From james_eaton@btopenworld.com Fri Mar 01 01:08:38 2002
Subject:Re: official New B-3 page..

--- In CloneWheel@y..., Bruce Wahler wrote:
<< The electronics to control such a keyboard would be a bit more
complex than that of a standard clone, but again, not incredibly so.
>>

Bruce,
I thought that they were generating the tones individually (albeit by
computer and 96 AD converters!) and routing the tones through the
manuals just like in the old days including resistance wire etc.

That way they don't have to generate the loudness compression and
keyclick in S/W as the transient is generated by directly keying the
generator tones. (The web page mentions a 96- rather than a 91-note
generator so presumably the organ can be programmed to sound like
other organs than the B-3 such as the H-100 although I doubt that
they will have implemented switchable foldback if the keyboards are
hardwired as before.)

If however as you suspect they are keying the signals using
electronic switches driven off a DC fed keyboard, then they're
reliant on the properties of the electronic switch to induce the
keyclick. Usually there are issues around crosstalk and capacitance
that make this very difficult. Diode keying in the 70s generated a
thump rather than the nice click that the Hammond system gives,
presumably because of the capacitance of the diode and the circuitry
around it. In any case I don't remember any transistor/diode key
organ that managed to emulate the click of the Hammond. The original
Korg CX-3 used a system of electronic keying like this and had to add
the click on afterwards.

<< Oh, and BTW, while the buss bar design contributed to the harmonic
crosstalk in the original B-3, that was because of the electro-
mechanical design of the tone generators. In a digital instrument
such as the new B-3, I doubt that buss bars have anything to do with
the level of crosstalk in the instrument.>>

The tonewheel outputs are very low impedance so problems
afflicting "spaghetti-wired" transistor organs from the 60s and 70s
didn't really affect the tonewheel organs. My impression was that
most of the crosstalk occurred in the generator because of the close
proximity of the wheels to each other, but if you're saying that the
buss bar design also contributed to the harmonic crosstalk, it will
do so too in the new B-3.

Regards

James