Clonewheel shootout, VSTs and hardware

[AnotherScott]

8 organs playing the intro to Yours is No Disgrace, listed below alphabetically, not in the order played. Which do you like?

 

 

This is all drawbars out (which I do not believe is the correct registration), no C/V... it was simply an attempt to see what a big prog rock organ sounds like with these tools, focusing on the overall sonic character. I tweaked some more than others, but didn't spend a whole lot of time on any of them. I wanted lots of overdrive, but more of the "gurgly" kind, less Jon Lord and more, well, Tony Kaye. I did a leslie speed up and slow down at the end of each just to demonstrate that effect. And there are all kinds of flaws. Like I play it a little differently almost every time, left in flubs, and the bass notes should really be on a different manual with different settings, and some other stuff... but I'd like to see if there's any consensus here about which ones sound more or less "real." (Or even if you find that something sounds less authentic, but you prefer it anyway?) Comments about any/all of the 8 welcome (you can give each a rating, if you're feeling ambitious), and bonus points if you want to take any guesses as to which any of them are... or even merely whether something is an actual clonewheel or a VST...

 

Acoustic Samples B5

GG Blue 3

GSI VB3-II

Hammond SK1

IM Multimedia B3X

Kurzweil PC4

Nord Stage 3

Numa Organ (original)

 

You may hear some editing. I'll explain why later. ;-)

 

p.s. -- I see I forgot to do the leslie speed change at the end of one of them, oh well. I'll try to do another go at that one next week. I also want to do a test with percussion, since that's something that varies a lot too, and maybe putting a Vent on some of the hardware...

[Tom Williams]

Wonderful A - H comparison. Since there are so many organ and Leslie parameters available, how did you choose which ones to use? My very limited experience (lately all Kurzweil) has yielded scores of combinations of volume profile, leakage, distortion, EQ, mike distance, ad nauseum on just K2's and PC3's.

[BernMeister]

Tough, as there are many contexts to contend with...even in the same song. However, from what I hear, my picks are 5 (horrible fast Leslie) and 7...mostly for their clarity. The distortion in the others add too much mud. I'm not going to comment as to which has the better slow Leslie sound; I'm guessing the slow settings weren't properly matched between the test units in the first place. I will say the best fast Leslie I'm hearing is from 1 and 2.

[Paul Harrison]

From a quick listen, I put 5 at the top of the list and 8 at the bottom. Mostly, the overdrives were a bit "fizzy" (rather than "growly") and the Leslies a bit "phasey" (rather than "swirly") for my taste.

[Legatoboy]

I like 3 for the 'Your's is No Disgrace ' sound... but I don't know if I could play that sound all night... some of this stuff is song and style dependent besides personal.

I guess 6 for me is the best for overall usage out of the bunch for my ears... subjective stuff to some degree like keyboard action is. Everyone seems to have a different ideal organ sound.. it can be a very personal taste as it should ..

 

Funny, just did my yearly oiling of my B3 and I lowered my internal treble pot by about a quarter after a few years of it almost at full...to bright! just 3 days ago!

 

Also with your very nice soundcloud here and thank you BTW for this, some of the organs sound better in one octave than they do in others as is usually the case when checking out modern keyboards that makes this sort of stuff frustrating...and so many variables - tonewheel sound, TW sets, drawbar settings, overdrive and chorus/vib , Leslie - even more so!

 

Nice job with this!

 

[jverghese]

Very nice shootout, thanks for posting!

 

Some quick observations:

 

#1 Rather thick and muddy, transistor-like overdrive. Rotary effect is decent, a bit on the chorusy side, though. Compression seems a bit exaggerated.

 

#2 Nice and dark overdrive with more growl than the previous one. However, lacks definition.

 

#3 Leslie sounds good on fast speed, could be IK Multimedia, however, overdrive is yet again too fizzy and transistor-like.

 

#4 Overdrive seems middlish and grating, also too much direct sound to be convincing.

 

#5 Nice stereo spread, but again the overdrive lacks growl and definition, and is masked by the direct signal. Fast Leslie is too vibrato-ish.

 

#6 Transistor, not tube. Fast Leslie is nice, though.

 

#7 Leslie simulation uses some timbral modulation, which is good (overlooked by most other simulators). However, the odd lower-mid resonance destroys it for me.

 

#8 Overdrive is too middlish and washy. A real tube amp passes some amount of direct signal even when severely overdriven. Leslie might be good, but hard to tell because of the muddy overdrive.

 

For reference, here is the original organ part isolated:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdSM-CYoN6Y

 

[Moonglow]

Thanks for taking the time to put this together, Scott!

 

Overall, I preferred #5. I liked the clarity/definition, and the distortion didn't get in the way of the sound. My second overall favorite was #6, although I did not like the Leslie. I probably liked the Leslie of #3 the most, although I would have preferred a slightly quicker ramp-up.

[Jazz+]

I wonder how the Crumar Mojo 61 would compare?

[ElmerJFudd]

I wonder how the Crumar Mojo 61 would compare?

 

It would sound very much like VB3II

Software is the same, just running on different hardware.

The color might be slightly different depending on what they picked for DA conversion on that board.

But not by much.

[Jim Alfredson]

Nice work! My guesses:

 

1 - Nord C2

2 - VB3

3 - IK Multimedia B-3X

4 - Blue

5 - Hammond SK1

6 - Acoustic Samples

7 - Numa

8 - Kurzweil PC4

[Dr88s]

I don"t know enough about the various clones to guess but:

 

1. It"s interesting to hear just how different some sound compared to the others for similar settings, and

 

2. It"s cool to hear the part isolated on organ. My brain was eager to fill in all of the other instruments.

[Al Quinn]

Nice job Scott! Thanks.

 

I like #5 best and #8 least.

 

I didn"t like the OD or Leslie Sim on any of them. Some Leslie sims sound more like phasers. All of the ODs lack the organic, random character of the real thing.

[ElmerJFudd]

Just found the points in the comments where the tracks change.

Was having a bitch of a time on the phone app jumping from one to the other.

[AnotherScott]

Thanks to everyone for the comments. I'm not going to respond to comments on any of the individual models yet, I'll wait for the "big reveal" so everyone has a chance to evaluate them blind if desired.

 

BTW for this, some of the organs sound better in one octave than they do in others

yes, and I'm going to do another shorter demo that will have some low octave with thunky percussion, and here's a short one that shows a bit of high octave scream (first three drawbars only)... this includes the first 7 of the 8 organs in the original demo.

 

So let's see if this impacts anyone's evaluations of the first seven...

 

 

Besides the overall character of the sound of the part, also of possible interest is the character of the fall down at the end.

 

Since there are so many organ and Leslie parameters available, how did you choose which ones to use? My very limited experience (lately all Kurzweil) has yielded scores of combinations of volume profile, leakage, distortion, EQ, mike distance, ad nauseum on just K2's and PC3's.

That's one more thing that makes the comparison flawed. Some of these things have a ton of tweakability. And I actually did do some tweaking, so you can't be sure "how" you're hearing some of these. That said, I found that, for example, even though there were 18 (or whatever) VB3 models to choose from, and they did sound different, they all still sounded like VB3. The overall character of the organs generally seemed pretty consistent among their various settings, at least for the characteristics I was listening for. But for example, moving the leslie mic positions closer together or further apart on one of them arguably made a more significant difference.

 

The distortion in the others add too much mud.

Another flaw in the test... it was merely my judgment of how much distortion I could add before it crossed over from what I was looking for to a kind of distortion I was not looking for. And that results in some having less distortion overall. IOW, I wasn't matching for a "comparable" level of overdrive, but rather, each one's "maximum" amount of usable overdrive before sounding like something I personally didn't want. (And in hindsight, I think I actually could have gotten more out of at least one of them.) So what you might see as a positive ("not excessive overdrive") might have been a negative in my efforts, as it could have meant that I could not turn up the drive as much as I"d have liked to, without getting something I didn't want out of them.

 

I'm guessing the slow settings weren't properly matched between the test units in the first place.

I made no attempt to match rotary speeds. Each was (I believe) factory default for that model.

 

Mostly, the overdrives were a bit "fizzy" (rather than "growly")

So which ones did you find the more satisfying "growly" ones? That is very much one of the key differentiators I was looking for in this test.

 

I don't know if I could play that sound all night

and of course, you wouldn't have to. All of the options do let you do things like back off or increase overdrive at will.

 

[gg22]

I think Jim is spot on. For "growly" overdrive I like #2 (probably VB3), then #3 then #5. #8 and #4 are the worst.

[ElmerJFudd]

For comparison....

 

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/BdSM-CYoN6Y

[roygBiv]

Thank you for taking the time to do this Scott

 

My favorites were (in descending order):

 

#5 (by far the best, IMHO)

 

#7

 

#6

 

# 3

 

The rest I didn't like as much.

 

As others have noted above, #8 was especially egregious. However, that might be simply because that one doesn't do distortion well.

 

In fact, I think the reason I liked #5 was the way it sounded (the most clear and 3D), but that may not actually be the closest to the Yes track!

 

Roy

[Kawai James]

Nice comparison Scott!

 

I also like #5 the best, however it may not necessarily be the closest to the original.

I'm not sure about the slow-->fast change on the Leslie though...

 

Interesting to hear the organ part isolated from the original tune. I assume this was from one of the "Guitar Hero" style games?

I don't think Spleeter is *that* good yet, is it?

 

Cheers,

James

x

[Paul Harrison]

Mostly, the overdrives were a bit "fizzy" (rather than "growly")

So which ones did you find the more satisfying "growly" ones? That is very much one of the key differentiators I was looking for in this test.

While 5 was at the top of my list overall, I thought its overdrive was a bit mild, and of the others, 1 was next on my list overall, and I thought it had the least "fizzy" overdrive.

[AnotherScott]

Some updated files:

 

* The fourth sample was missing the rotary speed change at the end. Here it is:

 

* The second organ I think may have been less representative (and perhaps not as good) due to excessive tweaking on my part, so I went back to something closer to its stock sound, but also boosted the brightness, since it seemed dark compared to the others (and there was a criticism that it lacked definition, which might be addressed this easily). So the new #2 is at:

 

* I also did a "fuller" sounding version of #3, at

 

So please listen to these new versions of 2 and 3, and see if you like them better than the original versions of 2 and 3, and if they change how highly you rank them.

[SteveUK]

I liked #1 and then #5.

 

I think #1 is the Nord as it sounds close to the clonewheel in the Stage 2EX I have.

 

The majority of the others I didn't care for in this setting. From the posts in this thread though, with the exception of #5 which is getting lots of thumbs up, very much each to their own.

[Delaware Dave]

I liked #1 and then #5.

 

I think #1 is the Nord as it sounds close to the clonewheel in the Stage 2EX I have.

 

The majority of the others I didn't care for in this setting. From the posts in this thread though, with the exception of #5 which is getting lots of thumbs up, very much each to their own.

 

Observation: Anotherscott, not sure what your goal is here. You ask, which do you like? Is that the goal? I would have thought the better question would be, which sounds closest to the original recording? When you get an answer like the one I quoted, you get someone who says that they like the #1 and it sounds like my Nord Stage 2EX. This person might not ever have ever owned a real hammond and all they know is that they like the sound the Stage 2EX puts out but is not really the closest to what a Hammond actually should sound like. This might be what your after. When you play a clone everyday that sound starts to become the standard by which everything is measured. Again, I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish but if it is to compare the progressive rock sound of Yes (in which a real organ was used) you should be asking which one compares closest to that sound? At the end of the day I think that is where the manufacturers and the players are trying to get to. It would be extremely helpful if you used a real hammond and say "this is that same lick played on a model X hammond with a model y leslie, which of these unidentified clones sounds closest to the real deal". My two cents, which in this forum is all that my comments are worth.....

 

[jverghese]

I think #2 has the best distortion, and #3 the best Leslie emulation. Still, all of this goes to show how difficult it is to recreate tube distortion in software -- non of these examples are particularly authentic.

 

I would probably use #2 for Yours...

 

Thanks again!

[Adan]

They're all plenty good enough to fool the casual listener. The only people who care about the differences are folks like us. That said, I'll be interested to see the Big Reveal. I'm with others on liking #5 best.

[Jazz+]

What about 88800000 ?

C3

Percussion: Soft Fast 3rd

Leslie Stopped/Slow

[drawback]

Was wondering how long that would take.

[AnotherScott]

Observation: Anotherscott, not sure what your goal is here. You ask, which do you like? Is that the goal? I would have thought the better question would be, which sounds closest to the original recording?

...

Again, I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish but if it is to compare the progressive rock sound of Yes (in which a real organ was used) you should be asking which one compares closest to that sound? At the end of the day I think that is where the manufacturers and the players are trying to get to. It would be extremely helpful if you used a real hammond and say "this is that same lick played on a model X hammond with a model y leslie, which of these unidentified clones sounds closest to the real deal".

I'll try to clarify. I guess my use of the word "like" could have been a bit ambiguous. I was asking, what do you like in the context of what it was I was trying to do. And maybe just what it was I was trying to do wasn't clear enough. What I was trying to do is capture the character of a big Hammond sound with lots of tube Leslie style overdrive. That is, I'm looking for something of a character that is along the lines of the Tony Kaye organ in YIND. But no, I did not ask "what do you think comes closest to the original recording." That would have been the wrong question because I am not certain as to what the original drawbar setting was, nor did I spend time trying to determine it (and in fact, if you listen to the original, it seems the last chord uses a different setting than the rest!), and also I don't know what EQ might have been used in the recording or mixdown, and perhaps most importantly, I actually spent no time at all trying to match each organ's sound to the original, which would have been a lot more time consuming. So trying to determine from these samples which organ or VST can sound most like that recording was not only not what I was asking, but in a sense could also be beyond anyone's ability to discern because I hadn't even attempted to make them all sound like the recording in the first place! But there is a certain general character I was going for. An airiness and spit and gurgle, if you will. Something that sounds like it *could* have come out of Tony Kaye's organ on that album, even if it doesn't sound exactly like the sound he actually used. If I'd currently had access to a real tonewheel Hammond and Leslie though, I would have included that in my test as well. ;-)

 

Basically, so much discussion of organ/leslie sound here seems to center around jazz (somewhat restrained on the overdrive) or, if rock, the really distorted Marshall (not Leslie) style distortion of Deep Purple, neither of which are what I'm after. So I was trying to provide some sense of a comparison of a Hammond sound well overdriven through a Leslie, and this is what I came up with. So when I ask what you like, I mean in the context of trying to get that general character of sound. Which may or may not mean it comes closest to the original YIND sound. I mean, it's theoretically possible that, because of different drawbar balances, one may come closer to the sound of whatever drawbar registration he was using, but as I did not even particularly attempt to determine what that was, that's kind of incidental. It's more about the character of the sound than the particular tone. I don't know if I'm helping. ;-)

 

What about 88800000 ?

C3

Percussion: Soft Fast 3rd

Leslie Stopped/Slow

 

Not exactly what you want, but the link I added in post #3018854 (which, again, is

) is 888000000 and slow Leslie, but no CV, no percussion. I'm also going to upload a "Green Eyed Lady" comparison which will be the same but with loud 3rd percussion.

 

[matted stump]

This is the point in the conversation where I always bring up my Speakeasy AMA.

 

Here's another Tony Kaye Yes song with a lowly Nord Stage 1 + AMA and Speakeasy leslies. Yeah, it's spinning real air but the TK lovely distortion is all AMA.

 

http://www.hotrodmotm.com/sounds/roadbox/rb_ama_03_allgoodpeople.wav

[AnotherScott]

This is the point in the conversation where I always bring up my Speakeasy AMA.

 

Here's another Tony Kaye Yes song with a lowly Nord Stage 1 + AMA and Speakeasy leslies. Yeah, it's spinning real air but the TK lovely distortion is all AMA.

Very nice. I'd be curious to know how it sounded recording line out directly from the tube preamp.

[Jazz+]

Are the various models in the same order for both the 88888888 and 88800000 tests?