DIY solution for organ sound

[jishnudg]

whats the best DIY project to make my guitar sound like a jazz/rock organ... I understand that there are some digital effects that do this but can an analog circuit or chain of analog DIY effects do the same?

[moosapotamus]

You could try combining an octave down effect with an octave up effect. That's how the EH micro POG does it.

~ Charlie

[midwayfair]

Madbean sells a project call the Lowrider (pearl octaver clone) -- it's two octaves down and has a kind of fuzzy upper octave. I've used it for organ sounds, and Brian (Madbean) did the same on his new record. It has a slightly synthy sound that gives a good keys impression.

I'd suggest pairing it with a vibe of some sort to really get the feel -- doesn't have to be a complicated vibe, but the ROG Tri-Vibe would be great since it can do a Leslie-ish sound.

[nocentelli]

The pearl octaver is great (I have the real deal, but being analog it is strictly monophonic so is in no way an "analog micropog". I'd agree that a vibe will help get that sound, either something dead simple like the magnavibe, or even better, if a little more complex, a vibe that will ramp between speeds can allow some hammond emulation. This will be helped greatly, of course, by modifying you chord voicings (e.g. low open strings with inverted chords on higher stings) and altering picking style e.g. fingers not pick, pulling at all the strings at once rather than strumming to approximate the attack/triggering of a keyboard. With a neck humbucker with the tone rolled back and a bit of swirly vibe, you can get a vaguely organish sound, I've not had much luck with approximating the octave aspect of the organ - The micropog seemed cool, but has a slightly unpleasant artifice to it when playing certain chords or positions on the neck: I found that it sounded very wrong unless the strings were perfectly in tune, though I imagine vibe would make this less prominent in the sound.

[timd]

If you were trying to do this DIY, suppose you have a separate octave down and separate octave up schematics. To tie them both in the same pedal with only one stompswitch, how would that be done? Would you simply wire the circuit inputs together and the same for the outputs? Or would the signal path have to go through one of them and then through the other?

[Marcvv]

It depend on the circuit used.
You will have to split the incoming signal with a buffer. i did this with a Chopped-OC that I combined with a green ringer.
After the buffer the signal went to both circuits and they were mixed back at the mixing stage of he Chopped-OC.
In the documentation of that there is already some suggestions how to take unfiltered signals out and mix them back in at the mixing stage. i just followed that and it works really well.
I used a Jfet buffer in front as a buffer/ splitter. Look at Taylors posts on the Chopped-OC. It is there.

It is still monophonic though.

[Ben N]

In addition to the octaves + vibe, I'd lead with a pretty squishy, in-your-face compressor, not just for sustain but also to chop off the guitar attack. Just the comp + vibe should get you a fair part of the way there, somewhat like the guitorgany sound on Amy Correia's cover of Gasoline Alley/It's All Over Now.

[timd]

One of the issues here is that most all of the DIY octaves I've seen are dirty and a cleanish organ sound is hard to come by. I had a similar issue a while back with attempting an organ sound for the guitar. For this case I would suggest buying a 2 voice pitch shifter. I bought one on ebay for 70.00 - the Muza 800. Although I used my Digitech too in the video, the heart of that sound is the Muza. Also, roll the guitar tone down. I figured this out after making the video, but it helps a lot!

[Mark Hammer]

Listening to that, it occurs to me that one of the little details that differentiates an actual organ from many of the attempts at mimicry is that all the "ranks" in an organ commence simultaneously, as opposed to the ever-so-slight delay that occurs between the fundamental and various octave ups and downs.

I wonder if it woud sound more convincingly organ-like if the simultaneity/synchrony could be improved upon?

[timd]

If the tracking could be improved, it would be better. I was attempting to mask this by using reverb and delay to simulate a "church style" organ sound at one point.

[jishnudg]

So...to summarize...

Compressor  ----->  Buffer   ------>  Clean Octave Down  -------> Mixed Signal  ------> Vibrato
                                         ------>   Clean Octave Up

How about a chorus behind/in front of/ instead of the vibrato?

[timd]

Chorus could work as it is a "similar" effect. The real trick will the marriage of the chorus/vib rate plus playing style. Playing style has ALOT to do with it.

[Lurco]

Listening to that, it occurs to me that one of the little details that differentiates an actual organ from many of the attempts at mimicry is that all the "ranks" in an organ commence simultaneously, as opposed to the ever-so-slight delay that occurs between the fundamental and various octave ups and downs.

I wonder if it woud sound more convincingly organ-like if the simultaneity/synchrony could be improved upon?

Why not use the "TZF-trick" by delaying that fundamental ever-so-slight, as well?

[B Tremblay]

Several years ago, Mr. Ge_Whiz himself (aka Philip Miller Tate) did some work with getting an organ sound and explained his approach to me:

In Chris Amelar's book "The Guitar F/X Cookbook" - which is more about extracting wierd screams, animal noises and percussive sounds from guitars than pedals - Amelar includes a section called "B-3", in which he describes how to use a combination of pedals (Wah wah, distortion and flanger) to emulate a 'tone-wheel organ' sound. The Wah is half-set just to filter/resonate the guitar sound, the distortion is optional or set low, and the flanger is used to emulate a Leslie cabinet. The sample on the accompanying CD is (suspiciously) impressive, but owes at least as much to the clever playing style as it does to the effect. Some time ago, I set up an emulation on my Digitech RP100 pedal, and quite liked it, but it wasn't quite right (especially as I don't use the RP100 live).

My main reason for interest was that our band has three guitars, and, although we all have different playing styles, there are times when two guitars are tighter than three, and someone becomes a spare part. A chance to alter completely the guitar sound is a good way to avoid treading on other people's sonic space and broaden the band's sound. Thus the idea of an analogue version was conceived in my mind under the working title "Hammondex".

Since I don't possess the pedal dexterity to use a wah-wah, I don't possess one. However, this application only requires a half-%^&*ed one, so I settled for a simple circuit that I have been meaning to try for a while - Tim E.'s 'Idiot Wah'. This also has a nice 'resonance' feature, but I had to tame it to prevent it from screaming at me, possibly because I used a darlington transistor to beef up the circuit a bit.

Since I only required a simple distortion, I settled for two Schottky diodes in anti-parallel across the output for a bit of crunch. I may have skimped a bit here - a bit more distortion may have helped - but I wanted to keep it simple using switches rather than knobs everywhere. After all, it's intended to be a sonic one-trick pony.

I never had any intention of building a flanger circuit, but rather to use a cheap second-hand (plastic) Arion I picked up last year. The sound is reasonable, but not great, but it'll do. To include it, I decided to incorporate an effects loop in the Hammondex box, so that the whole effect could be switched in and out with one stompswitch for ease of use. I also included a 9V send socket to power the outboard flanger. Another advantage is that I can substitute other Leslie emulators as I come by them.

After some experimenting, I realized that what the sound needed was some compression to give a more 'organ' sound. Although preceding the whole thing with my Marshall 'Edward the Compressor' pedal sounded great, I didn't want to tie up the whole thing for this purpose, and needed a simple pre-set compressor with a fair bit of squash, but enough gain to pull the level back up. Based on comments on Aron's forum, I decided to build the 'Flatline', even though I would generally prefer a FET over a homebrew vactrol any day. I built it with trimmers in place of controls for 'set and forget' convenience. The alternative was the "Aussie", but I was concerned about some of the reports of distortion. Anyhow, the box ended up as [in] - flatline - idiot wah - schottkys - [loop] flanger [loop] - [out]. Controls are in-out switches for resonance, compression and distortion, pot for filter cutoff, and footswitch.

My first thought was to use a Phase 45. All I know is that phasing or flanging sounds better to my ears than the Leslie emulator on my RP100! That, in turn, makes a reasonable tremolo. The Arion gets some good reviews and mine only cost me £20. I tend not to use it alone - too obvious.

Try the wah filter about half way, but don't kill too much top end. Some subtle distortion helps to sharpen the sound. If your flanger has four knobs, set depth almost full up, speed high but not too silly (that's the easy bit to set), manual knob right down, and resonance up about one-third (as in the photograph above). Compression is not essential. A chord picking style sounds better than strumming, and chords or double stops sound more authentic than single notes.

How does it sound? Well, not entirely Hammond-ish, but distinctly different from a guitar. I have a sample recorded on my 16-track, and if I can ever figure how to extract it, I'll post it. It'll be a nice addition to my board, especially for the 'organ solo' on 'Born To Be Wild'. The 'loop' approach for the flanger has an additional benefit, which makes this at least a two-trick pony: substituting a fuzz box, such as the three-knob tonebender, for the flanger gives a wonderfully sustained half-%^&*ed wah sound reminiscent of my guitar hero, Mick Ronson.

Here's a clip of it: http://runoffgroove.com/images/attachments/Hammondex1.mp3

[Mark Hammer]

Listening to that, it occurs to me that one of the little details that differentiates an actual organ from many of the attempts at mimicry is that all the "ranks" in an organ commence simultaneously, as opposed to the ever-so-slight delay that occurs between the fundamental and various octave ups and downs.

I wonder if it woud sound more convincingly organ-like if the simultaneity/synchrony could be improved upon?

Why not use the "TZF-trick" by delaying that fundamental ever-so-slight, as well?

Pretty much what I was thinking.  One can't make the derived octaves happen any faster than they can happen, so the alternative is to delay the fundamental a smidgen so that everything lines up.