Korg Forums

[mymusic42]

I have a Kronos and organ sounds are a big part of my set. The Kronos CX3 organ sounds good, but even with the 2.1 upgrade it is not quite as realistic as I was looking for. I have a Neo ventilator which helps A LOT but is still not perfect.

I recently started starting running my Hammond A102 through my Neo and was blown away by how awesome it sounded. So then I thought....can I just sample my A102 into my Kronos and run that through the Neo and get the Organ sound I need in a more portable format?

My plan is to sample a few of my most commonly used Organ settings and then save them into my Kronos as patches. I get that I won't have the realtime drawbar control, but I'd trade realtime control of a sound I'm not wild about in favor of a few patches that are exactly what I want.

So it seems like an easy proposition, but before I got through the effort I want some advice. Is it is as simple as I am making it out to be? I would imagine sampling an organ is significantly simpler than sampling a piano or acoustic instrument with lots of velocity levels. I have 1/4 inch out from my organ into my sampler and I don't have to worry about leslie miking since I am running this through the neo once the patches are created in the Kronos

But then I think someone else must have thought of this or done this before..so maybe there are reasons it can't be done or maybe there is already a sample library available of dry B3 organs.

I get that organ sound is very subjective. But my thought is that if I am 100% satisfied with my A102 sound through the Neo, wouldn't I be 100% satisfied with a sampling of the A102 in my kronos and then run through the neo?

So before I begin this effort of sampling and then creating Kronos patches I want to get some input as to whether this endeavor will work or are there some hidden gotchas?

Thanks in advance

[jerrythek]

It is quite possible that you will be very satisfied with that approach. There are many players that are satisfied playing HD-1-based organs (also sampled), as well as organ sounds from other ROMplers (sample-based instruments).

But the issue with sampling is that usually the samples are taken every XX number of notes, so when you play chords you are often stacking "stretched" copies of the oioginal tone on top of each other. This produces phasing and other artifacts that are very different than the tonewheel organ mechanism, which has 96 individual wheels to produce a true tone (note played x 9 drawbars) which is a very different sound.

Likewise, the other sonic artifacts of the organ (key click, leakage etc.) which were individual for each note played, now gets frozen within the sample, stacked, and stretched again which is not as true a sound.

Will you hear this/be bothered by it? Only you can answer that.

I would first go to the HD-1-based organs, play them and see if this difference (when compared to the CX3) is an issue for you.

Hope this helps.

Jerry

[ed_f]

[kaptainkeyboard]

I bought the Hammond B3 sample set from this guy a couple of years ago and I must say they are very good.
All drawbars and perc sampled on every note.

http://youtu.be/Ijimbgiq1-E

[jerrythek]

re: sampling every note: True... and to be accurate the percussion should not be sampled on each note, but sampled separately for each key, and then it would have to be triggered in a special way, which allows chords to have polyphonic attacks, but once a note is held no percussion would sound on subsequent notes.

If you're fussy about getting it right, of course.



And again, remember that the sampled leakage, noise etc. will build up to be much louder than it sounds on the original source, so depending on the condition of your instrument being sample, playing chords in your sampled reproduction may sound very different.

Jerry

[Zeroesque]

I would also add that playing any instrument, even a keyboard instrument, is a different experience then playing that instrument's emulation or sample on a synth, no matter how accurate the reproduction. I know for myself that it's very difficult to enjoy a piano patch if I'm playing it on my Kronos 61 versus playing the same patch from an 88-key weighted controller (and I simply love the K's German Grand). Though the difference isn't quite as stark as with a piano, I find the same to be true when I switch between my C3 and the Kronos. This is not to say that I don't enjoy the superb 2.1 update, it's just different. Like the observer effect in science: playing affects the player.

I echo Jerrythek's advice to try the existing sample-based patches. I just find them to be a terrible Hammond experience while the CX-3 feels much more like a real instrument.
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Kronos 61, Kronos2-88, Hammond B3, Baldwin SD-10

[X-Trade]

The problem with sampling any kind of sound with motion in it (e.g. rotary, flanger, etc). is that especially for slow moving sounds the motion of the samples will be as it was when you recorded it - so when playing chords etc it won't be in sync at all.
I think it's particularly bad for rotary speaker sounds. You'd lose all the coherence of the experience of the real thing.

I have the same problem with the on-board solina samples. They come out too thick because the unique chorus effect is on every note rather than on the whole sound (I get around this using two flanger FX and passing a dry sawtooth through, on other synths).

Similarly, a lot of the other nuances of a sound that make up 'the real instrument' can not be sampled without some advanced processing options unavailable on samplers like the Kronos' HD-1, like the way certain notes interact and other such quirks.
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[geoelectro]

I started sampling Hammond's back in the 80's. I did the samples for Peavey's Organ MIDI Module for example.

The biggest problem with sampling Hammond's is the phase cancellation problem. In sample playback instruments, the sound doesn't start until you hit a key. In a Hammond, the sounds is always running and hitting the key just lets it go thru to the amp. The phase relationships in a Hammond never change. In a sample player, it changes every time you play a key.

For example, you play some bass notes an octave apart, playing this repeatably will sound different every time since there is no way you can hit both keys exactly at the same time. Sometimes it's in phase and sounds loud and full, other time it's out of phase and sounds weak.

Modellers have free running tones to simulate the Hammond tone generator.

Another problem is equal temperament tuning. The Hammond is not exactly equal in its tuning temperament. Sampling causes the tones to be more equal and this can sound funny in certain octaves and chords going through a Leslie. This is one reason most things played through a Leslie don't sound as good as a Hammond does.

I too use the CX-3 with a Ventilator and it's good enough considering the advantage of portability.

Geo
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[burningbusch]

Here's an example of the phase cancellation problem. This was a Motif XF organ which I made using the individual drawbar samples in the Motif. Each time I'm playing the same note/chord but you can here the timbre change as different frequencies are being cancelled/amplified. I think the issue with the Hammond tone is that it is a simple (basically sine wave) static tone so this cancelation issue is much easier to detect than with more complex, evolving waveforms. With a modeling organ, the sine waves are always in sync, just like on the Hammond. That's not possible with sampling, at least as far as any of the sample engines I've encountered.

http://www.purgatorycreek.com/mp3/XSorgan.mp3

Busch.
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http://www.purgatorycreek.com

[burningbusch]

BTW, I don't think sampling each note is going to get around this issue. You are never going to trigger each note of the chord at precisely the same moment, hence I would expect the waves to have this same out-of-sync issue.

Busch.
_________________
Kronos 73, Nautilus 61, Vox Continental 73, Monologue, Yamaha Montage 8, Rhodes Suitcase, Yamaha VL-1, Roland V-Synth, Yamaha AvantGrand, Minimoog Model D, Studio Electronics Omega 8, CSS, Spitfire, VSL, LASS, Sample Modeling, Ivory, Komplete 12, Spectrasonics, Cubase, Pro Tools, etc.
http://www.purgatorycreek.com

[jeremykeys]

On another note, the organ that Joey DeFrancesco is now playing is a sample of his favourite Hammond. I can't remember the name of the manufacturer but apparently the sampled every note with each individual drawbar at each setting. That way, when he uses the drawbars he is getting the exact sound that he gets from his Hammond.

I have to wonder how they got around the phasing problem. He's one of the best Hammond players out there and I'm quite sure he would notice if it sounded anything less than perfect.
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If music is the food of love, play on and play loud!
Gear: Kronos 73, Triton Pro-X, Wavestation EX, Polysix, King Korg, Monotron and Monotron Duo, Minikorg, Moog Grandmother, 1 Roland U-20, Hammond M3, 4 acoustic and 6 electric guitars, 1 Ibanez 5 string bass, a bunch of microphones and other very cool toys, 1 wife and 3 cats!

[mymusic42]

thanks for everyone's replies

1) I will try the non CX3 organs through the Neo first
2) I wasn't going to sample percussion (or leslie), but I probably would have left the chorus on--which based on what people are saying would probably have caused problems so I will leave that off and just use the Kronos' chorus before the neo
3) I had planned on sampling all 61 notes, rather than let the sampler stretch notes.
4) I never would have considered the phase cancellation part of the equation; thanks for the heads up.

I am going to give it a try over the Christmas break and see what happens.

Thanks to everyone for their advice.

[mymusic42]

TO BURNINGBUSCH:

THanks for the mp3 example to illustrate the problem. How apparent do you think that would be in an actual performance? It was quite apparent in this isolated test, but I am thinking that in a live performance with other instruments playing (ie-- a bass and drums and possibly vocals) it would be masked. On top of that it would be unlikely that I'd play the same chord over and over like in the example. I would think moving chords would mask the problems as well.

But this was very helpful

[jeremykeys]

Please forgive me but I really have to wonder if what you want to do is worth the time and effort if you think that the rest of your band is going to mask any problems, sound wise, that you may encounter with a sample of your Hammond.
It just kind of seems to me that with some judicious programming you can come up with the sounds that you are looking for without having to do any sampling.
Don't get me wrong here. I admire your tenacity at trying to get the organ sound that works for you. I did a similar thing but instead of sampling my M3 I just dug into the Kronos.
I had a lot of fun too"

Now I have a Hammond emulation that truly works for me.
_________________
If music is the food of love, play on and play loud!
Gear: Kronos 73, Triton Pro-X, Wavestation EX, Polysix, King Korg, Monotron and Monotron Duo, Minikorg, Moog Grandmother, 1 Roland U-20, Hammond M3, 4 acoustic and 6 electric guitars, 1 Ibanez 5 string bass, a bunch of microphones and other very cool toys, 1 wife and 3 cats!

[mymusic42]

TO JEREMYKEYS

So at a high level I agree with you. I have a synth with 9 diverse synth engines--I should be able to create any sound I want. So there's no question that the sonic possibilities exist within the Kronos.

However I am not a synth programmer anymore. In 1990 my first synth was a Yamaha V50. The presets weren't great and I mastered 4 operator FM synthesis to compensate and I created some really great personalized sounds.

Then I spent the next 20 years buying ROMPLERS and never really did anymore sound design! I was in high school then. Now I have a wife, kids, a job. I just don't think I have the time to learn/experiment and create my own sounds. So I was thinking that sampling might solve my problem.

But you've given me some food for thought. I will consider the synthesis option as well. Thanks