Nord User Forum

[Simonr]

My understanding of the buss bar system is that when very gradually depressing a key on a B3,
The contacts for each of the 9 drawbars are not made simultaneously. The drawbar contacts are made one at a time.
This makes the instrument touch sensitive to some extent as the partial triggering of a note or chord is possible.
Listen to some one like dr lonnie smith use his B3 as a percussion instrument or very fast articulations having some ghost notes for example.
I have a C2D which I adore and have suggested to nord that a future software improvement could be to emulate this
Effect by having the key click triggered using the full midi velocity range (1 - 127) whilst the drawbars sound from say (5-127). Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[dazzjazz]

Your suggestion might be dangerously close to what could be perceived as latency!

[flmc59]

If you listen closely to the C2d you should be able to hear that the "virtual contacts" do not close at the same time. This is part of the keyklick remodelling Nord did for the C2d

The effect of only turning on only some of the partials and leave the rest off would probably be tricky to fix since the standard keybeds on the market only have two contacts.

To get the full B3 behavoiur i think you need a keybed with 9 contacts of some kind. A slow attack on a B3 with all drawbars out can give a really lenghty note on sequence

[Mooser]

Be careful what you wish for. Ever play a Hammond on which the key contacts have become too recalcitrant or uncertain? It sucks. I've got one, if you're interested, and I'd be glad to trade it.

[flmc59]

I think some of the best sounds comes from the JS an Jimmy MCGriff recordings in the early 60's the organs where still quite new.

[Simonr]

In Cubase, I set up 9 instances of Native Instrument's B4 (tracks 1-9). Track no.1 had a drawbar setting of just the 16 foot drawbar, track no.2 had the 5 and 1/3, track 3 had the 8 foot and so on.
When selecting all 9 tracks simultaneously in Cubase, all drawbars sound (full organ).
Next, I went through and inserted a "Midi Control" plug in on each track .In this plug in, under "Range", I selected a parameter called Velocity Filter which can be set to a minimum and
maximum value. From the highest drawbar track (1 foot) down to the lowest (16 foot) I introduced a gradual incremental increase to the minimum velocity setting of each track.
This resulted in the following;

16 foot - Min Vel 8 Max Vel 127
5,1/3 foot - Min Vel 7 Max Vel 127
8 foot - Min Vel 6 Max Vel 127
4 foot - Min Vel 5 Max Vel 127
2,2/3 foot - Min Vel 4 Max Vel 127
2 foot - Min Vel 3 Max Vel 127
1,3/5 foot - Min Vel 2 Max Vel 127
1,1/3 foot - Min Vel 1 Max Vel 127
1 foot - Min Vel 9 Max Vel 127

Although a little crude in concept, the result was something not a million miles away from the real thing.
The drawbars can be triggered independantly with differing amounts of velocity on key depressions. The problem of course being that on a B3, as you gradually depress a key the contacts, when made, successively add in each new drawbar.
On my experiment, you are stuck with whatever velocity value is initially made when depressing a key and therefore with which of the drawbars you have accessed.
As I set such a small minimum velocity value on each of the drawbar tracks, the playing of lines and chords (in a normal Hammond playing style) produces no real difference as all drawbars sound most of the time.
On fast repetitions of chords or single notes, some subtle variations can be heard.
A similar process could be applied to "note offs.
Where does this leave us?
Emulating the buss bar system must involve a multi contact key triggering system of some kind. The Midi velocity system is inherently limited in this respect, but the above procedure (or something like it) does
produce results that are in some way evocative of the behavior of the real thing.

[Simonr]

Oops.... the table should have read;
16 foot - Min Vel 9 Max Vel 127
5,1/3 foot - Min Vel 8 Max Vel 127
8 foot - Min Vel 7 Max Vel 127
4 foot - Min Vel 6 Max Vel 127
2,2/3 foot - Min Vel 5 Max Vel 127
2 foot - Min Vel 4 Max Vel 127
1,3/5 foot - Min Vel 3 Max Vel 127
1,1/3 foot - Min Vel 2 Max Vel 127
1 foot - Min Vel 1 Max Vel 127

[flmc59]

Impressive experiment I must say.
Whitva standard two contact keyboard you will always have a limited set if solutions to this challenge.
Since I have all three Nords and regularily plays my C1 I hear how much the click and note on sequence has evolved over time.