Nord User Forum

[RobertHoffmann]

On my Electro 5D, on any Organ patch where percussion is on, the percussion (key clicks) does not sound if there is ANY another note held down. That means if I want to play a nice percussive part, it can only be done monophonically and without even a single accompanying note. This is very limiting. Do I have to split the keyboard to solve this? My other boards (other brands) do not exhibit this behavior. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You!, Robb

[pablomastodon]

Hi and welcome to the forums!

Key click and percussion are two separate and very different phenomena:

Key click is a slight smacking noise that occurs on “real” Hammonds every time a key is pressed, due to how the key contacts below a key close on the individual tonewheel signals in mid-phase, and further increased by dirt on the contacts and uneven closing. It is especially apparent when you turn off the Leslie simulation and switch off percussion and chorus/vibrato.

The percussion feature is an extra “ping” tone that is added to the sound. Due to the way the Hammond circuitry accomplishes this, it is only triggered when no notes are played previously (or when the percussion switch is flipped on — a feature that Nords have sadly never emulated). If you play legato (i. e. with notes overlapping), the percussion does not retrigger. That’s just a feature of how percussion has worked since 1955.

If you’d like percussion to trigger on every note, I’d look for a sample of the percussion ping and add that to the synth layer.

[analogika]

Oh, also: on a real Hammond, comping is done on the lower manual, with solo work (with percussion) on the upper manual.

You can split the 5D or use dual keyboard mode to play it like that, as well.

[RobertHoffmann]

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post and for the great info. I will use dual mode as you suggested.

[andydrummer2009]

To add - the percussion effect has a decay lasting about a second. If you hit a note and hold it you'll get percussion on every single note you hit for about a second (fading out). Another cool dynamic to throw in.

Also fun to set the drawbars to 00000000 with percussion on hard/slow and put a delay effect on it for some ambient sounds