Sustain on pedal voices on Hammond Clones.

[Chris Towns]

Are there any clones on the market that allow you to add sustain to the 16 and 8 ft drawbars and play via a connected pedalboard. I realise that original Hammonds did not have this feature, but for someone who plays bass pedals I think it's a pretty useful thing to have.

For me personally it will not be an issue as I use a Tyros 5 and could (and do) route bass sounds (with adjustable sustain) from the Tyros to my Roland PK5 pedalboard.

[WesG]

Not entirely true, Hammond DID make organs with pedal sustain, including the Model M (I think) but not the C3/B3/A100.

 

This is an interesting question. Most people never use pedals on their clones, seeing something like th PK5 reviewed is very very rare.

[JMcS]

The Hammond XK's and SK's have pedal tones that can be set to fade out slowly after the pedal is released.

[B3Nut]

The Hammond digitals offer sustain on the pedal voices, at least my XK-1 does. You can adjust the attack and decay of the pedal voices. I'm pretty sure the SK's offer it as well...I'd bet most of the digital organs offer it in their setup menus someplace. Put another way, I've never heard of a dedicated digital organ/clone that didn't offer a sustain option on its pedal voices.

 

As for pedal sustain on the old organs all M-series spinets had it, as did the H-100/300 and the X-66. An A-100S with pedal sustain was produced in Europe. Many lounge players retrofitted their B-3's etc. with Krueger Bass units and similar systems. I like the Trek II bass system myself...

 

TP

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Yes, the SK1 does have pedal sustain available, and it can be turned on or off.

Older Hammond models - a lot of the spinets had a way of sustain, sometimes they called it "String Bass" or similar. The 13 note pedal boards are difficult to play with both feet for a nice legato pedal line, whereas the 25 note and AGO type curved pedal boards are intended to be played using both feet (although depending on genre this may not happen).

 

[Chris Towns]

Guys, thank you for the feedback, I honestly never new some older Hammond's had sustain.

I've bought the Numa 2 organ so hopefully I can add some sustain with the use of attack and decay.

Great Forum.

Chris

[mak1457]

It's interesting to read the history about pedal sustain on Hammonds. The tonewheel technology is great but it really doesn't allow for many extras including sustain. If I remember reading correctly, Hammond had to add some sort of gating in order to offer sustain on their later models (E-100, H-100, M-100, etc). But competitor organs were fully electronic so they didn't have this limitation, which by the way, ultimately led to the demise of the tonewheel organ. Pedal sustain is supposed to help your pedal playing sound legato (which has been mentioned already). But if you know what you're doing with your bass pedals, pedal sustain is just a gimmick that really doesn't hold up very well in my opinion, and therefore not needed.

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Demise of the tonewheel organ -- Most likely single reason that Hammond switched to electronic generation instead of AC motor driving tonewheels is the cost of production. Building a B3 (for example) involved thousands of steps, many of which were quite labor intensive and not well suited to complete automation.

[Shamanczarek]

The M100 series had three pedal control tabs labeled Pedal Legato, Fast Decay, and Bass Mute while the M3 had a side lever on the left of the expression pedal which activated pedal sustain as long as you held it with your foot. The M3 and earlier M series organs had 12 - C up to B - pedals rather than the 13 - C to C - which became the industry standard.

[Paul Harrison]

But if you know what you're doing with your bass pedals, pedal sustain is just a gimmick that really doesn't hold up very well in my opinion, and therefore not needed.

 

Pedal sustain is a necessity for playing fast bass lines smoothly with one foot on short spinet-size pedals, and it usually has extra circuitry to shape the bass tone. Even on a full console-size pedalboard, where a heel-and-toe technique is possible, pedal sustain enables a smoother bass line and a rounder tone. I used a Trek II "String bass" unit on my old B3.

 

This clip shows a pedal sustain unit being used on a C3 (1:01-1:08 and 4:15-4:38).

 

[video:youtube]