Creating Organ Sounds
About Virtual Tonewheel Sound Generators
Tonewheel organs are a type of organ that produce their sound by means of toothed wheels called “tonewheels.”
Tonewheel organs contain numerous tonewheels, with each wheel corresponding to a key. The tonewheels are rotated by a motor. When a key is pressed, a pickup detects the motion of that wheel’s teeth as they rotate past a pickup, and converts this motion into sound. Because of this method of producing sound, tonewheel organs are able to produce sounds with a rapid (strong) attack, and came to be used in a wide range of musical styles.
The
It also uses digital technology to faithfully simulate various distinctive characteristics of the tonewheel organ, and allows you to freely vary these.
Ordinarily, the tone wheels revolve at a fixed speed. However, some performers have been known to use a technique whereby they raise the pitch by pushing the start switch while they’re performing, which increases the speed of the tone wheels’ revolution. You can
In addition, it digitally recreates the vibrato, chorus, and rotary speaker sounds that are indispensable to an organ sound, giving you a great deal of freedom to create the sound you want.
Varying the Sound in Real Time (Harmonic Bars)
The harmonic bars are controllers that create the basic framework of the organ sound. By sliding the nine bars in or out, you can vary the organ sound in real time.
fig.H-bar.eps
An overtone of a different pitch is assigned to each harmonic bar, and you can create the organ sound by combining these overtones.
If you push a harmonic bar inward until none of the numerals printed on it are visible, the overtone corresponding to that harmonic bar will not be heard. If the harmonic bar is pulled outward all the way, its volume will be at the maximum.
fig.H-bar-Logic.eps
Time | Time |
8’ volume: 8 | 4’ volume: 5 |
Time |
38
