Arturia Forums
Software Instruments => B-3 V2 => B-3 V2 - Feature Requests => Topic started by: jackn2mpu on April 30, 2019, 11:18:09 pm
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On a real Hammond B3 it's possible to set the reverse colored keys at the left of each manual to specific drawbar settings by changing wire routings in the back of the organ. So you had 11 presets per manual. Actually 9 presets done by the method I just described and the right-most two keys by the two banks of drawbars that each manual had in a real B3. Now I realize Arturia only gave us one set of drawbars for each manual; that's not the problem.
The problem is there's no way to program each reverse key for a particular preset. Thankfully one doesn't have to open up the organ to move the wires around for each preset. But we should be able to program each reverse key for a whatever drawbar settings we want to have. Makes for quick changing of presets without having to go to a menu just like a real B3. Heck even Hammond in their B3 reissues has programmable reverse keys.
For all the supposed changes Arturia did why are we still left with this crippled?
edit: changed the numbers of presets from 12 and 10 to 11 and 9
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On a real Hammond B3 it's possible to set the reverse colored keys at the left of each manual to specific drawbar settings by changing wire routings in the back of the organ. So you had 12 presets per manual. Actually 10 presets done by the method I just described and the right-most two keys by the two banks of drawbars that each manual had in a real B3. Now I realize Arturia only gave us one set of drawbars for each manual; that's not the problem.
The problem is there's no way to program each reverse key for a particular preset. Thankfully one doesn't have to open up the organ to move the wires around for each preset. But we should be able to program each reverse key for a whatever drawbar settings we want to have. Makes for quick changing of presets without having to go to a menu just like a real B3. Heck even Hammond in their B3 reissues has programmable reverse keys.
For all the supposed changes Arturia did why are we still left with this crippled?
I totally agree. Currently the reversed keys seem almost useless. The C key contains nothing (i'm not sure why) and the Bb and B keys mirror the original preset settings (which might be useful for returning quickly to the original settings); but the keys in between just appear to be settings chosen by Arturia that can not be changed.
There is a great opportunity here to make it possible to either program the reverse keys 'globally' for each manual, or even on a preset-by-preset basis which would be fantastic - each preset could store additional variations on the preset's main drawbar settings or completely different settings. The important thing being that it would all be under the control of the player.
At the moment the reversed keys are just a waste of an octave.
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On a real Hammond B3 it's possible to set the reverse colored keys at the left of each manual to specific drawbar settings by changing wire routings in the back of the organ. So you had 11 presets per manual. Actually 9 presets were done by the method I just described and the right-most two keys by the two banks of drawbars that each manual had in a real B3. Now I realize Arturia only gave us one set of drawbars for each manual; that's not the problem.
The problem is there's no way to program each reverse key for a particular preset. Thankfully one doesn't have to open up the organ to move the wires around for each preset. But we should be able to program each reverse key for a whatever drawbar settings we want to have. Makes for quick changing of presets without having to go to a menu just like a real B3. Heck even Hammond in their B3 reissues has programmable reverse keys.
For all the supposed changes Arturia did why are we still left with this crippled?
I totally agree. Currently the reversed keys seem almost useless. The C key contains nothing (i'm not sure why) and the Bb and B keys mirror the original preset settings (which might be useful for returning quickly to the original settings); but the keys in between just appear to be settings chosen by Arturia that can not be changed.
There is a great opportunity here to make it possible to either program the reverse keys 'globally' for each manual, or even on a preset-by-preset basis which would be fantastic - each preset could store additional variations on the preset's main drawbar settings or completely different settings. The important thing being that it would all be under the control of the player.
At the moment the reversed keys are just a waste of an octave.
The original reverse keys on a B3 functioned like this: the lowest C was a 'cancel' key so the player could cancel out whatever was selected on the drawbars. Was a quick way to silence the sound of that manual. The Bb and B keys selected either of what was set on the two sets of drawbars. That's right - real B3's had two sets of drawbars for each manual. The rest of the keys were preset at the factory but could be changed by the end user .
To do that you opened up the back of the organ and moved around some wires from one connection to another. It was a cumbersome process that could be dangerous if you were doing this with the organ plugged in (which most people did). Note that the presets keys did NOT change the physical position of the drawbars but the positioning of the wires took the place of the drawbars. Thankfully with digital you don't have to do that.
For whatever reason known only to Arturia they aren't allowing us to program. They did so much with the reprogramming of the instrument why not make it all functional like the original and current versions of the B3? Like you said they are totally useless. Why Arturia why? Maybe the air up in Grenoble is too thin?
Please note that I made a change in the description of the reverse key presets here and I'll make that same change in my original post but that doesn't change the matter at hand.
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Hi Guys,
i personally like your idea.
Your feature request is now logged, but don't know what will be done for it. Any suggestion for the implementation of this feature is obviously welcomed.
thanks,
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That feature request would be great. It doesn't make any sense to have the reverse keys the way they are now.
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I'm not sure if this would be practical for B-3 V2, but the now defunct (but still working well with jBridge on 64-bit systems) Native Instruments B4-II has a pretty good implementation of the reversed keys:
All Presets can be arranged by the user into banks of 12 presets. When a preset is selected, it and the other 11 presets in the Bank are loaded into the Upper Manual reversed keys and the key (C-B) relating to the position in the bank of the chosen preset show as being depressed (down) so that one can see its location and return to it easily. Then by selecting any of the 12 reversed keys on the Upper Manual one of the other presets in the Bank is loaded - This includes Upper, Lower and Pedal settings for each preset. It is always possible to see which position in the Bank has been selected because the relevant key always shows as being depressed.
The Lower Manual reversed keys do not change the entire preset - they just provide variations of the Lower Manual and Pedal sounds.
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+1 on the storing of presets like the B4-II
Barry
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I've just been looking at Native Instruments Vintage Organs which has a slightly different implementation of the reversed keys.
Each 'instrument' loaded into Kontakt has 12 possible presets that can be selected using a rotary knob or by pressing keys C0 - B0 on a midi keyboard. Each of these presets will store all organ settings - Upper and Lower manuals and the Pedal settings. So each Instrument could have 12 variations on the one main sound or 12 completely different sounds.
I'm not a fan of NI's Vintage Organs (B4-II is much better), but at the moment its 'reversed keys' implementation is still better than B-3 V2's implementation.
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I totally agree!