Organ Sounds

[SKYflyer]

i have a casio px400 and was wondering if it were possible to get better organ sounds i can use while playing it.

For instance i want to be able to do things like "A Whiter Shade of Pale". also, how does that organist do the growling sound with his organ? here is a clip so you know what im talking about:

There is a similar growling clip that i want to be able to sound like in "Carry on my Wayward Son" by Kansas:

I also want sounds like in "House of the Rising Sun"

Also, this is not an organ sound, but i want to be able to do stuff like "And You and I" by Yes. I know a lot of the stuff in this song might be too complex to do without a full actual synthesizer and what not, but i thought maybe i could buy something that would let me do stuff like this:

also, how does he make the synthesizer like glide up the tones? is it some portamento effect/pitch wheel? i also want sounds like in "Roundabout" by Yes.

I know this may be too much to ask for something that i could just hook up to my casio px400, and maybe i should have bought a more capable keyboard when i was buying one, but oh well. Is there some rack unit i can buy (they hook up to your keyboard's midi stuff right?) that would allow me to do these sounds? I was looking at the alesis nanosynth, mainly because it's cheap, like me hehe! is that any good for this stuff?

Thanks for your suggestions and advice.

PS: dont forget i want to know how to produce that growling organ sound (is that just some kind of gliss? it doesnt exactly sound like a gliss to me), and how wakeman produced that gliding synth lead sound in the "And You and I" clip i have above. Thanks!

 

[Dalius]

im pretty sure wakeman uses a minimoog synth, you can buy a softsynth from m-audio/gforce which produces that, or the mellotron, and a bunch of other vintige sounds

 

[themaddog]

For the older organ stuff, tubes and lots of vibrato and tremolo give it that sound. You may need to actually buy a real organ before you are satisfied. Try Goodwill if you have one near you, I bought a Baldwin Orgasonic at one near me once for only $40.

As for the newer stuff, better equipment = more choices for sounds.

Good luck,
-MD

 

[SKYflyer]

responding to these two posts above me, i dont want a software synth since i want to be able to use these sounds live, and that moog stuff seems way out of my price level; i checked it out and it was like $2000 or more for those moog things u suggested.

themaddog: will these organs that i can buy at goodwill and stuff have line out jacks where i can put the sound into a keyboard amp or are they like old organs that you have to mic and stuff? This doesnt sound so promising since i was hoping to get a new electronic thing rather than an old large maybe unreliable clunky organ... i mean i guess that may be the only way to get great sounds, but maybe there are some new electronic stuff that is decent and not too costly?

 

[shiatzu]

to get that sound you need the following:

hammond b3
leslie cab (on fast, for the "growl" part)
i think the drawbar setting is for whiter shade of pale is "888000000" but don't quote me on that. pretty sure that percussion was turned on as well.

at any rate, the two organ examples are relatively similar, hammond w. fast, gritty leslie speaker. it's not cheap to emulate.

 

[warble]

You're not going to get what you want cheap.

Organ wise (one offering at least):
http://www.rolandus.com/products/details.asp?catid=10&subcatid=42&prodid=VK-8M

That will only provide for pretty realistic organ emulations. In regards to the other synth sounds you're in search of, I'd look into this:

http://www.yamahasynth.com/products/motifrackes/index.html

Again, only one offering. The organs are decent in the Yamaha, and it has some interesting classic synth type sounds as well. I just don't think you're going to get believable sounds for "cheap" prices.

 

[themaddog]

themaddog: will these organs that i can buy at goodwill and stuff have line out jacks where i can put the sound into a keyboard amp or are they like old organs that you have to mic and stuff?

Although some of the ones I've seen have had line outs, it still isn't going to sound the same unless you mic the speaker.

If you want a "cheap," emulated solution, try looking for the rock organ patch on your Casio. It will at least sound in the right direction of what you're looking for. Maybe even one of the church organ patches may be close, but experiment.

Then, try putting a tube pre-amp with a lot of tube gain in front your keyboard amp. Buy one from a place like Guitar Center, that way if you don't like the results you're getting, you can always take it back.

This still isn't going to sound 100% like you're going to want it to, but aside from buying an old Hammond B3 or B4, this may be as close as you can get.

-MD