Rotary Organ was sampled from a Hammond M3 organ. The ultimate goal was to simulate the sound of a Hammondnd B3 organ with the Leslie rotating speaker inside the VST / AU / AAX plugin. Each register on each note was individually sampled through the organ’s built-in speaker with a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.
The signal was passed through the Fender Deluxe Reverb and recorded on the Sennheiser e906. Both signals were passed through Grace M101 preamps. The Hammond M3 organ combines the last two harmonics into one register, this note has been omitted. Instead, digital foldback technology was used to expand the harmonics of the Hammond M3 to look like harmonics of the Hammond B3.
The range of the organ has been expanded to look like that of the Hammond B3. This was achieved by using the character of the organ pedals to add notes of the lower octave.
To mimic the real speaker of Leslie, its emulation was developed. The signal is divided into a virtual lower rotor and a virtual upper rotor with a frequency of about 600 Hz. Vibrato, chorus and pan processing are used to simulate the rotation of rotors. The upper rotor rotates between 48/409 rpm and the lower rotor rotates between 40/354 rpm. The rotation of the lower rotor can be disabled. The Leslie simulation can also be bypassed.
B3 effects, which are also digitally simulated and include percussion, vibrato and key sound. Vibrato is similar to B3 and includes vibrato itself, as well as vibrato + choir. A keystroke was simulated by adding random noise to the attack and release of samples. Some clicks are heard in the original samples, but the effect has been exaggerated. Percussion was modeled in VST, as in real life: a higher amplitude, shock damped sound is added to the instrument through the 2nd or 3rd harmonic. The plugin also includes everb, braking, variable acceleration, drive / distortion, smoothing, adjustable stereo panning, key-splitting and switching presets.
The instrument was treated with an equalizer to sound a little more aggressive than a typical Hammond organ, and therefore will stand out in the mix. This can be adjusted using the “smooth” knob, which will attenuate some of the higher frequencies.
Adam Monroe Music – Rotary Organ 1.3 VSTi, AAX, AUi WIN.OSX x86 x64
