From goffmac747@aol.com Wed Mar 12 04:43:03 2008
Subject:Re: 9 contacts

Nice synopsis. I imagined it would be expensive. Not knowledgeable of
the mechanics of the Hammond 9 contacts, therefore not being able to
imagine what could be done in place of the contact system, it would
need to come under some revolutionary keyboard designers to come up
with a solution. Even if a prototype were made, that would be a quantum
leap. Any takers out there?

-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Wahler
To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Cc: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 7:22 pm
Subject: Re: [CWSG] 9 contacts

Hi All,

My $0.02USD on nine contacts ...

The original B-3 has nine contacts per key, which trigger a little
toward the top end, making it a "hot" keybed. I doubt that this was
intentional, because Hammond was targeting the (classic) liturgical and
theater markets, and neither genre is known for blazing riffs. The
nine contacts were a necessity of the design, and placing them near the
top something of a 'happy accident.' Nevertheless, it allows for a
unique playing style, which contains a degree of the randomness that
leads to what humans describe as 'natural' or 'organic' music (as
opposed to 'sterile' tones). This is a wonderful thing, because by
design -- i.e., lack of touch-sensitivity -- an organ is handicapped in
the "my instrument is more expressive than yours" contest.

The modern MIDI keyboard is designed with two contacts, as far apart in
the key travel as possible. This is to allow timing of the key
velocity, and to reduce the weight. Unfortunately, it results in a
keybed with very different response than a Hammond keybed.

I think it's *possible* to create a lightweight keybed with nine
contacts. The initial costs would be very high, but if enough people
used it, the costs would come down over time. Wonderful advances in
technology, though, generally follow the needs of the masses. There's
the rub: the rest of the digital keyboard world has no need of the
other seven contacts, and wants the two they need spaced as far apart
as practical. Having more contacts doesn't benefit a digital piano,
Rhodes, or Clavinet -- all of these instruments make noise through a
single strike of a string/tine. Thus, the economics of mass production
won't kick in.

It might become possible to play a 25lb. nine-contact clonewheel in the
future, but always at a premium cost. The only exception would be if
the keyboard world gravitates towards higher resolution key travel,
such as having a potentiometer under each key. (I'm not sure why this
would happen, but it would certainly benefit clonewheel players.) We
aren't alone in this dilemma; synth players looking for polyphonic
aftertouch also find themselves relegated to the "how cares" section of
the digital keyboard world.

Given the small size of the clonewheel market, it makes more sense to
take advantage of the keybed technology already in place. This is a
two-contact key, with one contact near the top of travel, and the other
near the bottom. End of story. Using this baseline, the best that a
clone manufacture can do is to simulate the spread of nine contacts,
either based on the velocity of the key, or a fixed value and a slight
random factor, triggered off the first contact. Both methods have
disadvantages: the first one results in a less 'hot' action because
the key must be pressed farther down to make any sound; the second one
only simulates a small portion of the capabilities of the original
keybed. Neither of them can imitate the "staggered choir" sound that
say, Mark Stein (Vanilla Fudge) got in "Take Me For A Little While."

Regards,

-BW

--

Bruce Wahler

AshbySolutions.com™

978.386.7389 voice/fax

bruce@ashbysolutions.com