Disto/OD for organ

[nordine]

hi there guys,

i'm wanting to make a dist/od unit for my lil' organ (roland rs-09), cause it's a bit sterile, i'd want to add more meat to it

what do you recomend me?

(i tried a modded bazz fuss, but was too harsh  :oops: )

thanks

[Fret Wire]

http://diystompboxes.com/sboxforum/viewtopic.php?t=35273

[Joe Viau]

Overdriven Leslie.
:twisted:

[nordine]

mmm

but i think a HM2 is a little too complicated

i was thinking about, say, a TS, Big muff, something like that... but, which?

[ninoman123]

Build them both and try them.  

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

my experience with distorting organs / keyboards has been dismal. they don't have a very good harmonic base for such use, and all of the chords you are used to using will come out reeeeeally ugly. just my opinion....

BUT i think a BMP with the tone control rolled off might sound very sweet.

[MartyMart]

I've not had much luck either with that one !!
Putting keyboards through Gtr FX pedals is generally a no no, unless its
a Rhodes through a Phase 90 or something similar.
If you want a real "Ugly" sound then YES !!
Now as for "Valve" based drive .... now you're talkin.
I have a valve pre-amp made by a small company called "Energy VKP1"
( Valve keyboard preamp )
Warms up organ sounds a treat, and will "break up" just a wee bit - perfect for a hammond type "crunch"
I remember seeing a documentary, or "Rockumentary you might say"
about Deep Purple.
Jon Lord was feeding his Hammod through a Marshall stack, to get that
"Highway Star" tone .... FAB !!!

Marty.

[nordine]

now that you say it..

its weird because, as far as i know, just about any cheap/aseptic organ is saved by guitarfx's, in about every review i've read... they say, "just add overdrive and phaser, and the thing sings"

i think i'll build the big Muff... being most fuzzes signal-destroyers, i was very pleased with these chorused 70's strings in my roland through my buzz box, its like a sharp wall of sound made of razors, or something

[Peter Snowberg]

The Hammond organ lends itself to being distorted better than probably any other organ because the sounds are all sinewaves of exact harmonic relationship.

[petemoore]

So...it would stand to reason that a digital replication of Hammond Organ would be a good setting choice for those of us with 'Processor Organs' if we wanted to try getting distortion.

[vortex]

John Lord ran his organ through a Maestro Ring Modulator for all the Deep Purple stuff. According to what I've read, the Maestro was "always on" and John stockpiled a bunch of the units as they were an important part of his sound.

I always thought organ sounds were very overdrive friendly. Perhaps try out some OD/ Distortions (less is more!) instead of fuzz or try running the signal into a tube amp. Sometimes it helps to run a volume pedal set halfway in between keyboards and guitar pedals/amps. Software plugins like Amplitude and Trash are cool too. YMMV

[vortex]

I saw a clip of Booker T and the MG's playing live and the whole group was using Marshall stacks. The Hammond sounded positively wicked!

[Doug_H]

I tried my Korg CX-3 (1970's analog model) through my pentode driver and it sounded pretty rough. It sucked the bass out of it somewhat too. So far it doesn't seem like it's going to work real well with guitar effects, but I'll try some others.

One thing I noticed was that the "overdrive" knob on the organ is fairly subtle, as overdrives go, but it really adds a lot to the sound. I would like just a little more "growl" out of it (hence experimenting with pedals), but I think a little distortion will go a long way with this. Maybe there is something to where it is in the signal chain (within the organ circuit) that the distortion is produced as well. It also could have to do with impedance levels when running outboard and etc too. FWIW I tried it with my arion chorus for a "better" fast leslie sound and it sounded pretty bad. The organ leslie sim sounds much better. That chorus sounds great with my guitar too, very "leslie-ish".

Whatever the reason, the organ overdrive seems different somehow than the typical guitar effect distortion. I have contacted someone to get a CX-3 service manual (so I can fix the percussion controls). Hopefully, I can get some prints and see what's going on inside.  May shed some light on the overdrive stuff too.

Doug

[Nasse]

I noticed one distortion design specially for keyboards on one music magazine "diy" section when digging some dusty pile of my old papers. I think it was some british mag few years ago. I can not reach it just now, maybe I can try to look for it later this week. But I believe the author´s circuit was a TLO71 preamp feeding single JFET stage...

Has anyone tried tube sound fuzz tuned almost clean or a minibooster?

[MartyMart]

Whatever the reason, the organ overdrive seems different somehow than the typical guitar effect distortion. I have contacted someone to get a CX-3 service manual (so I can fix the percussion controls). Hopefully, I can get some prints and see what's going on inside.  May shed some light on the overdrive stuff too.
Doug

Doug, I used to run mine ( & other organ sounds ) through a stereo valve
pre-amp, built just for that purpose.
It has "Drive" and "presence" controls, in a 1U rack, I guess its a pair of
12AX7's in there.
It sounded fabulous, but doesn't get much use these days, due to the
"Plug-in" age !!
It was of course designed for "line/+4db" level, for touring/studio use.
It was way better than any "gtr" type pedal.
Subtle, but a nice warm "crunch"  

Marty.

[Doug_H]

It was of course designed for "line/+4db" level, for touring/studio use.
It was way better than any "gtr" type pedal.
Subtle, but a nice warm "crunch"  

Marty.

Thanks, Marty. Yeah, I suspect it is an issue of "line-level" vs. high impedance guitar pickup signal at play here. I tried using the effects loop but couldn't get it to work, either.  I should be able to sort a lot of this out when I get the manuals.

Doug

[Yun]

Does anyone remember the band "Traffic" eh?  They were a kind of phscychadelic band in the 60's.  The sax player hooked his sax up to fuzz boxes, as well as the organ player.  

You should search for that band's equipment, find out what he used, and find a schematic for it.....

[MartyMart]

Does anyone remember the band "Traffic" eh?  They were a kind of phscychadelic band in the 60's.  The sax player hooked his sax up to fuzz boxes, as well as the organ player.  

You should search for that band's equipment, find out what he used, and find a schematic for it.....

DO I REMEMBER  ??
Steve Winwood and Chris wood  !! Awesome band, Steve's hammond
playing was one of the things that got me into Music  !!
Chis Wood used to blow through all kinds of FX   V-COOL  

Marty.