided the Vent until now. So, this thing with the Vent is truly an amazing combination. The Vent control is spot-on and together they sound wonderful. The onboard sim is very good and certainly good enough for rehearsals and one-set gigs, but through the Vent this thing is a Hammond and Leslie..... Love it!

 

Ken

[RedKey]

Just ran into an issue...

Turned my sk1 on tonight and it was reset to factory settings. All changes I've made to user presets and system are gone.

 

Anyone run into this?

 

[JMcS]

It doesn't have a back-up battery so it can't be that going low. Had you recently done an OS update? That can reset the setup. Hopefully you had it saved to the USB drive.

[RedKey]

Had you recently done an OS update? That can reset the setup. Hopefully you had it saved to the USB drive.

 

I updated to V6 a few weeks ago. It's the changes since then. Luckily, it wasn't many changes. Maybe a dozen modified user presets, some Leslie tweaks, and my 10 favorite buttons assigned. Did a handful of gigs and rehearsals with no problem. Last night I turned it on and they were all gone. I'll back up to USB next time. Not a big problem this time, but wow... watch out and make sure you back up your settings!

[tompass]

Also may need to save "WH" settings.

[kenheeter]

Hi,

Am I correct in understanding that the SK1 should respond to external pitch bend and modulation information? I have mine mated with a Nord Stage and it should be possible to use the pitch stick and mod wheel with the SK1 as long is it can deal with it. Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks, Ken

[JMcS]

IIRC you have to set the MIDI In mode to EXVOICE to have it respond to Pitch Bend and Mod wheel data.

[kenheeter]

That's it! Thanks, Ken

[lsj]

need more feedback from others in reference to the neo ventilator. wondering if this unit is that much of an improvement over the leslie sym in the sk1. thank you.....Larry

[Tonysounds]

Yes. Still an improvement.

[Benjie P]

I've spent a lot of time fine tuning, tweaking the internal leslie sim in my studio and on gigs and have the vent. Vent still an ENORMOUS improvement. Thought I had the sim sounding great many times then plug in the vent and A/B them and the vent is just better. Plus the overdrive on the vent is waaaaaaay better than the overdrive on the SK. SK is still a fabulous instrument but the vent takes it to the next level.

[kenheeter]

Agreed on the Vent. My Numa's internal sim is good enough to leave the Vent at home, but the SK1 really benefits from it.

Ken

[JrussoC]

Hey, I have the sk1 and I was wondering, can I play with other keyboard via midi and still play with the sk1 keyboard? You know, just like the sk2... How can I do that?

[JMcS]

Yes, an attached keyboard can act as a lower organ manual (or upper if you prefer) it can also act as a controller for the EVs if you want to use a more piano like keyboard. See pg. 110 #1. Also, the Release 6 update adds 2 new MIDI modes, so see the readme file in the update ZIP file.

[JrussoC]

Thanks JMcS, but...

did you mean release 5? this is the last release I downloaded:

 

http://hammondorganco.com/downloads/system-downloads/

[JMcS]

No, Release 6. Fre some reason, Hammond US is asleep at the wheel and doesn't have it yet.

 

You can get it here:

 

Hammond EU

[JrussoC]

Thanks again, now I have other question:

 

Is there a way, when you split organ and EV, to make one of them be emitted just in the RIGHT amp and the other one in the LEFT amp? (with the configuration in stereo mode)

[JMcS]

No.

 

An adapter can be made for the 8 pin Leslie connector that can separate the signals though. It isn't available commercially in the US. I think Thomann(sp?) sells one in Europe.