Piano World Home Page Forums Other Keyboard Instruments Organs - Electronic (B3 etc.), Pipe, Theatre, & Reed drawbar review thread anyone interested?

I am in possesion of about 100 drawbar setttings ripped from the masters
I got them from an organ manufacturer these are the real settings from the scotts mcduffs smiths joey d and gospel greats

I have tried using these before either making a notebook and taking them with me to church and trying them out during service
or going through them one by one until I found one that fit what I was playing

I have come up with a better idea

live with one drawbar setting for a week
pretty much play everything using that setting
I have tried it now for three weeks
and I have not only memorized the settings but I fully understand what to expect from it and have even developed new voicings to get the most out of them.

I wanted to share these settings here and I was hoping to get some more seasoned organists to offer advice on each new setting
i was going to submit one per week
and offer suggestions from my week with the sound on how to approach it.

anyone interested? in participating
all you have to do is try the setting I submit
and offer your review on the setting
negatives positives and tweaks

the tweaks are really interesting because you end up learning so much more about your instrument and style that way.

anyway

here is my first submission

336866330 8 404000000

I tried this out a couple of ways
first let me say I am in love with the 404 It is so warm and smooth I usually approach this setting with both hands chording melody with my right hand and supporting with my left

the upper setting i struggle with.
I have tried it with percussion on
000000000000 336866330 80 404000000 000000000

and I find it a very punchy vibrant setting when done this way
I have tried using chords but it seems too much against the 404 pad so
that doesent work
a tweak seems to be to push in the 4" to maybe 5 this seems to soften it
but in any event the upper manual seems to be for single note soloing

I have used this setting for one week and find that apart from it being a little quiet in a full band setting it is a very nice set up to play a variety of songs from uptempo to ballad.

if anyone else has a review of this setting or even another please feel free to share

my second submission is
888 8 888
I was really surprised by this setting
I love the warmth and body it has
it is not harsh not too sweet just right

a good tweak is to add some 1" this gives a little more bite for melodic articulation.
a very very useful sound probably good for an all around set up

the one i am working on this week is

000000000 000000000 8 606600000

this setting is all about the percussion
so turn your percussion on if you have a B3
and get ready to rip
I love this setting unfortunately I am not a great soloist
but this makes me feel like I want to be.
it is very encouraging
the 6066 is a nice warm pad setting perfectly balanced to match the upper percussion
if you organ has a trek II make sure the volume is set evenly it shouldnt scream too loud.
when on percussion

wow 13 reads and no interest?

ok I guess I will pack up my bags and move to warmer climates

I'm interested. I'll try those settings and make some comments. If no one wants to do a flavour-of-the week approach, then why not just give us all the settings at once. People can play through them and comment on what they like.

Don McFarland at Cunningham piano tells people to try their social security number..

I tried out the drawbar settings, but nothing exciting jumped out at me. Maybe I should force myself to use different settings for a while, and hear the differences.

88-8000-000 for my left hand is good, I use it all the time (with a bit of high end sparkle) but only for single note bass work. chords are impossible. Similarly the 60-6600-000 just asks for low end single note work.

Now, the 33-6866-330 is interesting. That "V" shape in the drawbar array is a classic sound. I usually use the opposite kind of settings for my right hand, but should use those middle-emphasized tones more.

maduro, if you want to share those drawbar settings, it would be good to give them all, and say where they came from; who uses them, what recordings etc. I've seen some similar listings, and you get the (alleged, maybe, almost) settings used on "Green Onions" etc. That's interesting. Please share them.

Mr. Knapp, I'm Canadian so don't have a Social Security number to try, but I did pull out the first nine digits of my Social Insurance Number. Sounds like the federal government.

Dave.

Now that doesn't sound too good!!

I like that my Hammond XK-3 has a "Jimmy Smith" setting.

I tried it, but it doesn't work. I still can't play like Jimmy Smith

I know what you mean, Frank.. My Sk1 has a "Whiter Shade of Pale" setting, but danged if I can play it..

I'm interested, even if I don't have a true Hammond or clone to try on.
(There was a newer cheap Casio that has a decent one-manual drawbar emulator)

This speaking - has anyone tried one of those fundamental(8')-less registrations ?
(that is, only 16', 5 1/3' and 4', or 0.5x, 1.5x and 2x the frequency).
That would mean 880800000 in drawbar-speak.

I tried something like that on a medium pipe organ, one octave up (that is, only 8', 2 2/3' and 2' because that 4' was too strident). Quite nice.

Also - is it true that the original drawbar potentiometers are logarithmic and not linear ? One source gives a 3 dB difference per level. (6dB being a doubling, means 7777.... is 2x stronger than 5555...) Or is that doubling of power, not doubling of amplitude ??)

Lots of fun info here:

http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/hammond_drawbar_science.html

ROMagister, thanks for that web site. My brain is aching.
Dave