From ynottnaro@yahoo.com Sun Jun 08 14:49:51 2003
Subject:Re: V5....Nord alternatives for uncle humuna

I think you raise some very valid points here. As I've
said in the past as well, for pure tonewheel sound,
the V5 is it...STILL. However, that's only half the
organ sound. As for the other things that go into the
total Hammond sound (perc chorus/vib overdrive,
leakage, eqs) none of these things are adjustable on a
real hammond, and they tend to be inconsistent from
one organ to the next, especially in organs of 30
years or more of age. As a standalone organ, meaning
no leslie, no outboard device for leslie sim, nothing,
the V5 is the one organ that falls short...only cuz it
has NO leslie sim.

T
--- BenWaB3@aol.com wrote:
>
> My $0.02 as a V5 + Electro rack owner (warning -
> long-winded post. Either
> skip over if you're not interested or grab a cup of
> strong coffee & read on):
>
> After having worked w/ the Electro for a few weeks I
> will have to admit that
> across the board, for the raw-off-the-tonewheels
> sounds the Voce still can't
> be beat. It has an even balance from top until the
> last 2 bottom notes, which
> seem to fall off a bit. Trying to describe the next
> aspect is a little tricky
> but, the V5 has a great clean sound. The Nord's
> basic sound is a bit more
> "unclean" even before overdrive is added. I've
> always preferred the basic sound to
> be very clean to start with & then add the "dirt"
> you want on top of that. You
> don't have that option quite as well in the Nord.
> After that issue, the
> opinions are going to be very subjective, as to who
> likes what type of sound
> better. The common knock against the Voce is true,
> that the perc. & ch/vib. sections
> are too subtle, but where they erred on the side of
> not enough, all the other
> clones err on the side of hyper. Neither the Voce
> nor Electro lets you set
> the perc. level, allthough you can do the hotrod mod
> for the Voce but still not
> change the level after that. One of the 2 biggest "I
> wish it would do" factors
> for my preferences w/ the Nord would be to set the
> level of the perc. to your
> own taste, which in my case would be down a little.
> It sounds too separate
> from the rest of the sound, & while the perc section
> on a Hammond is a separate
> section, it still becomes part of the total sound.
> The stronger sound of the
> Nord perc. doesn't seem to "settle in" w/ the rest
> of the sound as well. At
> least w/ the Rolands & Korgs you can set it at where
> you want it. The only way
> you can partially do that w/ the Nord is to turn the
> treble all the way down,
> which can make the upper registers a little weak.
> For those who prefer a subtle
> level of ch/vib. for the Nord you can use C1, which
> is just slightly less than
> C3 on the Voce. C2 is a huge jump upwards. If they
> had put C2 on the Nord a
> little more equidistant between C1 & C3 I would have
> preferred that. My other
> "wish it would do" for the Nord would be to access
> the parametric eq in the
> organ mode. When you use the Leslie effect it
> produces a big "woof" in the
> 250-300 Hz. area, which a real Leslie does also, but
> not to the extent this and many
> other sims do. To be able to back that down a tad
> also would make the unit
> much more balanced. It gets a good "Tony Monaco"
> type of sound which fits for
> some songs & doesn't sound quite right for others.
> It's possible that processor
> power would be stretched too thin by that point &
> there wasn't enough
> horsepower left to add the eq, but I for one would
> be more than gladly willing to give
> up access to the ring modulators, etc. in order to
> get access to the eq.
> About the only way around it is to back the 16ft.
> drawbar back one notch, but
> while that sounds much more even in the middle-C &
> surrounding area, by the time
> you get to the upper octaves that one notch makes a
> very noticable difference
> in the strength & fullness. Outboard eq could be
> added, but one of the main
> reasons for trying the Nord was to be able to get
> everything I need in one box,
> which is a great asset for the "fast in, fast out"
> solo dates. So adding extra
> units, wires, etc would defeat that purpose. Another
> aspect of the Nord also
> is that the sound, true to thier advertisement, is
> compressed. That can have
> good & bad consequences. On the plus side you don't
> have as much of a lt. hand
> bass dropout effect when you go to settings w/ a lot
> of drawbars for the rt.
> hand. On the minus side, sometimes I'll be playing &
> want to really romp down
> the exp. pedal & go for an upper register scream &
> it doesn't happen nearly as
> much as you'd wish. Overall the Voce sustains
> strength & solidity into the
> upper sections of the keyboard more efficiently (but
> not overdoing it - a common
> complaint w/ some other clone brands) than the Nord
> allthough the Electro isn't
> too bad there either. It seems like no matter which
> brand of clone I try I
> always think. "If I could marry the basic sound of
> the V5 to the perc., ch/vib,
> reverb, etc. of this unit, the resulting hybrid
> would kill." One area that all
> clones seem to fall short on, surprisingly, is the
> 848000000 comp/bass sound.
> The Rolands came the closest on that, but I ended up
> getting rid of a VK77 &
> VK8r for other sonic reasons. But when I hear a
> recording by Jimmy S. or Joey
> D. & hear the "puff" & "organic" fullness of thier
> comp sounds I keep wishing
> the clones could capture that as well. Most of my
> group playing is jazz trio
> format. If you're doing a trio you're going to need
> that comp sound about 50%
> of the time & the percentage goes up w/ the number
> of additional bandmates. I
> won't address the issue of the piano sounds here
> since we're just trying to
> keep the discussion to the organ sections of the 2
> units.
>
> This is not a post meant to savage the sounds of the
> V5 or Electro in
> particular or the other clones in general. They are
> all very good pieces of
> equipment, trying to replicate in a few lbs. what
> you need 400+ pounds of wood, metal &
> other components to achieve - something we've all
> acknowledged repeatedly.
> I've happily used & still use Voce products for
> years but that never stopped me
> or other happy Voce owners from whining & kvetching
> about our "wish it would
> do" issues on the list & the same will be true for
> any owner of any brand. Back
> when we were trying to coax convincing Hammond
> sounds out of our DX-7s &
> D-50s how grateful would any of us have been to get
> the quality of sound that
> comes w/ even the least of the clones out today?
> Dialing in & fine tuning the Nord
> will be a process for some time but I hope to figure
> out ways to enhance the
> strengths & work around the weaknesses.
>
> Ben Ninmann
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>

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