Presets (Even your own) are fixed and offer minimal flexibility.
Drawbars you alter to suit the mood, e.g. you will not always use the same settings even playing the same song.
It also involves the feel of the shape of the drawbars, which cannot be emulated by presets or touch screens.
In answer to your question
If you have never had them, then you will not miss them.
If you are used to them, then there is no other substitute
Hope this helps

Bill

As long as my left hand is tied up with bass or chord tasks, drawbars are wasted on my kbs. I love the "on the fly" setting changes, but as a solo artist - I can never afford that luxury!

Fortunately Diki I'm still sharp enough to know whether I've answered my own question, or not .... as in this case

But....reading between your lines you seem to be accepting there are few advantages on an arranger which would make them must have???

John

John, the thing is that registration buttons are great for gross sound changes, but one of the things that many real organ players do is 'shade' the sound in realtime, as you go along. It's not a case of just completely re-doing the registration, but a constant (or near constant!) very slight adjustments to the drawbars. One phrase may get a little lost, you pull out the 2' a click or so, push it back in after the phrase, you might take the 16' out a click or two for a quick line, and push it back in a bar or two later. All these minor tweaks are too numerous to be stored as preset registrations, they really ARE something you tend to tweak as you go along.

Got a guitarist one night with a scratchier sound than your usual? Shave a hair off you high end to not clash... Got a duller room than usual? Spice it up with a bit more top three d'bars... Band getting muddy? Push back the 16' a hair.

Registrations only get you so much control. The drawbar (or buttons, it really doesn't matter as long as you CAN adjust in realtime) is the final step in making something perfect (for right now). They are STILL on modern organ clones. If they were of so little use, seeing as how you can store as many presets as you like, they would have been dropped long ago (they add considerably to the cost of a clone).

For most REAL organists, the thought of a B3 without drawbars (or ANY way to adjust in realtime) is unpleasant In an arranger context, you have to decide for yourself whether these subtle tweaks are worth it or not. I use my arranger with live bands as well as duo and solo work. Especially in the band situation, the drawbars are a MUST. In an OMB situation, where you have total control around you, maybe not quite so much, but once you get used to shading your registrations, it's hard to stop!

"P85, the latter having a terrific 88 note weighted graded hammer action...a lovely little piano."

Ian, your P85 must be different then the units I have played..

OK Thanks Diki re drawbars
Thanks to the others who posted too. As happens sometimes the thread got lost for me until today when I ended up clicking on a link to it. Apologies for the late acknowledgements.

John

Not really Fran, but the difference may be that I actually play piano.

You however, may not appreciate the joys of a great weighted hammer action as on the P85...you don't own an instrument with the aforementioned type keybed do you?

Yamaha, and, to be fair, Roland as well, have really captured the expressiveness of a piano with their great hammer actions...but again, you'd have to be a born and bred pianist to really appreciate them fully.

Ian