From hardbop200@gmail.com Sat Dec 30 10:46:42 2006
Subject:RD-700SX - good clone stuff!

Hey guys,

I thought I would write an informative post about the RD-700SX and my
experiences with getting a good organ sound out of it. Some of my
information was found on the 'net, and some from just playing with the
keyboard, so don't assume all of this originally came from me, I'm
just too lazy to cite my sources. :)

Quick background: I have been really struggling to get a good
clonewheel sound out of this unit, and never really could. I do not
have the budget for a nice standalone clonewheel, so I tried cheaper
alternatives (E-mu B3, etc.) and wasn't satisfied. I got disgusted,
and decided to start looking to make the best of what I have. And oh
boy, did it work out.

The default organs are setup like this (we'll take the first organ
patch, TW-Organ 1, as an example): 888000000, 3rd perc, no c/v, and a
clean VK leslie. This sound is, to say the least, too polite. The
trick to getting a decent clonewheel is to use a completely different
effect. Here's how ya do it:

Go to Edit | 3.Effects. Your MFX1 for the TW-Organ 1 patch is type
22, VK ROTARY. Change this to type 85, ORGAN MULTI. Organ Multi
gives you c/v of all types (C1, C2, C3, and so on) and different
variations of vintage (50's, 60's, and 70's). Sound familiar? Some
of you VK8 and VK8M users may remember the sysex string that you had
to send to the unit to get these very settings; now Roland has
included them from the front panel. Some other neat options included
in Organ Multi are the ability to turn the rotary effect off (will be
important later) and overdrive.

The RD only allows 2 MFX per setup, so we are going to pretend for the
moment that you want to burn both MFX on just organs here. I prefer
my organs straight with no Leslie, but if you want to get the best
Leslie sim this thing is capable of, we want to do something a little
different. Again, keep your MFX1 set to Organ Multi, but change the
effects order to serial, so one effect will run into the other.
Change to MFX2, and set it to type 22, VK ROTARY. Make sure you have
turned the rotary switch on MFX1 to off; we don't want two Leslies!
Now you have c/v and overdrive coming from MFX1 ORGAN MULTI, plus the
best Leslie available that Roland has coming from MFX2 VK ROTARY. The
results are satisfying.

I hope someone browsing through the archives will find this useful.

Josh

--
Josh Lawrence
http://www.hardbop200.com