Casio CT-S1000V: Drawbar organ tones - Sand, software and sound

I’m choosing and dialing in the Hammond B-3 organ tones for church tunes. The Casio CT-S1000V (and CT-S500) provides over thirty electric organ tones. Most of the organ tones incorporate an Active DSP effect.

Choosing tones is a process of selection and elimination. Some sounds just aren’t suitable for church, e.g., distorted rock organ, combo organ, or theatre organ. As to personal taste, I usually avoid voices with hard percussion. I often play in a group with piano, guitar or drums. There is already enough going on percussively that I don’t need to add another element to the on-going rhythm. In a typical situation, it’s more important to hold down or emphasize a left-hand bass.

Tone name        Description                     DSP effect 
---------------  ------------------------------  ------------ 
JS Organ         Jimmy Smith, percussion         AMP cab->Trem->3EQ 
AMP Organ 1      First four, no percussion       Phaser->Drive->AMP cab 
Rock Organ 1     No percussion                   Phaser->Drive->AMP cab 
Hard Rock Organ                                  Chorus->Drive->AMP cab 
Gospel Organ 1   Mellow-ish                      Rotary 
Velo Organ       Velocity brings in bars         Drive rotary 
F.Organ          Farfisa combo organ             Trem->AMP cab 
V.Organ          Vox combo organ                 Trem->AMP cab 
RTF FD Organ     Rotary fast, full drawbars      Drive rotary 
Rock OD Organ                                    Drive rotary 
Tremolo Organ    Mellow, C3 sampled-in           Auto pan 
DP Organ         Total Jon Lord                  Dist 
Jazz Organ 1     Bright hard perc jazz           Rotary 
Jazz Organ 2     Darker hard perc jazz           Rotary 
Elec.Organ 1     Bright. church-y                Rotary 
Elec.Organ 2     Mellow-ish, key click           Rotary 
Elec.Organ 3     First four                      Rotary 
Elec.Organ 4     Full drawbars                   Rotary 
Elec.Organ 5     Mellow, soft perc               Phaser 
Perc.Organ 1     Bright hard perc                Rotary 
Perc.Organ 2     Darker soft perc                Rotary 
Gospel Organ 2   Mellow                          Rotary 
Full Drawbar     Full drawbar                    Rotary 
Rock Organ 2     Church-y (swimming rotary)      Drive rotary 
Rock Organ 3     Mellow-ish very fast            Drive rotary 
Click Organ      Low drawbars, key click         Drive rotary 
70's Organ       Farfisa-like, key click         Rotary 
Organ Pad        Weird                           No DSP effect 
Theatre Organ                                    No DSP effect 
Perc.Organ 3     Hard perc, low drawbars         Rotary 
Elec.Organ 6     Low+high (16+1), click          Rotary 
AMP Organ 2      Rocky bars                      Tone->Drive->AMP cab->Trem 
AMP Organ 3      Heavy OD                        Tone->Drive->AMP cab->Trem 
Organ Flute      Pipe organ flute                No DSP effect 
Puff Organ       Chiffy organ flute              No DSP effect 
Reed Organ       Portable reed organ             Mono 3-band EQ 
Rotary F-Organ   Farfisa organ, rotary speaker   Rotary 
Rotary V-Organ   Vox organ, rotary speaker       Rotary

The table above are notes taken while auditioning CT-S1000V drawbar organ tones. The CT-S500 has the same complement of organ voices, so any comments made here apply to the CT-S500, too.

My goal is a registration bank of four tones that provide a range of timbres. I want to push a registration button while playing in order to match the current musical situation. So far, a few candidates stand out:

    Elec.Organ 6     Simmering 16+1 
    Gospel Organ 2   Mellow, ballad-like sound 
    Gospel Organ 1   Brighter, hymn foundation 
    Rock Organ 2     Brighter still, hymn playing

I listened to all organ tones with Active DSP enabled and bypassed. “Rock Organ 2” has a church-y sound when the overdrive and rotary speaker are removed. I can knock the rock out of the preset by re-programming the Active DSP effect.

Most organ tones have a preset Active DSP effect as shown in the table. A few of the tones — like AMP Organ 1 — don’t use the rotary effect at all. (Surprise!)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, a few of the tones have a swirl-y or swimming fast rotary setting. Sometimes the rise acceleration and fall deceleration times are too short. The settings below are ballpark.

    Drive Rotary     PJD      Velo Org 
    ---------------- -------- -------- 
    Type:            2        2 
    Overdrive Gain:  42       48 
    Overdrive Level: 42       31 
    Speed:           Fast     Fast 
    Brake:           Rotate   Rotate 
    Fall Accel:      40       10 
    Rise Accel:      60       18 
    Slow Rate:       40       17 
    Fast Rate:       100      111 
    Vib/chorus:      C3       C2 
    Wet Level:       100      100 
    Dry Level:       0        44 
    Bypass:          Off      Off

I will use these parameter values as my starting point moving ahead. The wet/dry parameters could be helpful in a stereo mix avoiding hard left/right channel throb. BTW, the sim doesn’t have parameters for horn/rotor balance.

The Casio rotary speaker sims include a scanner vibrato/chorus option: Off, V1, V2, V3, C1, C2, C3. The presets assign overdrive to knob 2 (K2). I don’t usually adjust overdrive when I’m playing and will assign vibrato/chorus control instead. That way I can add or subtract chorus on the fly. Unfortunately, scanner off is at the knob’s full left position and C3 is at the full right position. That will make for a big gesture knob-spin when playing. Wish this could be assigned to a button…

As to reverb, I’ve settled on ROOM 2 with a send level of 20. This is just enough to add a little space when practicing, but it won’t muddy the sound too much when playing live.