Hard Rock Organ Settings

[TheBlacksmith]

Hello everybody!

No question, no complaints - I just wanted to share my settings for the Hammond section I’m using in my hard rock tribute band.

For a change, I’d like to comment on how amazingly good the Stage 3 organ works in a live/band environment. Having tried every available clonewheel on the market, I never had one that sounded better in a full rock band mix. I thoroughly tested Crumar Mojo, Viscount Legend, HX3, Hammond XK1c but none of them made me happy.

My old Stage 2 EX, then my Electro 6D and currently my Stage 3 all made the FOH guys happy, commenting on how great they sounded through different PA systems.

So these are the settings with some comments:

EQ:
- Treble +10.0 dB
- Mid Freq 306 Hz
- Mid +5.0 dB
- Bass +5.0 dB

=> That’s giving the B3 lots of treble to increase perceived overdrive and key click as well as some oomph in the lower mids

- Drive (EQ Section): 3.0

- Hammond Section Vol: -10.1

=> The EQ increases the loudness so I had to tone down volume and use the EQ section drive for compensating the lack of distortion. Otherwise it’s hard to balance the B3 with other sounds.

- Compressor: 5.0

Hammond Sound Settings:
- Tonewheel Mode: Vintage 2
- Click Level: High
- Rotary Speaker Type: 122
- Rotary Balance: Bass/Horn 40/60
- Rotary Rotor Speed: Low
- Rotary Horn Speed: Low

=> Yes, I’m not using the 122 Close like most people do. With the high amount of treble, the „throb“ (amplitude modulation) is just too much through a big PA. Also, am I the only one noticing that the 122 Close setting takes away all the presence in the higher mids?


In addition, a citation from maestro Jon Lord about Chorus/Vibrato: „C1 - only one I ever use.“

[TheBlacksmith]

I just wanted to directly share the programs I use most of the time:

B3 Classic Rock:
- basic, all-purpose Hammond for rock songs
- overdrive is kept in the middle, turn up the Rotary Speaker Drive for full on distortion

B3 Classic Rock.ns3f

(592 Bytes) Downloaded 269 times

• B3 Classic Rock.mp3

B3 Lord 80s:
- Perfect Strangers era Hammond with heavy distortion
- contrary to what most people think, Jon did NOT refrain from using guitar amps, he used both Leslies and stationary amps at the same time

Panel A: Hammond through Rotary Speaker
Panel B: Hammond through Twin amp with heavy EQ settings and Drive

B3 Lord 80s.ns3f

(592 Bytes) Downloaded 207 times

• B3 Lord 80s.mp3

B3 Lord 70s:
- Machine Head era Hammond -> Second drawbar half in! Jon did never use the classic "Four Out" drawbar setting.
- Jon had an RMI E-Piano wired into his upper manual that he used lots of times, it gives a lot of balls to the organ -> just listen to the studio recording of Space Truckin'
- as there's no high gain guitar amp simulation, I also did a layer of two organs:

Panel A: Hammond through Rotary Speaker put to Stop Mode | RMI E-Piano with filter distortion (Synth section) layered below middle C
Panel B: Hammond through Twin amp with heavy EQ settings and Drive

B3 Lord 70s.ns3f

(592 Bytes) Downloaded 198 times

• B3 Lord 70s.mp3

[alex78]

That makes me really wanna get a stage, I can't layer organs with my poor (yet great sounding) electro...
Indeed using one of the vintage settings is vital to get that grit essential for rock music, with a completely clean setting you will always miss something.

[alex78]

Regarding the piano layered with organ, I was waching a video on you tube about DP and a sound engineer was talking about Lord's clavinets blending so well with Richie's guitars delivering that solid sound, so I tried perfect strangers with clav instead of organ and sounded pretty accurate, so I think a hammond-clav layer would be spot on for the specific song.

[florence]

awesome, thanks. Would be great if you could share a short mp3 demo !

also if missing, the RMI E-Piano sample is available here:
https://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-lib ... ectra-368x

[TheBlacksmith]

Thank you guys for the input!

Layering on the Electro is sadly not working out. I had some ideas back when I had a E6D. But using an already overdriven Hammond in the Sample Synth section didn’t sound good in any way.

I haven’t got any time for MP3 examples at the moment but I’ll do my very best to record some as soon as possible.

Oh and happy new year everyone!

[Wietze]

Thanks!

[abourges]

Hi,

...would be highly interested in testing the organ sounds, but when I download the patches to my stage 3, it says missing samples. I then downloaded all the samples from the referenced "NSMP RMI Electra Piano 368x" sample lib, but it doesn't help.

I'm pretty new to nord stage 3, so any hint is highly appreciated!


<edit>
Ah - so the rmi piano was found, but in the nord sound-manager the patches show "Not found: (unknown)" for the piano's...
</edit>

nord sound manager screenshot

Screenshot 2023-01-10 180357.jpg (58.52 KiB) Viewed 4524 times

Thanks,

Andreas

[abourges]

...Ah - so the rmi piano was found, but in the nord sound-manager the patches show "Not found: (unknown)" for the piano's...
Thanks,
Andreas

As the pianos (besides the RMI) aren't used, you can link them to any piano you have and save the programs. The Nord Stage 2 and 3 program viewer (top of this forum page) will let you view the settings for each program including the pianos originally saved. Good luck!

[abourges]

The piano samples are the ones that aren't included. Which is very convenient because of the file size. You likely have them on your system, but maybe another size (S, M, L, XL) or something similar. So, you only need to know which piano sounds are asked for: Try the online program file viewer from florence: https://ns3-program-viewer.cyclic.app/ and then assign a specific piano sound to your liking.

Sorry, maxpiano WannitBBBad was first.