Creating THAT Hammond sound

[Kingy75]

Hi all,

Any tips on creating the Hammond sound featured in this video here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKW1U56dL7s

I think the B3 Jazz 3 is kinda close but do y'all know what I mean when I say THAT sound? :)

Thanks.

[Joe P]

Hey Kingy,

I'm not sure what you mean by "THAT" sound :-), but the raw tones in the FA are really good in my opinion. However, they really come to life with an outboard Leslie Sim.

I have an Electro so I don't use my FA for Hammond sounds, but you can send the organ out the Sub Out to a Leslie Sim and then back in to the Audio in. The organ tones in the FA really benefit. You have to defeat the rotary effects on the FA of course.

Good luck!

Joe

[Skijumptoes]

Being a really good player is about 90% of that sound! :)

But yeah, i think the FA really lacks the FX to get in your face and dirty like that, it just seems to teeter out on the bottom end, but as the post above, if you can run it through any outboard that will process the raw FA tone then it sounds MUCH better.

I've got a real hammond with the leslie cabinet and i can feed through that cabinet with an external source - i've put the FA through that and it sounded amazing, so the core sounds are definitely there. I think everything else around those FA Organs is just too digital/clipping sounding.

You may have some better luck using PCM-S sounds, maybe using expansions from integrated site - as some of those organs have the sound you want within the samples, rather than relying on FX. I've not been through them all to know, but i did find a cool farfisa one (Which is my love).

[Paul99]

Being a really good player is about 90% of that sound! :)
.

Unfortunately Skijumptoes is right. I once saw a young guy playing on a Yamaha DX100: google it and you see that it has 4 octaves of small keys. But he played incredibly good! By that time I was lucky to have a DX7, but after watching him I didn't touch my DX7 for a month out of shame because until then I considered a DX100 as a mere toy. Boy was I wrong! It's all about the feeling and the fingers.

Now about the Hammond sound. I know what you mean. For years I have been seacrhing for a good Hammond sound which is not in a separate keyboard. I hoped to find it in either a Yamaha MOXF6, a Korg Krome or a Roland FA-06. But neither one of these is capable to spit the real dirt of a Hammond/Lesly combo out of the outputs.
I guess the FA-06 comes most close of the 3, but it's just not gonna get even close to a Hammond sound. I discovered a software program called GSI VB3. It's astonishing good! So I tested the 9 drawbar's in the FA06 next to the 9 drawbars of the VB3. And there it was already very distinguishable: each drawbar of the FA06 was sounding significantly less than the drawbars of the VB3. This added with an only decent to be called Lesly effect and you see what the problem is. The biggest problem is however that the distortion of the FA06 is just digital distortion which also doesn't even come close to the analogue. But even the distortion of the VB3 was way better sounding.
So the best thing to do is buy a rotary FX like the Neo Ventilator or a GSI Burn.

I did a long thinking of how I could get better Hammond sound. I decided not to buy an external FX. In stead I bought a cheap Dell notebook second hand and installed the GSI Vb3 on it. Now I can finally play up with the two guitar players in my band when we play Hush: I finally rock! It play delicious. And the advantage is that the FA06 has a built in soundcard so all all the sounds come out of the FA06 output. You don't need an extra pair or extra patching with you use an FX.

The problem with the organ is more a less the same with the piano's: the FA06 is more a synth than a piano or an organ. You have to see it like that. Roland makes separate piano's and separate organ's. The FA06 does a lot things fairly good but not terrific. You need a terrific piano, you should buy a dedicated piano. You need terrific organ, you should buy a dedicated organ.
It's called marketing. Which is an important part of capitalism....

Overall I am quite happy with my notebook construction: it's lite, small and very versatile. I use it for special organ sounds and special piano sounds that are just a bit better sounding in the mix with my fellow musicians. This also makes me more satisfied with my FA06 because it does a lot very good, just piano and organ could be better. But what can you expect of a very fair price? Compare it to a Korg Kronos of a Yamaha Montage? And the FA06 is very portable. I am very satisfied with my gear!