Hammond organ clones with piano emulation?
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Topic: Hammond organ clones with piano emulation?
Posted By: ozzy_tom
Subject: Hammond organ clones with piano emulation?
Date Posted: August 26 2012 at 23:58
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Hi, I'd like to know which types of Hammond organ digital clones can also emulate the sounds of an acoustic piano? I heard about such clones but I don't know if acoustic piano samples are included or not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korg" rel="nofollow - - Roland VK-7 Clavia (Nord Series), Hammond SK1 Hammond XK3 Or maybe you know some other keyboards that can emulate Hammond organ and piano? Thanks for your help! -------------  
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Replies:
Posted By: tonewheel1966
Date Posted: August 27 2012 at 05:44
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For high end accoustic piano and B3 I'd recommend a Kurzweil with the KB3 feature. Having said that the Leslie sims aren't very realistic to my ears so you might want to add a Neo Ventilator. I've heard owners of the Korg CX3 and Roland VK7 say that the sound was much better through the Neo. I don't know much about the Nord range but think they only have electric piano samples. ------------- Hammond B3 Chop, Leslie 122, Leslie 760, Yamaha RA100, Kurzweil Midiboard, Kurzweil K2000S |
Posted By: ozzy_tom
Date Posted: August 27 2012 at 07:00
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What about Korg CX3? Does it have piano samples? -------------
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Posted By: hobocamp
Date Posted: August 27 2012 at 09:28
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The difficulty with your search is that acoustic pianos have weighted keys and mechanical action, producing soft to loud sound and phenomena such as escapement; while Hammond organs use keys that are basically switches - they are either on or off - and a mechanical rotary action to emulate wind in a pipe organ. So the attack is different for both instruments at the keyboard, which is the common denominator you seek. That said, I suppose it all comes down to how much you are willing to spend. I feel that $2500 is a median for the variety and features available on today's models, and for that you can get a Roland FP7F. Its supernatural piano sound, weighted keys, and uncomplicated design make it the best bet in my opinion. You can even take advantage of a Hammond B3 “digital drawbars” feature with the Roland Tonewheel Organ sound. |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: August 27 2012 at 13:08
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I'm sure any $1000+ workstation synthesizer/sampler would be able to do both with good enough quality and loads more. Do't underestimate how far workstation shave come in a few short years. ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: ozzy_tom
Date Posted: August 27 2012 at 18:56
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I found such info: "In 2001 the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Electro" rel="nofollow - Nord Electro was released. It was designed to emulate the classical http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromechanical" rel="nofollow - electromechanical keyboards like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammond_organ" rel="nofollow - Hammond organ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_piano" rel="nofollow - electric piano and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohner" rel="nofollow - Hohner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavinet" rel="nofollow - Clavinet . The pianos are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_%28music%29" rel="nofollow - samples but the organs are modeled using a "digital simulation". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_%28Clavia%29#cite_note-claviaelectro3-9" rel="nofollow - [10] Clavia's current models here are the Electro 3, emulating a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammond_B3" rel="nofollow - Hammond B3 , a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farfisa" rel="nofollow - Farfisa and a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_%28musical_equipment%29#Organs" rel="nofollow - Vox organ and containing samples of a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_piano" rel="nofollow - Rhodes Stage 73 , a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wurlitzer_electric_piano" rel="nofollow - Wurlitzer electric piano , a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohner" rel="nofollow - Hohner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavinet" rel="nofollow - Clavinet and an acoustic grand piano; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_%28Clavia%29#cite_note-claviaelectro3-9" rel="nofollow - [10] the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Piano" rel="nofollow - Nord Piano 2 containing the piano section from the Nord Electro 3 with an 88 key hammer action keyboard; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_%28Clavia%29#cite_note-claviapiano-10" rel="nofollow - [11] the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_C_Series" rel="nofollow - Nord C2 Organ, a dual manual instrument containing the organ section from the Nord Electro 3 as well as an emulation of a baroque pipe organ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_%28Clavia%29#cite_note-claviac2-11" rel="nofollow - [12] and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stage" rel="nofollow - Nord Stage 2 which takes the organ and pianos from the Nord Electro and adds a virtual analog synthesizer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_%28Clavia%29#cite_note-claviastage2-12" rel="nofollow - [13] " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_%28Clavia%29) So maybe Clavia Electro 3 or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stage" rel="nofollow - Nord Stage 2 is a good choice? -------------
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Posted By: Josef_K
Date Posted: August 28 2012 at 07:07
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I own a Nord Electro 2 and I have to say the Organ sound is just smashing. However, when it comes to acoustic pianos, it's not bad, it's HORRIBLE. It's plain impossible to use that sound. The rhodes/wurlitzer samples are good and the clavinet is awesome though. However, I know that the Nord Electro 3 should have access to more samples, though they always sound better online than in the actual machine so I can't give you any advise there. I was never too impressed with the Nord Stage. Good organ, good piano's but the virtual analog synthesizer sounds kinda dead to me, far beneath some software emulations of analog synths imo. Maybe that's just me though, I haven't heard anyone else complain about that. The Nord Electro's lack of good acoustic piano sounds is quite commonly accepted though. With the Electro 3 you should also be able to download other samples, such as mellotron etc, but I haven't been too impressed with those. ------------- Leave the past to burn, At least that's been his own - Peter Hammill |
Posted By: ozzy_tom
Date Posted: August 28 2012 at 08:34
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Thanks Josef. BTW Can Nord Electro 3 play some analog synthesizer (like Moog or ARP) sounds? Are there any samples for that? Or only pianos, mellotron and organ?
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Posted By: ozzy_tom
Date Posted: August 28 2012 at 08:43
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Do you know anything about such Roland keyboards like V-Combo VR-700 or ATELIER Combo AT-350C? Are they any good?
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Posted By: Jim Garten
Date Posted: August 29 2012 at 07:02
The Nord Electro 3 is an excellent keyboard; if you were to combine this via midi with say, one of the old EMU Vintage Keys rack modules (which are extremely easy to navigate, very intuitive), you then have access to a huge range of synths (including the Moog/ARP ones you mentioned); the Vintage keys module also has some superb Mellotron samples - these can be picked up 2nd hand at relatively low cost, too: 
------------- 
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012 |
ozzy_tom wrote:Posted By: Josef_K
Date Posted: August 30 2012 at 08:43
Some general info about the Nord Electro 3 can be found here: http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?tm=Products&clpm=Nord_Electro_3" rel="nofollow - http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?tm=Products&clpm=Nord_Electro_3
It has access to the Nord Sample Library, which has lots of synth samples, a full list of them that you can listen to can be found here: http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?tm=Sound" rel="nofollow - http://www.nordkeyboards.com/main.asp?tm=Sound Libraries&cllibr=Nord_Sample_Library&clslib=Synth
Dunno if that link's going to work, if not then click "Nord Sample Library" (from the first link then) and then "Synths", you should find it quite easily. I haven't listened through those samples myself but I saw minimoog, polymoog and some other cool stuff there. If it sounds anything like those I don't know :D
Jim Garten has some good advice as well, though personally I'd rather buy a Moog Slim Phatty if you can stand controlling the synthesizer unit with waterfall keys (which, to me, are for organ and piano only). I can't stand that, so I bought a Little Phatty (same synth but with keys) and I couldn't be happier. Of course it costs quite a lot, I don't know what the rack that Jim suggested costs but I would guess it's at least slightly cheaper than the SP and much cheaper than the LP (obviously).
Sorry but cannot comment on the Roland keyboards. I've tried them in music shops maybe once or twice but not enough to have a real opinion. ------------- Leave the past to burn, At least that's been his own - Peter Hammill |
Posted By: Jim Garten
Date Posted: August 30 2012 at 10:08
Considering what you get, it's really cheap; I picked one up on eBay for about £100 sterling -------------
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012 |
Posted By: clarke2001
Date Posted: September 03 2012 at 23:12
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Clavia Nord Electro/Stage - high quality, and expensive. Real drawbars. Korg CX3 - best analog Hammond emulator I ever played. No piano. Any decent keyboard from 2000 onwards should give you good hammonds and acoustic pianos. Of course, it depends on one's taste what is "good": how much of Hammond's tiny nuances are faithfully generated. Someone mentioned Kurtzweil. I would stick to that. Yamaha Motif is also okay (drawbars on some models too). Avoid Korg Tritons like plague. Roland Junos (new ones, not the analog 80's ones) are also more than decent. Don't know about VK 7. Alesis Fusion is another contender. And of course the top end keyboards like new Roland's Jupiter and Korg Oasys. Perhaps hooking up a keyboard with a clonewheel rackmount is not a bad idea; let's say Hammond XM (or aforementioned E-MU which is much cheaper) with any keyboard with decent grand piano. ------------- |
Posted By: ozzy_tom
Date Posted: September 26 2012 at 23:42
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Thank you for all your answers. -------------
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Posted By: Einsetumadur
Date Posted: September 27 2012 at 12:55
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No piano, but currently a not too expensive and GREAT Hammond emulation from a German workshop: http://www.keyboardpartner.de/hammond/hoax.htm ------------- All in all each man in all men |
Posted By: progbethyname
Date Posted: September 27 2012 at 21:22
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I find that the distinct sound of a GRAND PIANO is quite hard to emmulate. what comes the closest and how much? If anyone can help. Thanks 👊 ------------- Gimmie my headphones now!!! 🎧🤣 |
Posted By: HackettFan
Date Posted: September 30 2012 at 09:06
It sure is difficult. I know most people looking at this thread are keyboard players, but I am trying to do the same on guitar. A very convincing organ is easy nowadays. All you need is the Electro-Harmonix POG2. The piano is more of a problem, ironically so since they're both string instruments. I've been able to get close by going through the Boss AC3 Acoustic Simulatir, feeding that into an Electro-Harmonix Superego with the gliss and speed turned all the way down, and then feeding that through a Boss Dynamic Wah with the mode setting on 'down' (a preamp should be inserted before the Superego). You have to play slow and plunky, though, no fast runs. And it sounds like a synthesizer imitating a piano rather than an actual piano. |
Posted By: jared gold
Date Posted: February 06 2013 at 10:05
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Check out the JG3 folding midi organ...   www.foldingorgan.com Combines performance and portability to offer a 2 manual folding organ that folds to the size of an airplane CARRYON bag... 10 drawbars, 20 presets and fully midi mappable.
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Posted By: awaken77
Date Posted: February 08 2013 at 07:49
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Roland V-Combo VR700, VR760 Roland VK8 (no piano, but extra strings)
Clavia Nord Electro 2 / 3 / 4 Clavia Nord Stage / Stage Compact Hammond SK1 any Kurzweil Board with integrated KB3 (e.g. PC361, PC3xx, K2600 ) . but they rather stage pianos with integrated organ simulation module but here is a limitation in Nord Electro - it is impossible to split keyboard and play organ and non-organ patch simultaneously . and they preserved this in Electro 4 :-((( probably, to force some customers to buy more expensive Nord Stage, who need this feature |
Posted By: awaken77
Date Posted: February 08 2013 at 07:57
no, it is pure organ , no extra sounds Nord Electro, V-Combo and SK are sort of hybrid between organ and stage piano , they are convenient for a player who need to have a single keyboard on the stage |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: February 08 2013 at 10:58
The E-MU Vintage Keys was also released around 2003 as a standalone keyboard although I believe that it's no longer produced. Apparently it had a good reputation for its vintage synths and other sounds (Rhodes, Wurlitzer etc) but I don't know if it had classical piano.  |
Posted By: anotherscott
Date Posted: February 13 2013 at 09:43
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Lots of keyboards have preset organ sounds, but if you're talking about what people call Hammond clones or clonewheels (because they clone the sound and operation of the original Hammond organs that used mechanical tonewheels), you need the ability to manipulate the levels of the individual drawbars, the 9 variable tone components that you use to sculpt the sound and create all the tonal variations as you do on the real thing.
Organs play best from unweighted actions, pianos play best from weighted actions. It sounds like the primary goal of the OP is the organ function, with the piano function secondary, so let's look at current models with unweighted actions. I've noted the ones that have real drawbars… the actual mechanisms vary, and some purists call some more real than others, but for these purposes, I include any that have the authentic look, shape, and spacing. In some cases, I've noted some key features or differences, but by no means all the important ones. I've included some references to their synth functionality since that was also mentioned in the thread. Nord has a variety: Electro 4 - the D version has real drawbars, the SW73 version has more keys, but you lose the real drawbars. You may also still find some Electro 3 around, which (as you would guess) is an older version of the Electro 4. No real drawbars, and slightly lower quality (but still excellent) organ sound. Stage 2 (73) - organ sound is again not quite as good as the 4 series, but still excellent (and better than many others here), and it does not have real drawbars. But unlike the Electros, they can play more than one sound at a time. They also have full synthesizers built in. (The Electros have some synth presets you can load into them, but you can't alter them the way you can on a real synth, nor can you play them very expressively since the Electro lacks even the rudimentary synth controllers of pitch bend and modulation.) The Nords that do not have real drawbars use a simulation that uses up and down buttons and LED displays instead. Their overall design still tries to capture much of the organ ergonomics as drawbar models do (and non-drawbar models generally do not). I think that, as clonewheels go, Nord has the best piano sounds, though I don't think they play very nicely from Nord's unweighted actions. Hammond has the SK1, and the SK2, the latter being the only two-manual option. Real drawbars. 73 and 88 key versions of the SK1 are coming out later this year. They also have a couple of basic synth sounds, albeit with no controls (not even pitch and modulation controls). Roland has a variety: VR-700 - real drawbars, and one of the best feeling organ actions around (and as a bonus, the action is better than most unweighted actions for piano, if you must play piano from an unweighted action). Some synth sounds, not much, but at least you have pitch and modulation controls. VR-09 coming out probably in April - action expected to be not nearly as good as the VR-700, but piano/organ sound and functionality should be similar (though fewer keys). Full synth functionality, editable via iPad. Jupiter 80 - not quite all the organ functionality of the VRs, but you do get drawbar control via a touch display, lots of other sounds and synth capabilities, and a nice action. Jupiter 50 - similar to Jupiter 80, but without the touch display, drawbar settings have to be made through a menu. A lot of the 80's synth control function can be added with an iPad app. Although the Jupiters and VRs both let you control organ sounds at the drawbar level, there are other aspects of the sound (overdrive, chorus/vibrato, etc.) which are handled better on the VRs (and most other clones). So from the Rolands, if you're focusing on organ, you'd probably prefer a VR to a Jupiter. Korg has the Kronos and Kronos X 61, which includes their CX3 engine along with piano and a lot of other functionality, including full synth. They use faders instead of drawbars. Kurzweil has the PC3K6, which includes their KB3 engine, piano, and lots of other functionality, including full synth. They use faders instead of drawbars. You may also find the PC361 around, which is the older version without sample memory. There are also 76 key versions (PC3K7, PC3) though the action is different, I think less good for organ, though some people find it a better compromise for also playing piano. There is also the PC3LE 6 and 7 which have that compromise keyboard, have a slightly lower end rotary speaker emulation, and use knobs instead of faders or drawbars. (They also make a scaled down version of the LE, the SP4, but you would need some kind of external control box to access its drawbar functions over MIDI. Yamaha has nothing. The closest they come is the Motif XF with the optional Organimation or Organ Session library… that can give you drawbar style control, but even then, you only get independent control of 8 of them at a time… you can't get all 9, due to the fact that the Motif only has 8 faders, and just the general architecture of the machine. Also, these attempts to turn a Motif into a clonewheel, while clever in that they work at all, can exhibit various limitations such as limited polyphony or phase cancellation issues within the samples. Casio has the XW-P1. It uses small sliders instead of drawbars, tone is a bit less authentic than most (with the rotary effect being especially lacking) and it is weak on some of the enhancements like chorus/vibrato and overdrive. And it's piano sound is nothing to write home about either. But it's cheap, light, has a surprisingly decent feeling action, and a nice synth section. If you decide to go with a piano-oriented weighted action instead of an organ-oriented unweighted action, Nord, Kurzweil, and Korg make weighted versions of all the boards of theirs that I listed above. Of those, the Nord Stage 2 weighted action is probably the best adept at handling organ, the Kurzweil PC3 is probably okay too. Kronos, Nord Electro, and Kurz SP models would be less cooperative. Kawai also has a tonewheel mode in their MP6, and Roland has some of that functionality in some of their weighted boards as well, like the RD-700NX and possibly some others. It's still best to get two boards with two actions. A lightweight weighted 88 board will be better for playing piano than any unweighted action, there are plenty to choose from, from the Yamaha P-35 on up. The forthcoming 24 pound Casio PX-5S looks especially nice. You can use these things with their own piano sounds, or to trigger what may be a better piano sound inside your organ board via MIDI (as you might if, for example, you were to choose an unweighted Nord for your organ board, since those boards also have such good piano sounds). Finally, whatever you get can be augmented with other external devices. For example, if you get a board that doesn't have much synth functionality, and you happen to own an iPad, there are great iPad synths you can trigger from whatever keyboard you get. For that matter, the clonewheel organ built into the iPad's GarageBand program is quite nice itself. |
Posted By: awaken77
Date Posted: February 28 2013 at 02:39
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Roland released VR-09 - new lightweight stage keyboard it's a clonewheel organ, digital piano and synthesizer in compact package, weighting only 5 kg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T6xOZioCcM if the price would be less than 1000$, looks like a good competitor for Electro and SK1 |