Technical limitations of electromechanical draw bar organs, with tonewheels, can cause some strange tonal artifacts, such as crosstalk. These quirks form an integral part of the B3’s charm. You can adjust a number of parameters to define the age and condition of your Vintage B3.
The key contacts of electromechanical tonewheel organs tend to saw a little on the busbar, thus introducing a short click sound. Corrosion of the key contacts or busbar increases the length and level of this click. This aspect of the B3 design causes irregular scratching noises (commonly referred to as key click) when striking and releasing keys. Hammond fans like these clicking noises because they introduce a transient, percussive quality to the note.
Vintage B3 allows you to adjust the volume and sound of the key click. The tonal color and volume of clicks are altered randomly, and independently, from the click on and click off (release) volume settings.
Click Minimum/Maximum sliders: Combined, these sliders determine a range for click duration, which can vary between a short “tick” and a longer “scratch.” A random click duration (that falls within the defined range) is used as you play.
Note: Even if both parameters have identical values, there is a random variation in sound that makes some clicks seem shorter than the value set with Click Min.
Click Color slider: Set the tonal color of the click. This acts as a global control for the treble portion of the click sound, which overrides (but works alongside) random click color variations.
Filter Age slider: Set the center frequencies of the filters to emulate aging capacitors. The high frequency output signals of B3 tonewheel generators are passed through bandpass filters. The center frequency of these filters changes as the capacitors (used for filtering) get older.
Note: This colors the sound of the jitter applied by Random FM and the background noise resulting from leakage. Filter Age also influences the intonation of the organ, if you use a pitch bend.
Leakage slider: Add a “breathy” quality to your sound—the result of crosstalk between all tonewheels—including the tonewheels of notes that you don’t play.
Drawbar Leak slider: Set the minimum output level of the draw bars when they are at their minimum positions. The B3 tonewheel generators aren’t completely quiet, even if all draw bars are at their minimum positions. This is due to leakage of the tonewheels, causing crosstalk at the output.
Use the minimum setting to completely eliminate draw bar leakage.
Use the maximum setting to make draw bar leakage clearly audible.
Crosstalk slider: Set the crosstalk level. There are two tonewheels that are four octaves apart for each key (pitch), on each rotating shaft. The signal of the lower wheel has a small amount of audible crosstalk, induced by the higher wheel, and vice versa. For more information, see Tonewheel sound generation. Because crosstalk is audible only on certain B3 tonewheels, any “rumble” when chords are played is avoided.
Random FM slider: Simulate irregular rotation of tonewheels in an old B3. If the tonewheel generator of a B3 is clean, all frequencies are even and in tune. The three-fold decoupling of the tonewheels—via springs, flexible couplings, and flywheels—is effective, but it can’t compensate for irregularities that come with dirt and grease in the driving gears. A gradual build-up of grime in the mechanism makes the tonewheel assembly turn unevenly on its axis. This irregular rotation is transmitted to the tonewheels, and therefore, the higher frequency ranges of the sound.