D-50 Hammond Simulation

HAMMOND SIMULATION ON THE ROLAND D-50/D-550

by Bruce Wahler

The D-50 and its rack-mount equivalent, the D-550, have four useful Hammond waveforms, which can be combined with "sines" (filtered square waves) to layer respectable Hammond tones:

Wave	Name	Comments
21	OrgPrc	a combination of the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th harmonic, with long decay
48	Drawbr	a full organ sound (888876678)
49	Horgan	a very deep stop (008880000), one octave above the others
50	Lorgan	somewhat brighter than Horgan (888800000)

Basic Tones

Waveform 21 is of questionable usefulness, but the others have many uses, especially when combined with synthesized sine waves, created from square waves that have been rather severely filtered:

Drawbar	Notation	Pitch	Volume (DB=8)	Filter	TVA-BP Slope= -12
16'	800000000	C3	100	33	F#2 <
5 1/3'	080000000	G4	94	35	n/a
8'	008000000	C4	96	34	n/a
4'	000800000	C5	92	35	n/a
2 2/3'	000080000	G5	90	36	n/a
2'	000008000	C6	88	36	>B6
1 3/5'	000000800	E6	86	34	>G6
1 1/3'	000000080	G6	84	35	>E6
1'	000000008	C7	82	37	>B5

The TVA band pass rolloff simulates the limited range of pitches available on tone wheel Hammonds, creating drawbar dropout, like a spinet tone wheel organ has. It is not possible to simulate foldback, like the console models have.

Percussion

Percussion can be added by selecting the proper sine tone (4' or 2 2/3') and changing the decay for infintie to 47 for short decay and 62 for long decay.

Vibrato

The D-50 family has a built-in effects processor capable of generating a decent chorus vibrato. It can also be used to give a little tonal "edge" or "presence" to the sound, much as a real Hammond preamp does:

Vibrato	Effect	Speed	Depth	Balance
None	Chorus 2	0	0	20
C1	Chorus 2	100	44	48
C2	Chorus 2	100	44	56
C3	Chorus 2	100	44	63

Examples:

888886446

Lorgan @ vol = 100
Drawbr @ vol = 85

888880000

Lorgan @ vol = 100
2 2/3' sine @ vol = 90

888000008

Horgan @ vol = 100, dropped -1 octave
1' sine @ vol = 82

No laboratory animals were used during the evaluation of this product!