How to fake nice organ sound with a synth?

stranded horse · Post by **stranded horse** » Sat Sep 29, 2012 6:21 pm

Can anyone give me some hints what makes a good organ sound, like this?

I'm aiming for something like this. A kind of swirling organ sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE1lzBvj0r0

So which osciallators and effects can fake something like this?
What's the technical aspect of Hammond Organs? Does anyone know how they generate the sound?

regards,
s.h.

tongebirge · Post by **tongebirge** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 4:22 pm

Didn´t know this Band before, they sound great

I believe they use a Clavia for the Hamond Sound.
Watch this all Clavias are red

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETnI0kF9 ... re=related

Post by **interruptor** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 8:53 pm

Wow you linked Dub Spencer and Trance Hill! I know their bass player

A great band indeed..

To my ears it's a very classic Hammond Organ + Leslie sound they are using in their live videos.
See this video where you can read "Hammond XK-3" at the right end side of the keyboard:

"Too Big To Fail Tour 2012" LIVE in Luzern - Dub Spencer & Trance Hill vs. Umberto Echo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLDD8 ... dded#t=52s

Regarding the hardware: Original hammond organs were creating sound using an electro-mechanical principle called "tone wheels". These organs were built between the 1930s and 1970s. An important part of the sound is the rotating speaker cabinet known as "leslie" which was often overdriven for a slightly distorted sound. Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammond_organ

Nowadays there are many options in hardware or software to recreate that classic sound without the trouble and cost that comes with an original tone wheel organ. What would be your approach hard or soft?

stranded horse · Post by **stranded horse** » Tue Oct 02, 2012 4:26 pm

My approach is hardware, Korg M-1

(But it can't hurt to know how to make one in a DAW too using wave-forms and effects.)
It has some Hammond presets but they don't sound good, so I want to know how I can modify them or make some new ones to have a slightly more authentic sound.
I know it will never be 100% accurate, but usually 80-90% is good enough anyways after the drummer counted to 4.

regards, s.h.

Post by **interruptor** » Wed Oct 03, 2012 9:57 pm

I have Korg's plug-in version of the M1 from their legacy collection, so I fired it up and tried out the organ sounds. The factory preset organs suffer of too much reverb. You'll have to get a user manual from the web and find out how to edit the presets. Once you are at it you'll see that the M1 comes with four fairly decent basic organ waveforms (waves 06, 07, 86, 87) so you can use these to build your own programs by layering two or more of them onto each other. The M1 has also an effect section allowing to run an overdrive as well as a rotary speaker effect simultaneously. Theoretically this should yield great organ sounds however the overdrive is very harsh sounding even in the lowest settings and also the rotary speaker effect didn't really cut it when I tried it out. Therefore if you want to use the M1 for a classic organ sound I think you should try to programm some clean organ sounds using the 4 waveshapes and run them trough a separate effect device. The cheapest options you could try out are probably Behringer's "RM600 Rotary Modelling" pedal or their "X V-Amp LX1-X" amp modeller

Apart from that I'd suggest trying out some freebie organ VSTi's like "ILIADIS VH-2" or "ORGANized trio" which both sound better to my ears than the organ presets on the Korg M1 VSTi

Post by **interruptor** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 11:52 pm

I received a message from the Dub Spencer keyboard man today: He combines a modern Hammond organ (XK-3) with a real Leslie amplifier!

stranded horse · Post by **stranded horse** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 5:58 am

I'll give the Line 6 Roto Machine a try.
But do guitar effect pedals work with keyboards? I remember once hooking up my phaser pedal to the M1 and it didn't work.

regards, s.h.

Post by **interruptor** » Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:53 pm

A guitar has a very different signal level from a synthesizer line output. Some stomp boxes may not be able to cope with that difference. The Roto Machine you mention shouldn't have that problem. Two keyboarder reviews of the unit over here:
http://www.zzounds.com/item--LINMS11