Hammond clones - external midi keyboard

[konaboy]

HI,

Been doing a bit of research on some of the single manual organ clones, like Mojo, Viscount etc.

 

These have flat tops, so you could put a midi keyboard on top, and use as an extra manual. Even a little 49 note controller would be adequate for upper manual.

 

Trouble is, according to what I read in the manuals, any external midi controller can only be used to play lower manual, whilst the organ keyboard can only be used for upper.

 

Seems to me this is a bit of an issue. It means you can't just put a little keyboard on top, but need to rig up a dual keyboard stand. Also, I play lower manual more than upper for bass and comp and therefore more important to have the best quality waterfall keyboard for the lower, and cheaper controller for the upper.

 

Feels like a problem here, your thoughts?

[AnotherScott]

Trouble is, according to what I read in the manuals, any external midi controller can only be used to play lower manual, whilst the organ keyboard can only be used for upper.

It may make no difference. If the particular clone lets you put percussion on either manual, then there is no functional difference between an upper and a lower. But yes, if you want percussion on the manual that is physically higher but your board restricts perscussion to its upper manual emulation, then you would have to put the second manual underneath. (As an aside, Crumar does make their own lower manual attachment for the Mojo61, which is a nice way to go...)

[konaboy]

interesting workaround, although I feel that the clones with the flexibility to assign which manual has pecussion, probably have the configuration for which manual an external keyboard controls.

 

seems strange to me that this is overlooked by the manufacturers, it's just a setting if external controller is upper or lower, and not complicated or expensive to implement.

[AnotherScott]

I don't know that I'd really call it a workaround, it's more of a mental adjustment, that the thing called upper doesn't have to physically be on top, because upper and lower are functionally the same (apart from the percussion issue). Maybe if Hammond had called the manuals A and B instead of Upper and Lower, it wouldn't be an issue. ;-) Tangentially, I had an old Hammond chop where even the two manuals had been separated into their own boxes, and I would set up Keith Emerson style, in parallel stacks. Facing the audience, my "upper manual" was the one on my right, the "lower manual" was the one on my left. Admittedly, that does not lend itself to all playing styles. ;-)

 

But if you want a real "workaround" -- maybe I'd even call it a kludge, since it's not elegant -- this could do it, and it addresses the percussion limitation: You could probably set up a split on the organ where only the highest note is upper manual, and all the rest of the notes are lower manual, then set the controller sitting above to transmit on the MIDI channel associated with Upper. You'll then have the Upper sound on the physically higher board as you'd like, and the Lower sound on the physically lower board... but at the expense of losing the high C on the physically lower manual, which is the inelegant part. Depending on what kinds of things you play on your lower manual, this could be almost irrelevant, or it could be disasterous!

 

The other issue to me is that the keyboard sitting on top will likely be inferior to first one... you may have chosen a second manual that has fewer keys, or it might have a less desirable action. Almost certainly, the second manual won't have high trigger available. That being the case, there's a good chance I will want my "upper" to remain right where it is, I'll probably want the percussion on the more responsive action.