Nord User Forum

[In a Silent Way]

I have a program for a Gregg Allman type of sound. The drawbar registration is 88 60000 40. When I play "Liz Reed," the top B has an overtone that jumps out over the sound because of the 1 1/3 drawbar. (I ended up pushing it in to about 1 or 2.) Does anybody else get unexpected, prominent, and annoying overtones from their drawbar registrations?

[pablomastodon]

If this happens on a specific note or notes, then what you're hearing is called "foldback".

A Hammond B3 generates 91 partial tones. That isn't enough to cover the entire spectrum of all drawbar' tones across all 61 keys. So the uppermost partial is repeated an octave lower after the tones "run out" at the top end of the keyboard — it "folds back", resulting in an audible change in the sound from one key to the next. The same thing happens on the lowest drawbar at the bottom end of the keyboard.


If you're talking about the drawbar being annoying all the time, then you're just using an annoying setting. Drawbar settings - especially in the upper registers - sound dramatically different depending upon the organ, its condition and age, its internal calibration, the Leslie Speaker, the preamp, the settings on either of those, the room, mics, and where you're sitting relative to the speaker.

None of the organists I know really ever take "official" registrations as gospel - they're usually just a starting point for tweaking the instrument to sound just right.

My registrations on my B3 aren't the same as on the Nord stage, which aren't the same as on the electro 2.

Trust your ears.
If you find it annoying, it probably is.