Hammond B-3 keyboard sound.

Cafe Society
1

Do any keyboard players know how I can get a Hammond B-3 sound from my Roland VK-7 short of buying a Hammond B-3?

2

The best you can do in a portable keyboard is a Hammond XK-1 or, for more money, an XK-3. These units have draw bars that mimic the real draw bars and there are adjustable leslie effects.

3

The Wikipedia article on Leslie speakers mentions some devices that try to duplicate the effect.

4

Moved to Cafe Society.

5

I’m confused … the VK-7 is a Hammond clone, designed to almost do nothing but sound like a B-3. Does yours not work or what?

6

Yeah, I’m confused, too. I’ve never used that particular B3 emulator, but try this:

See the drawbars? Pull out the leftmost four, and leave the rightmost five all the way in, so your setting should be 888800000. Make sure your percussion settings are off for the moment. Play around a bit. Now turn the percussion effects on, and play around with the settings. You should have two settings for speed, and two settings for which harmonic you want emphasized, the second or third. Don’t worry about what this means exactly, just play around with the settings and listen. Basically, the percussion effects give you a little “pop” of the overtone you selected when you first hit the note. The way it plays is interesting, too. If you have any other notes being held, it won’t trigger the percussive sound until all the notes are released. This means that if you’re playing very legato, only the first note of the phrase will have the percussive effect or if your playing a chord and then moving some notes within the chord, while leaving others held, the notes you’re moving won’t have the percussion on them.

Anyhow, those drawbar settings (888800000) are one of the standard Hammond B3 ones (think Jimmy Smith’s Green Onions, so should get you close to what you probably think of as the “B3 Sound.” Next, try pulling out the top most drawbar, and then the second highest. See how that affects the sound. The B3 is very much about sculpting the sound, not just playing.

So, with those settings, does it get you anything near what you’re looking for?