Tweaking the Electro

[Garrafon]

So, I've had my Electro for a little while now and I like it a lot. Sounds are great, without doubt. But, there is one thing I haven't been terribly successful at getting out of it. That is that ballsy almost grinding sound you can get out of a B3.

 

For example, the "stock" tone wheel sounds on my RD700SX have that "grinding" undertone, which I really like. But I can't really find that on my Electro. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

Thanks in advance.

[DanL]

Turn on the distortion and play with the knob. It can definitely grind. If I'm not using my Leslie, I have a setting with a decent amount of distortion, so when I goose the expression pedal it gets a good grind, but when I back off it's cleaner.

[MusicaL]

DanL,

 

I am thinking about adding the Electro Rack to my rig, and want to play the organs from controller 1 on midi channel 1 (for e.g.) and play the ep's from controller 2 on midi channel 2. Do I have to manually change the midi channel in the electro everytime I want to play one program or another?

 

aL

[DanL]

Al, the Electro is a little strange with that. You can set a main midi recieve channel which will respond for all of the pianos and organ upper manual. Then you can set a lower manual channel which will only respond to the organ lower manual settings when you have the organ mode engaged. This lets you simulate a 2 manual organ.

 

Is your plan to use 1 weighted and 1 unweighted controller, one for pianos and one for organ? In that case you might be able to get by using the lower manual channel as your main organ sound. All of the functionality (including percussion I think, not sure there, I'll check) is active on the lower manual as well as the upper. Then you could use the upper manual as the physical lower manual. What I do is use the electro keyboard for the upper manual where I do most of my playing, then have a softer drawbar setting programmed for the lower manual which I can use for comping on my S90. I have a master setup on the S90 that triggers the lower manual midi channel.

 

Hope this helps.

[MusicaL]

DanL, it does help...

 

So if I am using the rack, I can set a midi channel to the lower manual and use that for triggering organ sounds from a non-weighted keyboard, and then use the weighted keyboard to trigger on the upper manual of the rack whatever other sounds there are... I think that would work...

 

Thanks!

 

aL

[milt0n]

I suggest that you turn on the chorus/vibrato scanner, with distortion to taste anywhere between 0 and 4.

THe C/V scanner really beefs up the crunchiness you desire.

 

For example, for extreme crunchy but still hammond sound, I use:

 

888800002

 

Perc. Off

C2

O/D on 3 O'Clock

 

 

Gotta love that nord....keep the leslie on slow in stereo and hear the grindulation!

Let me know if this helps.

[Garrafon]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will give that a whirl. To date, I've found that I've gotten plenty of "fuzz" from the distortion, but not the "grind" I'm looking for (if any of this makes sense).

 

Milton, I will try your settings tonight and see how it works. Thanks again for the response.

[DanL]

If you are getting fuzz, you have too much distortion. Are you using an expression pedal? That is important. If you set the distortion so that when you have the pedal floored it's set to the max level you like, when you back off, it will impart just a hint and thats where you get the grind from. I usually play thru a Speakeasy preamp and Leslie. Recently we did a gig where it wasn't practical for me to use my rack or leslie so I took just the Electro and Barbetta amp. I was amazed at how good it sounded without any external processing. The guy in the band that opened for us was blown away by how good the organ sounded and wants to get one himself now.

[mate stubb]

You will not get heavy grind from an Electro, unless you plug it into a Speakeasy preamp and real Leslie.

 

The Electro organ and amp sim model is somewhat polite. You can dirty it up some for nice warmth and jazz playing. You won't get it to sound like Gregg Rollie without some help.

 

Also, it's not multitimbral - you can't simultaneously play piano from one keyboard and organ from another. It wasn't clear from your post above if that's what you expected or not.

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by Music*aL:

DanL, it does help...

 

So if I am using the rack, I can set a midi channel to the lower manual and use that for triggering organ sounds from a non-weighted keyboard, and then use the weighted keyboard to trigger on the upper manual of the rack whatever other sounds there are... I think that would work...

 

Thanks!

 

aL

aL, what exact keyboards are you using? If you trigger organ sounds using the lower manual MIDI channel, I'm pretty sure you'll lose percussion (which is upper manual only).

 

You might be better off using a MIDI merge device.

 

Busch.

[MusicaL]

Busch,

 

You're right. I would lose percussion.

 

The boards I'd be using are either my current S80 or the new S90ES to trigger the EP's and depending on which of these two I use, for the upper keyboard, I'd use either my Motif ES7 or my An1x. A midi merge would work, but then I'd have to manually change the midi setting on the electro every time I want to switch from EP's to organs.

 

I feel like I am going through what Eric went through a little while back, with how to configure the live rig, etc... I am just exploring all options...

 

The Stage looks very attractive if the price comes down and it would go a long way toward simplifying my rig.

 

aL

[burningbusch]

I just checked it out, you DO lose percussion using the lower manual MIDI channel.

 

Busch.

[DanL]

Thanks for checking that- I wasn't sure and hadn't had a chance to get mine out of the garage and hook it up.

 

Al maybe your best bet is to get the Electro keyboard so you can play the organs from there and midi the pianos from the ES. A 61 key Electro for doing organ would be sweet, nice and small and IMO it's got great organ action. It doesn't cost much more than the rack.

[Garrafon]

Originally posted by mate_stubb:

You will not get heavy grind from an Electro, unless you plug it into a Speakeasy preamp and real Leslie.

 

The Electro organ and amp sim model is somewhat polite. You can dirty it up some for nice warmth and jazz playing. You won't get it to sound like Gregg Rollie without some help.

 

Also, it's not multitimbral - you can't simultaneously play piano from one keyboard and organ from another. It wasn't clear from your post above if that's what you expected or not.

No, I wasn't expecting multi-timbral capabilities. My focus was really on trying to get the grind out. It seems like the answer lies in a good preamp. I will look into that.

 

Thanks again for all the good suggestions!

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by Music*aL:

Busch,

 

You're right. I would lose percussion.

 

The boards I'd be using are either my current S80 or the new S90ES to trigger the EP's and depending on which of these two I use, for the upper keyboard, I'd use either my Motif ES7 or my An1x. A midi merge would work, but then I'd have to manually change the midi setting on the electro every time I want to switch from EP's to organs.

 

I feel like I am going through what Eric went through a little while back, with how to configure the live rig, etc... I am just exploring all options...

 

The Stage looks very attractive if the price comes down and it would go a long way toward simplifying my rig.

 

aL

Here's a way of doing it that MIGHT work. In this example, I'll assume you'd be using the S90ES as I know the Master section on the S90 well. Note: in order for this to work, the An1x (what ever second tier keyboard you use would have to be able to 1) Receive and Transmit on different MIDI channels and 2) have the ability to turn off sending of program change data out its MIDI OUT. I think all the Yamaha's can do this.

 

Connections:

 

MIDI OUT of S90ES to MIDI IN on the An1x.

MIDI OUT of An1x to MIDI IN Merge Box

MIDI THRU of An1x to MIDI IN Merge Box

MIDI OUT of Merge Box to MIDI IN on Electro Rack.

 

Create a patch on both the An1x and Electro that produces no sound. On the Electro it would be an organ patch with no drawbars pulled/no perc. On the An1x, just no sound output. Let's call the patch 00 for the sake of the discussion. Set the An1x to receive on MIDI channel 1 and transmit on MIDI channel 2 and set the Electro to receive on the MIDI channel 2.

 

Use Master mode on the S90ES. You have four zones available. Use Zone 1 for internal S90ES sounds. They can point to Performances, so they can still be complex layers/splits. Use Zone 3 for the An1x and Zone 4 for the Electro. If you wanted to have, let's say a pad from the S90 on the bottom keys of the S90ES and an EP from the Electro on the top keys you would set the Master mode patch as follows:

 

Zone 1: trans chan 1; TG switch ON; Ext OFF; Range C-2 - B2

Zone 4: trans chan 2; TG switch OFF, Ext ON; Range C3 - G8, send program patch for the appropriate Electro EP sound.

 

If you wanted S90ES sounds only on the S90ES and Electro B3 on the AN1x, set up a Master Mode patch as follows:

 

Zone 1: trans chan 1; TG switch ON; Ext OFF; Range C-2 - G8

Zone 3: trans chan 1; TG switch OFF, Ext ON; Range C-2 - C-2, send program patch 00 to the An1x to shut it up.

Zone 4: trans chan 2; TG switch OFF, Ext ON; Range C-2 - C-2, send program patch for the appropriate Electro organ sound.

 

To have the Anx1 sounding its patch with no Electro sound, just flip around the Zone 3 and 4 program change data.

 

The only scenario that I can't see working is having all three sound sources available at that same time. As soon as you set the Electro to make a sound it will be heard when playing the top keyboard.

 

All this sounds complex but once you get this set up and start working this way it is VERY transparent and quick. One button push on the S90ES and everything responds.

 

Busch.

[MusicaL]

Busch,

 

Thanks for the detailed info.. That does sound complex. I am going to have to sit down with my Mo7ES, to see if I can actually do what you laid out here. Not being able to layer the An1x and the Electro organ would pose a problem because I often layer a lead with the organ... Hmmm...

 

(The Stage is looking better and better...)

 

I have to confess that I never used master mode or the various zones on any keyboard. I've always manually changed patches, etc. I actually like to use the pattern mode on my ES7 to have at the touch of a button any of 16 patches. This has seemed to work for me so far...

 

I played the electro 61 yesterday, and concentrated on trying to dial in the sound I was looking for in the Organ. I did find it. It may even be that grinding sound Garrafon is looking for. I should have noted the settings. But, IIRC, the settings were: 888000211. On the last three drawbars, you can adjust to taste. The key for me was using the Chorus/Vibrato in conjunction with the distortion. You want to keep the distortion fairly low otherwise it just gets fuzzy. Add a little percussion to taste, and there you have it...

 

aL