hey sir, so you could you detail further the adjustments you made to the lower manual drawbar connections after doing the octave down mod. That part of the video goes fast. Thanks!
Andy Stack Sure, The wires that connect to the drawbar contacts also connect to the busbar contacts in the manuals and correspond to specific frequencies from the tone generator. All I did was rearrange (and remove one of) the wires connected to the drawbar contacts to make them identical to the upper manual. So looking from the back of the organ going from right to left: The first wire stays exactly where it is. The second wire moves one contact to the left. The third moves one contact to the right. The fourth stays put. The fifth I removed and taped off. The sixth moves one to the right. The seventh moves one to the right. The eighth and ninth (which are on the same contact) get split up. The gray goes on the right and the white goes on the left. If you've done this right the upper and lower manuals should sound identical except that the lower is missing the 1' drawbar on the top. You don't have to follow this however. There are plenty of players who prefer the M3 factory drawbars, even after lowering them. They like that extra third right above the fundamental and that the sixth and eighth harmonics are on the same drawbar. I didn't go that route because I wanted my drawbars to be as close to console specs as I could get them. It's all a matter of taste but the nice thing is, if you don't like it, all you have to do is de-solder them and put them back the way they were.
Andy Stack By "off" do you mean that they produce no sound, or that they produce the wrong tone? The lower manual mod shouldn't affect your upper drawbars at all. You should definitely go back and check all your connections for the new percussion switch and upper DBs. If everything is connected correctly make sure you don't have any cold solders, they will prevent you from having a closed circuit. Also, I'd only do one mod or repair at a time. This way if something goes wrong you know which alteration to trace back for problems.
In this mod, the first 12 notes on the lower manual are the same as before the mod? If that's correct, why did you choose that route over lowering the entire manual an octave? Just trying to fully understand the advantages and pitfalls as I consider doing this mod.
You're partly correct. Only the tones in the first octave of the 16' drawbar are repeated, all the others have been lowered one octave. So, when playing in the bottom octave with just the first three pulled out, the 16' and the 8' will be sounding the same note. The volume will increase since they are two independent tones sounding in unison, but the important part is that the 5 1/3' sounds in the correct position (one 5th above the fundamental.) This is actually how the larger consoles were built in the factory. The tone-generator gears required to produce those true 16' notes were not stable enough to put into production so the vast majority of organs (including the B3) were built with bass foldback. There are other mods out there in which I've seen people install synthesizer or string bass modules to the lower octave for playing bass lines, but it sounds like a second instrument. Doing the octave lowering mod sets up the lower manual to it's actual range relative to middle C if you follow my notes on moving and removing those specific drawbar wires. That's up to you though, there are plenty of players who thoroughly enjoy the unique drawbar palate that the M3 lower manual has. I know this is long for a youtube comment but I swear this is the last thing I'll say. If you haven't already, go to organforum.com and create an account. There are tons of Hammond owners from around the world who can answer just about any question you could have.
88jhay OK, thanks for the detailed explanation. I get it now. It's surprising how much beefier the lowest octave sounds with this mod, even though the lowest note produced by the first drawbar has not changed. Can't wait to do this to my M3. Thanks again!
What Gage of Wire did you use on the Extensions? As far as what you have here- The Upper is: 16, 5-1/3, 8, 4', 2-2/3, 2, 1-3/5, 1-1/3 & 1' The Stock Lower is: 8, 4', 2-2/3, 2, 1-3/5, 1-1/3, 1 & 4/5 +2/3' The 8,vb Lower in a "Logical" order of the Original would be: 16, 5-1/3, 3-1/5, 8, 4', 2-2/3, 2, 1-3/5 & 1-1/3' The now 3-1/5 (old 1-3/5,is now a "Sub" harmonic, which should be a third brown knob if used) is not very useful in a bass or accompaniment setting and the lower set is Eight Drawbars, so I would tie it to ground. So using 8 Drawbars: 16, 5-1/3, 8, 4', 2-2/3, 2, 1-3/5 & 1-1/3'
I used 22 gauge wire. All of your conversions look spot on and those are the very reasons I disconnected that particular drawbar. Its a matter of taste though, I didn't find it useful but there are players out there who like to work it in.
I live in Texas, but you should do these yourself. Diving in and doing even one mod yourself will show you that they aren't that scary, and you develop a real working knowledge of these things which makes maintenance and small repairs much easier.
With the exception of the lowest octave being repeated on the first drawbar there should be no change in the tones of any of the drawbars other than being lowered one octave. All we're doing in this mod is moving the signal coming from the TG pickups to a different terminal under the lower manual. The only way to change the tonal value of a drawbar in intervallic relation to the others is to rearrange the tiny white wires that connect the individual key contact's to the terminal strip. Electronically the drawbar is passive, it only sets the signal level that a busbar sends when a key contact closes the circuit. When I rearrange the order of the drawbars on the console what I'm actually doing is changing which drawbar controls each busbar. This is only for cosmetic and functional purposes.
I've watched this video twice and read all the comments, but I'm still confused. Are you actually lowering the first 12 keys an octave, or are you just folding them back and doubling them while getting rid of the highest 12? If you are actually lowering them an octave, which it does sound like, I don't understand how that's happening based on these steps. Where is the lower octave coming from?
The lowest notes on the lowest drawbar are folded back. If I remember correctly the foldback stops on the b. But the rest of the notes on that drawbar are lowered an octave, along with each other drawbar for the manual. If you want to think of it in terms of electrical signal path, we're changing the destination of the notes coming from the tone generator. The drawbars themselves are connected to the key contacts inside the manual by busbars, we're not actually changing anything with them. We're changing which note is sent to the rest of the signal path when a key contact connection is made. Did that help to clarify or was it more confusing?
@@88jhay Thanks for the reply. I'm pleasantly surprised to have gotten one on a 6 year old thread. If I'm to understand you correctly, the notes F through B are folded back with no change in pitch, but B# to E# are indeed lowered an octave. I still don't fully grasp the mechanism by which this is happening and where these lower notes are coming from if the tone generator wasn't designed to produce them. But if this mod does indeed produce some lower tones, it seems like a worthwhile mod to do, so thanks for sharing that with us. I've always been frustrated that the M3 doesn't go lower than it does, so I'm looking forward to trying this out.
Ok, I think I'm starting to see the confusion. First, I was wrong in my earlier reply. I went back and checked my notes and the schematic, and the foldback is from the low f through e, the octave repeats at f. So I think the issue here is confusion about what exactly the loom is. This loom, the wires that we remove and jumper to a different position, aren't the keys. They're connected directly to the pickups in the tone generator, and each individual wire only carries one frequency. The terminals that we attach them to are also not the keys. The back of each terminal has several tiny wires attached, and these run to the various key contacts, since those frequencies get used in multiple places. This means when you press a key it makes a contact between the drawbars, which determine the volume of the signal moving forward, and several different frequencies on the terminal strip. So if we want to change the frequencies that sound when we press a key, all we need to do is change the position of the wires of the loom on the terminal strip. How about an example? Let's say you press down C3 on the keyboard with the 3rd and 4th drawbars fully pulled out. The C3 key contact for the 3rd drawbar now has a connection to the 25th terminal, (probably not this is just for the example), and the C3 key contact for the 4th drawbar now has a connection to the 38th terminal. So terminal 25 has the wire connected to the pickup that produces the frequency for the fundamental, and the 38th terminal is connected to the pickup for the frequency of the 1st harmonic. If you want that key to sound an octave lower, (which is what we want by performing this mod), then you need the terminals that are connected to your C3 key contacts to be connected to the loom wires for the frequencies one octave lower. So we attach wire #13 to terminal 25, and wire #25 to terminal 38. Now when you press C3 the key contacts are still making a connection with terminals 25 and 38, but these terminals are connected to the pickups producing frequencies an octave lower than the original setup. If you do this for the entire terminal strip you have now lowered the entire keyboard one octave. But this now leaves a gap at the bottom of the terminal strip. So when you press a key that makes contact with any of those terminals there will be no signal carried on that drawbar. This is why we do the foldback. You are correct, the TG cannot produce frequencies lower than what's already on the organ, so we just repeat that octave. Since this only applies to the lowest octave and only on the first drawbar, you won't notice as soon as you pull out multiple drawbars. This is how the full size consoles are set up too. So when you press the lowest f with the first three drawbars pulled out, you're making contact with terminals 1, 8, and 13. You've connected a jumper from 1 to 13 so they're both carrying the same frequency for the low f, but it's louder because of this. Terminal 8 is carrying the frequency for the c above it. Our brains have a hard time interpreting individual steady frequencies because they rarely if ever occur in nature. So you hear that f with an increased volume and the c above it a bit quieter and you brain will interpret it as the low f because that would be consistent with the "overtones" it is hearing. We don't really need to go in depth about the harmonic overtone series in the comment section, just know that this little trick works. So to sum this up and directly answer your questions: This mod routs the wires carrying the frequencies from the tone generator to the terminal spots one octave up. We then need to foldback the wires for the lowest frequencies to fill the gap we just made by the shift. The result of this is that each key will sound one octave lower when pressed, and the lowest octave containing the foldback will sound completely normal as long as more than just the lowest drawbar is pulled out. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Awesome
Sorta figured it out after a bit! Thanks So much
hey sir,
so you could you detail further the adjustments you made to the lower manual drawbar connections after doing the octave down mod. That part of the video goes fast. Thanks!
Andy Stack
Sure,
The wires that connect to the drawbar contacts also connect to the busbar contacts in the manuals and correspond to specific frequencies from the tone generator. All I did was rearrange (and remove one of) the wires connected to the drawbar contacts to make them identical to the upper manual.
So looking from the back of the organ going from right to left:
The first wire stays exactly where it is.
The second wire moves one contact to the left.
The third moves one contact to the right.
The fourth stays put.
The fifth I removed and taped off.
The sixth moves one to the right.
The seventh moves one to the right.
The eighth and ninth (which are on the same contact) get split up. The gray goes on the right and the white goes on the left.
If you've done this right the upper and lower manuals should sound identical except that the lower is missing the 1' drawbar on the top.
You don't have to follow this however. There are plenty of players who prefer the M3 factory drawbars, even after lowering them. They like that extra third right above the fundamental and that the sixth and eighth harmonics are on the same drawbar. I didn't go that route because I wanted my drawbars to be as close to console specs as I could get them.
It's all a matter of taste but the nice thing is, if you don't like it, all you have to do is de-solder them and put them back the way they were.
Was the perc switch Mis-wired. Makes sense since the 4th 8th draw bar weren't working.
Thanks
Also, the problem could be that I installed a new percussion switch and connected it wrong.
Andy Stack By "off" do you mean that they produce no sound, or that they produce the wrong tone? The lower manual mod shouldn't affect your upper drawbars at all. You should definitely go back and check all your connections for the new percussion switch and upper DBs. If everything is connected correctly make sure you don't have any cold solders, they will prevent you from having a closed circuit.
Also, I'd only do one mod or repair at a time. This way if something goes wrong you know which alteration to trace back for problems.
In this mod, the first 12 notes on the lower manual are the same as before the mod? If that's correct, why did you choose that route over lowering the entire manual an octave? Just trying to fully understand the advantages and pitfalls as I consider doing this mod.
You're partly correct. Only the tones in the first octave of the 16' drawbar are repeated, all the others have been lowered one octave. So, when playing in the bottom octave with just the first three pulled out, the 16' and the 8' will be sounding the same note. The volume will increase since they are two independent tones sounding in unison, but the important part is that the 5 1/3' sounds in the correct position (one 5th above the fundamental.) This is actually how the larger consoles were built in the factory. The tone-generator gears required to produce those true 16' notes were not stable enough to put into production so the vast majority of organs (including the B3) were built with bass foldback.
There are other mods out there in which I've seen people install synthesizer or string bass modules to the lower octave for playing bass lines, but it sounds like a second instrument. Doing the octave lowering mod sets up the lower manual to it's actual range relative to middle C if you follow my notes on moving and removing those specific drawbar wires. That's up to you though, there are plenty of players who thoroughly enjoy the unique drawbar palate that the M3 lower manual has.
I know this is long for a youtube comment but I swear this is the last thing I'll say. If you haven't already, go to organforum.com and create an account. There are tons of Hammond owners from around the world who can answer just about any question you could have.
88jhay OK, thanks for the detailed explanation. I get it now. It's surprising how much beefier the lowest octave sounds with this mod, even though the lowest note produced by the first drawbar has not changed. Can't wait to do this to my M3. Thanks again!
I did this mod, but now it seems the top manual draw bars are off, #4 and #9. Any advice?
What Gage of Wire did you use on the Extensions?
As far as what you have here-
The Upper is:
16, 5-1/3, 8, 4', 2-2/3, 2, 1-3/5, 1-1/3 & 1'
The Stock Lower is:
8, 4', 2-2/3, 2, 1-3/5, 1-1/3, 1 & 4/5 +2/3'
The 8,vb Lower in a "Logical" order of the Original would be:
16, 5-1/3, 3-1/5, 8, 4', 2-2/3, 2, 1-3/5 & 1-1/3'
The now 3-1/5 (old 1-3/5,is now a "Sub" harmonic, which should be a third brown knob if used) is not very useful in a bass or accompaniment setting and the lower set is Eight Drawbars, so I would tie it to ground.
So using 8 Drawbars:
16, 5-1/3, 8, 4', 2-2/3, 2, 1-3/5 & 1-1/3'
I used 22 gauge wire.
All of your conversions look spot on and those are the very reasons I disconnected that particular drawbar. Its a matter of taste though, I didn't find it useful but there are players out there who like to work it in.
where in the hell do you live? I want you to come and do these mods to my m3!
I live in Texas, but you should do these yourself. Diving in and doing even one mod yourself will show you that they aren't that scary, and you develop a real working knowledge of these things which makes maintenance and small repairs much easier.
In other words
The lower manual mod doesn't change the drawbars?
Andy Stack
Correct, rearranging the drawbars isn't part of the octave lowering mod. It's just something I did for my own ease of use while playing.
The question was whether the mod chages the drawbars. It certainly does!
With the exception of the lowest octave being repeated on the first drawbar there should be no change in the tones of any of the drawbars other than being lowered one octave. All we're doing in this mod is moving the signal coming from the TG pickups to a different terminal under the lower manual. The only way to change the tonal value of a drawbar in intervallic relation to the others is to rearrange the tiny white wires that connect the individual key contact's to the terminal strip. Electronically the drawbar is passive, it only sets the signal level that a busbar sends when a key contact closes the circuit. When I rearrange the order of the drawbars on the console what I'm actually doing is changing which drawbar controls each busbar. This is only for cosmetic and functional purposes.
I've watched this video twice and read all the comments, but I'm still confused. Are you actually lowering the first 12 keys an octave, or are you just folding them back and doubling them while getting rid of the highest 12? If you are actually lowering them an octave, which it does sound like, I don't understand how that's happening based on these steps. Where is the lower octave coming from?
The lowest notes on the lowest drawbar are folded back. If I remember correctly the foldback stops on the b. But the rest of the notes on that drawbar are lowered an octave, along with each other drawbar for the manual. If you want to think of it in terms of electrical signal path, we're changing the destination of the notes coming from the tone generator. The drawbars themselves are connected to the key contacts inside the manual by busbars, we're not actually changing anything with them. We're changing which note is sent to the rest of the signal path when a key contact connection is made. Did that help to clarify or was it more confusing?
@@88jhay Thanks for the reply. I'm pleasantly surprised to have gotten one on a 6 year old thread. If I'm to understand you correctly, the notes F through B are folded back with no change in pitch, but B# to E# are indeed lowered an octave. I still don't fully grasp the mechanism by which this is happening and where these lower notes are coming from if the tone generator wasn't designed to produce them. But if this mod does indeed produce some lower tones, it seems like a worthwhile mod to do, so thanks for sharing that with us. I've always been frustrated that the M3 doesn't go lower than it does, so I'm looking forward to trying this out.
Ok, I think I'm starting to see the confusion. First, I was wrong in my earlier reply. I went back and checked my notes and the schematic, and the foldback is from the low f through e, the octave repeats at f.
So I think the issue here is confusion about what exactly the loom is. This loom, the wires that we remove and jumper to a different position, aren't the keys. They're connected directly to the pickups in the tone generator, and each individual wire only carries one frequency.
The terminals that we attach them to are also not the keys. The back of each terminal has several tiny wires attached, and these run to the various key contacts, since those frequencies get used in multiple places.
This means when you press a key it makes a contact between the drawbars, which determine the volume of the signal moving forward, and several different frequencies on the terminal strip. So if we want to change the frequencies that sound when we press a key, all we need to do is change the position of the wires of the loom on the terminal strip.
How about an example? Let's say you press down C3 on the keyboard with the 3rd and 4th drawbars fully pulled out. The C3 key contact for the 3rd drawbar now has a connection to the 25th terminal, (probably not this is just for the example), and the C3 key contact for the 4th drawbar now has a connection to the 38th terminal. So terminal 25 has the wire connected to the pickup that produces the frequency for the fundamental, and the 38th terminal is connected to the pickup for the frequency of the 1st harmonic.
If you want that key to sound an octave lower, (which is what we want by performing this mod), then you need the terminals that are connected to your C3 key contacts to be connected to the loom wires for the frequencies one octave lower.
So we attach wire #13 to terminal 25, and wire #25 to terminal 38. Now when you press C3 the key contacts are still making a connection with terminals 25 and 38, but these terminals are connected to the pickups producing frequencies an octave lower than the original setup.
If you do this for the entire terminal strip you have now lowered the entire keyboard one octave. But this now leaves a gap at the bottom of the terminal strip. So when you press a key that makes contact with any of those terminals there will be no signal carried on that drawbar. This is why we do the foldback.
You are correct, the TG cannot produce frequencies lower than what's already on the organ, so we just repeat that octave. Since this only applies to the lowest octave and only on the first drawbar, you won't notice as soon as you pull out multiple drawbars. This is how the full size consoles are set up too.
So when you press the lowest f with the first three drawbars pulled out, you're making contact with terminals 1, 8, and 13. You've connected a jumper from 1 to 13 so they're both carrying the same frequency for the low f, but it's louder because of this. Terminal 8 is carrying the frequency for the c above it. Our brains have a hard time interpreting individual steady frequencies because they rarely if ever occur in nature. So you hear that f with an increased volume and the c above it a bit quieter and you brain will interpret it as the low f because that would be consistent with the "overtones" it is hearing. We don't really need to go in depth about the harmonic overtone series in the comment section, just know that this little trick works.
So to sum this up and directly answer your questions: This mod routs the wires carrying the frequencies from the tone generator to the terminal spots one octave up. We then need to foldback the wires for the lowest frequencies to fill the gap we just made by the shift. The result of this is that each key will sound one octave lower when pressed, and the lowest octave containing the foldback will sound completely normal as long as more than just the lowest drawbar is pulled out.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.