Scott's Clonewheel Shootout 2021, part 1

[AnotherScott]

Here are 5 hardware and software clonewheels, playing

 

(a) part of Yours is No Disgrace intro

(b) the big chord at the end of the intro

© just a high chord demonstrating Leslie speed changing

 

Im all cases, I was looking for that big tubey overdriven sound. Registration is simply all drawbars out.

 

The 5 organs are presented in the same order every time.

 

How would you rate each of the 5? Say, on an A to F scale?

 

 

p.s. -- the last sample of the last test is accidentally playing a slightly different chord, one more note up top, but hopefully that won't throw you in your eval of the quality of the spin-up/spin-down

[tonybanksfan]

Organ 1) A

2) B+

3) C

4) B+

5) D

I find Organ 1 and 2 very similar but give the edge to #1 for the dirt and grit. Organ 4 is also very good but a little cleaner with a bit more treble.

I would be happy using any of these three, especially for this song, they sound great to me.

[brenner13]

I am no expert and have limited experience with real B3" or A100"sâ¦I only know what I like and REALLY like to play bluesy rock organ with my cover band.

Here"s my amateur, but brutally honest comments:

 

5 - Organ Comp a

 

1-1 Slightly muffled. Meaty. Uses a lot of the spectrum. D

1-2 Bright . Slight clip. Cut through. A

1-3 Heavy mids. Clip. Most real? B

1-4 Heavy mids. C

1-5 Low level. Muddy F

 

2-1 Muddy. Slight clip D

2-2 Punchy. Slightly dark. Bad clip B

2-3 Clipping. Best tone. Nice les, though might be too much? A

2-4 Heavy mids. Quite good slow les. C

2-5 Levels soft. Muddy dark F

 

3-1 Too bright. Not enough drum. Ramp-down slightly too quick D

3-2 Very good les. Slightly heavy mids. A

3-3 Horn only? Nice over tone. Les ramp-up too fast. C

3-4 Good tone. Very good les, though abrupt start. B

3-5 Thin tone. Very good les, but horn ramp-down too fast. F

[AnotherScott]

Thanks, Tony. I see you have a Gemini Desktop. Do you think you could get an A or B level version of this sound out of it? If so, I'd really like to hear it. (Or maybe some other Gemini owener would like to give it a shot?) The basics are simple... all drawbars out, close miking, with overdrive and EQ settings to taste. (No percussion, chorus/vibrato, or reverb.) Recorded in stereo, and of course for the last test, toggle the Leslie speed from slow to fast and back to slow again. Of course, Gemini has a ton of other tweaks, like I think 19 different basic models to choose from! Though maybe start with one, get it at least somewhat close, and then just change that model selector to see if something seems closer once you switch to it, and do final tweaks on that one...? There are also leakage/crosstalk parameters, though honestly, I didn't really play with those... kind of surprisingly, on the ones I played with that on, it didn't seem to make very much difference on this sound, so I stopped bothering. I guess it's because it IS all drawbars out, so all the harmonics are there full blast all the time anyway, that crosstalk/leakage from "unintended" tonewheel output isn't much of a factor. Plus the fact that the overdrive is pretty high, which also adds its own harmonics.

 

In fact, if anyone who wants to "play along" and see how close you can get to this kind of sound with your clonewheel of choice, I'd be glad to hear. I'll actually list out which 5 these are before too long (in case you're more interested in participating if you know yours isn't already represented), but right now, I thought it would be good to not have prejudices in responses based on what someone thinks something might or might not be.

 

I can send sheet music or MIDI file to anyone who wants it. Or if you just need the basics:

 

(a) LH is just a single low Bb (the lowest Bb if you're on a 61). Right hand is basically playing a Bb major chord, to an Ab maj 7 (with no fifth), and back to the Bb, with the top note just changing to play the melody.

(b) it's an E7sus4 (E, A, B, D from bottom to top), 2nd octave from bottom on a 61.

© it's a high Bb major chord 6/4 AKA first inversion AKA root on top... (D, F, Bb from bottom to top... except where I accidentally seem to have added an extra D on top for the last one)

 

IHere"s my amateur, but brutally honest comments:

Thanks, Brenner. Yes there is occasional clipping, which I think actually come from running a too hot signal into the mixer rather than being from the sound sources themselves. I'll need to do some more testing to confirm. As for the ramp up and down speeds, for four out of the five, I just used the default Leslie speed/acceleration settings. On one board, the default was SO different from the others that I edited it, but usually I didn't touch any of those setting. In most cases, ramp up/down can be adjusted, even separately for horn and rotor, it's just not something I bothered with here. So if you like some Leslie effect except for its transition speeds, that can likely be adjusted to taste.

 

I do like all the detail! But for simplicity/consistency, I'll consolidate your rankings this way:

1 (D, D, D) = D

2 (A, B, A) = A-

3 (B, A, C) = B

4 (C, C, B) = C+

5 (F, F, F) = F

That assumes giving equal weighting to all three tests, which may not be right, but should still be ballpark. ;-) (And MoI says HE's ocd...)

[Moonglow]

Thanks for doing this, Scott!

 

Starting off, I more easily eliminated #3 (C-) and #5 (D) but after that it became more difficult. Examples #1 and #2 sounded similar in tone, but I found the Leslie sim for #2 to be a little more dramatic. Overall, I"d probably give them both a 'B' but slightly prefer #2. My favorite (i.e., tone + Leslie) of the bunch was #4 (B+/A-); I found it to have more clarity than the others.

[ElmerJFudd]

Not reading replies yet so as not to be influenced. So these are exported "in the box" if software, and recorded direct from 1/4" instrument outs if hardware to your interface, right?

I am monitoring on Sony MDR7506. I'm curious how they all sound running in mono captured with a mic in front of your EV monitor.

 

(a) part of Yours is No Disgrace intro

 

1 - C, this has a slow leslie on it, good bottom end, lots of mids and highs. up high is a little shrill and the distortion sounds like paper up top.

2 - C, the sound of this organ is similar to the first one, it is not as shrill up top and the distortion isn't doing that crumpled paper thing. the leslie seems on stop or very slow, less panning effect.

3 - D, this one sounds possibly more compressed, or subdued, the distortion has a crackle in it up high - sounds like a funky artifact between the leslie and the distortion.

4 - D, the sound of this organ is more shrill, it has a bit of high mids, less low mids and low end.

5 - B, this one is subdued, I like the distortion best and the leslie is most convincing as far as sounding "real". the first four will definitely cut better, but this is an attractive sound.

 

(b) the big chord at the end of the intro

 

1 - C

2 - C

3 - D - big time zipper effect

4 - C

5 - B - very convincing, but there's a few specific overtones dominating in this example.

 

© just a high chord demonstrating Leslie speed changing

 

1 - D - cuts like a mofo, not necessarily in an good way, the Leslie behavior is weird. Ramp up is too fast, slow down is too fast and it warbles oddly.

2. C - ramp up and slow down is more normal, lows and highs are modulating differently,

3. D - ramp up and slow down are too fast. also has a goofy warble.

4. B - this one seems to do better with the high chord.

5. D - the leslie on this one isn't as convincing on fast.

 

Looks like #3 is my least favorite

Followed by #2, #1 and #4 are a toss up.

I guess I would pick 5 but use it with a ventilator or if I owned a Leslie I'd use that.

 

I am curious how they all sound in the room through amplification. Or even through a real Leslie or a Ventilator which would probably even out the playing field a lot.

 

My guess is 3 is the Dexibell J7?

5 is the Numa Organ 1?

4 is the Kurzweil Artis 7 or the PC4?

1 and 2 are software? but which ones?

[AnotherScott]

these are exported "in the box" if software, and recorded direct from 1/4" instrument outs if hardware to your interface, right?

The output of all the hardware and software organs were sent to my mixer. The output of the mixer was sent to an interface attached to an iPad for recording. Subsequently transferred to a Mac where I did some volume normailization. So... not the most pristine path. As I mentioned elsewhere, the occasional "crackle" was probably not in the organ, but in the subsequent signal path (e.g. overloading the mixer), but I need to try to confirm that.

 

I'm curious how they all sound running in mono captured with a mic in front of your EV monitor.

Hearing them in mono is easy. In all cases, you could listen to just the left or just the right channel (panned center if you don't want it to be disconcerting in headphones), and all the organs can create that mono sound into any amp. Some (but not all) of the source organs also have some way to acheive a "mono" mode where, instead of (for example) the left out giving you only the left side (which would emulate the single microphone on the horn approach), both sides will be summed to the one side (instead giving you the sound of two separated microphones on the horn, but in mono). If the latter is the sound you're after, and the source organ in question does not have such a mono option, you could acheive it by sending left and right to your amp/mixer and summing them there (e.g. panning them to the same location). Regardless, you can hear what it sounds like that way by playing these files into a mixer and panning both sides to center, or any other method you may have to sum two audio signals to mono.

 

Hearing them through the EV is the trickier part, in that it would also be affected by the sound of the room and the characteristics and placement of the microphone. But what I would suggest is, more important than how they sound through an EV speaker is how they sound through YOUR speaker. And that's easy... just play these snippets (mono or stereo as desired) into your own gig playback system. If you've got an EV, great, you'll know how they sound through your EV! And if it's something else, you'll hear what they sound like through your something else.

[nadroj]

YIND INTRO:

 

1. Rich and fat sounding. I like the distortion - A

2. A bit more muffled, less authentic distortion. Still fairly good - B

3. Sounds a bit more vintage, less prounounced distortion. Because of the harmonics, I can hear an extra note - unless that's one you played intentionally - B

4. High pitched, bit warbly. Doesn't sound bad per se, just has a lot less warmth than the others - C

5. The opposite of 4. Hollow sounding. Like a wet tea towel is over the amp - C

 

Big chord:

 

1. Fat - A

2. Fat and more muddy - B

3. Again, more harmonics coming thorugh, but less authentic - C

4. Better than 3 - more warmth. Not quite on par with 1 - B

5. Same tea towel effect - C

 

Rotary:

 

1. Pretty good. Don't like the overall tone once the rotary kicks in, though - interesting - B

2. Terrible. Like a ROMpler rotary - D

3. Okay, but definitely not top drawer. Decent horn rotary feel though - C+

4. Tone here is great. Stereo effect isn't, and doesn't sound as full - C+

5. Actually sounds okay - not quite as good as 1, but rich and almost creamy. On second listen, I think it just edges 1 - B

 

Conclusion

On first listen, I like 1 best. Saying that, if I go to bed and come back tomorrow with fresh ears I'll probably change my mind.

[tonybanksfan]

Scott, I'll have to postpone any other comments or tests, I'm off to Jamaica tomorrow and wont be back for 3 weeks. I'm actually quite interested to see what they all are.

[AnotherScott]

Interesting about organ #1, Nadroj... In the first test you found it rich and fat sounding, but in the rotary test you didn't like its overall tone. The settings were identical, so there seems to be something about the high chord (with no bass below) that is making it less appealing, I did have the treble increased to get the tone I wanted... but maybe the increased treble that gave it more presence overall in test 1 made it too shrill when an upper chord was played by itself in test 3...? Or it could be something else. But it's interesting that what, according to its settings, is the "same" sound can seem better or worse depending on just what is being played.

[nadroj]

Interesting about organ #1, Nadroj... In the first test you found it rich and fat sounding, but in the rotary test you didn't like its overall tone. The settings were identical, so there seems to be something about the high chord (with no bass below) that is making it less appealing, I did have the treble increased to get the tone I wanted... but maybe the increased treble that gave it more presence overall in test 1 made it too shrill when an upper chord was played by itself in test 3...? Or it could be something else. But it's interesting that what, according to its settings, is the "same" sound can seem better or worse depending on just what is being played.

 

Welp, you've made me relisten and while I still think 1 has the superior tone for the first two tests, I think 5 edges it out in terms of the rotary. 1 sounds okay before you toggle the rotary onto fast, then the tone loses some of it's character - to my ears, anyways. Will update my post.

[AnotherScott]

Ah, got it. The tone sounded rich and fat on the slow rotary, less impressive on the fast. And yeah, I can see where the speed of the rotary could affect your perception of the overall tone.

[U.Honey]

Here's my initial impression without looking into others' votes:

 

3: Winner for best sound. It has a little bit of mid-range boost. Didn"t like the Leslie that much.

2 & 1: Split second place. 1 is a little bass heavy. Also, the leslie on #1 has a stereo panning effect in it which will not work in mono.

4: Sounds a bit digital.

5: Least favorite. Also the quietest.

[AnotherScott]

I did not spend a ton of time in level matching, but while I did try to get the samples to about the same levels (even normalizing in Audacity), the amount of volume change within a single sample (from the rotation emulation) did complicate that (and I wasn't going to get involved with playing with compression or whatever, though one certainly could). Since it's been mentioned multiple time, maybe I should have brought 5 up (or the others down) to make the playing field seem more level. But by all means, everyone, feel free to raise your playback volume when listening to 5 if it helps you compare its sound to the others. In the real world, you can make any of them as loud as you'd like, of course.

[jverghese]

I love these shootouts. Some quick observations:

 

1 - Nice overall sound, perhaps a bit too bright and generic, though

2 - Overdrive mainly affects low frequencies, overall sound is too electronic

3 - Resonant rotary effect, which is interesting, but sounds too flanger-like

4 - Very detailed and authentic rotary effect, identifiably IK Multimedia

5 - Odd tonality, not unusable, but not a favourite

[Mighty Motif Max]

Here's my ratings, as someone who's never laid hands on a real Hammond/Leslie combination nor seen a real one used live in person.

 

Organ 1: Grade A-, very good tone, but the rotary on fast is sort of in the middle of the pack.

Organ 2: Grade A, best organ tone, but the rotary is not great.

Organ 3: Grade B-, I don't care for the tone (it seems recessed as well), but the rotary is the best of the pack IMO.

Organ 4: Grade C, okay overall, rotary is 2nd place.

Organ 5: Grade D; decidedly not a fan of this one's tone or rotary simulation at all. Sounds plasticky and the slow rotary sounds like a flanger.

 

Overall: Best organ tone goes to Organ 2, best rotary goes to Organ 3. Runner-up tone goes to Organ 1, runner-up rotary goes to Organ 4.

[Adan]

Without reading other posts (because, Lord knows, I don't have that much free time), they're all pretty good, definitely good enough for gigging. As I always like to say in these shootouts, it's important to keep in mind that we're like a bunch of snooty winetasters swishing and spitting and describing "notes of pear and gooseberry." About 1 in 500 people in the audience will care.

 

That perennial caveat out of the way:

 

1 B+

2 B+

3 A

4 B-

5 C

[allan_evett]

I agree with you, Adan; they are all pretty good for gigging. I do hear the differences between each, but my ear is more fine-tuned to hearing those types of differences with pianos - as that was my first instrument. In the 90s I gigged with sample-based organ tones, and have only been serious about understanding and utilizing tonewheel/clonewheel instruments over the past 10-15 years. I've had far more session calls for piano than organ.

 

That said, I listened for balance in each snippet, especially balance between the core tone and overdrive. I want to hear some of the original tonewheel soul still present, and in a couple instances that tended toward being buried. Also, the rotary speaker effect...I'm rather spoiled. There are amazing replications now, but my first sampled-based organ (Roland VK-1) was run through a Leslie 147; and I still listen for that dusty, wood goodness. So making distinctions among the third set of examples was tempered by that.

 

Overall ratings:

 

1. B+

2. B

3. A

4. B-

5. C

[Jwave]

Tried to post this yesterday:

1) Nice fat extortion, somewhat static fast Leslie: A

2) Balanced tone, but bad fast Leslie: C

3) Good, though on the thin and panny side: B

4) Very harsh mids: D

5) Tea towel city: E

Looking forward to seeing which if any were my most-preferred B-3X and most-convenient PC4 (though I never pull out all stops).

[AnotherScott]

Also, the leslie on #1 has a stereo panning effect in it which will not work in mono.

All the Leslie sims have some amount of that effect to them, simulating the left and right mic on the horn. But they all work okay in mono (albeit with less "drama"). If you want to hear what #1 would sound like in mono, you can play one channel of the sample and pan it center, or play both channels panned center... it still works.

 

That said, I listened for balance in each snippet, especially balance between the core tone and overdrive. I want to hear some of the original tonewheel soul still present, and in a couple instances that tended toward being buried.

This is a trickly one to evaluate, because every one of them has a continuous knob for amount of overdrive, and indeed, that "balance" can shift simply depending on where you place the knob, which I placed simply based on what sounded good to me. If you're hearing too much loss of the core tone on any of these, it's very possible that that could be remedied by backing off some on that knob.

[aellison62]

Like many others who have commented, I can eliminate clonewheels #3 (too midrangey, fast Leslie is too fast) and #5 ( wet blanket )

And like others have said, I"d be happy with the remaining three, but like Moonglow said, #4 has a clarity and balance with the distortion so if I had to pick one, it would be #4.

 

As a side comment, from memory only, I actually think #3, with the midrange prominent, sounds closest to the album recording of YIND. But I don"t prefer that tone.

[AnotherScott]

BONUS ROUND!

 

If you're curious, here are the same 5 organs, in the same order, demonstrating other aspects...

 

(a) Chorus C3. This uses the same basic settings as the first set, all drawbars out, but I took away the overdrive. It's just one chord that you'll hear transitioning from fast Leslie with C3, to slow Leslie wih C3, to slow Leslie without chorus. For those who might say, okay, but what's the chorus sound like? and what's it like clean?

 

(b) Percussion. Drawbars changed to just the first 3 out, with 3rd percussion on with fast decay, at normal volume.

 

[El Lobo]

The very first time I listened, I preferred 1. Then later I put the sound samples through a really good speaker (JBL Eon One compact). Then I preferred 3, then maybe 1 or 4, I couldn't decide. Then I listened to the Chorus and Percussion demos. Back to preferring 1. No, maybe 3. And 4 is a maybe too. I don't think 2. And I know 5 is always my least favorite. I went back to both sound clips and moved my cursor back and forth, dropped it in on all the sounds randomly, trying to figure out which I preferred. I think I like 3, which some others thought was the worst, then I liked 1 which others liked most but others didn't like. I wonder what this test tells us. I think it's that we all hear different things in the sound samples.

[AnotherScott]

The very first time I listened, I preferred 1. Then later I put the sound samples through a really good speaker (JBL Eon One compact). Then I preferred 3, then maybe 1 or 4, I couldn't decide. Then I listened to the Chorus and Percussion demos. Back to preferring 1. No, maybe 3. And 4 is a maybe too. I don't think 2. And I know 5 is always my least favorite. I went back to both sound clips and moved my cursor back and forth, dropped it in on all the sounds randomly, trying to figure out which I preferred. I think I like 3, which some others thought was the worst, then I liked 1 which others liked most but others didn't like. I wonder what this test tells us. I think it's that we all hear different things in the sound samples.

LOL - yes, and we hear different things at different times! But the most encouraging thing are all thise who say they could happily gig with 3 or more of these. Good times indeed!

[jverghese]

Chorus demo:

 

1 - Both the rotary and chorus simulations sound simplistic (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). A very neutral but somewhat flat sound.

2 - Simplistic again, and rather shallow and bright. Difficult to tell the difference between chorus and rotary effects.

3 - Nice and deep rotary effect, but it completely overshadows the chorus.

4 - Complex and detailed. Rotary and chorus are clearly discernible. Again, this must be the B-3X.

5 - Work in progress

 

Percussion demo:

 

1 - Academic sounding - a demonstration of additive synthesis

2 - Bright but workable

3 - Dark but nicely ...organic

4 - Very authentic and balanced. Nice resonances as you hit certain notes, just like the real thing.

5 - Forgettable

 

I'm beginning to like number 3 more and more. Funny how number 4 (which I believe is the highly acclaimed B-3X) did not sound too great for Yours..., but perhaps some tweaking could have made it more like the original (180 deg mic position instead of 90 deg?).

[elif]

...Percussion demo:

4 - Very authentic and balanced. Nice resonances as you hit certain notes, just like the real thing.

#4 had obvious tone generator bleed like my early 60's A100, only not as bad good. :wink:

[jverghese]

Ah yes, the bleed. Absolutely worth mentioning.

[Threadslayer]

Have to concur that I'd be happy to gig with any of them* - except 5. (It's going to kill me if the big reveal shows that 5 is an actual Hammond/Leslie). The only place that 5 hit the mark was the percussion demo which was pretty convincing.

 

*I take that back. #3 with C3 and fast Leslie sounded revolting.

[AnotherScott]

Ah yes, the bleed. Absolutely worth mentioning.

I did not attempt to give the models comparable amounts of leakage/crosstalk (or key click) where those parameters were available... as I mentioned those things didn't heavily come into play in my first test, so I didn't put much effort there... but yes, in the percussion test especially, you can hear differences in these things. The lack of any drawbars other than the bottom three and lack of harmonics introduced by overdrive make leakage/crosstalk more apparent, and the staccato playing makes click more apparent, too. At some point, maybe I'll do a test to better illustrate the leakage/percussion differences.

[Theo Verelst]

I find some of the organs presented usable for "organ playing" and SC files aren't the greatest to do testing with. Given that, I can't like those digital sounds much in comparison with the sound I prefer, including non-digital organs, it's so full of reconstruction errors that it hurts my ears most the time. The chorus examples made that a bit less and depending on how you play these sounds back there are bound to be differences. The tone wheels and other non-digital signal path organs sound naturally much warmer and with different distortion and that difference interests me a lot more than the differences between these particular examples.

 

T