If you’re a guitarist, chances are you’ve been bombarded with advice on how to work with overdrive. But if you want an overdriven organ sound, you probably haven’t been quite so overwhelmed with info. I thought I’d redress that imbalance with this post, which assumes you’re looking for a convenient and effective way to overdrive an organ sound, and you perhaps need some detail on the theory of it all.
I’m also assuming you’re aware of the traditional routes, like simply using a real Hammond organ and a Leslie with the volume whacked right up, or routing the organ through a guitar amp stack for a brasher sound, in the way Jon Lord pioneered over four and a half decades ago.
Of course, if you are taking the traditional route to heavy rock organ, you don’t have to use a Marshall stack. It’ll help with the quality and spread of the sound if you do, but if a setup like that is impractical volume-wise or cost-wise, a smaller guitar combo with a pre-amp gain control will dirty up an organ in similar fashion.
You may also find small, vintage spec, valve-powered guitar combos with low wattage ratings will crank out some very cool organ sounds without deafening everyone. My 15 watt Fender Pro Junior (pictured above) works really well as a moderate volume organ amp and will growl into a thick, natural, barking overdrive very easily.
PEDALS
If you’re using a hardware keyboard, the first temptation will probably be to use an overdrive or distortion pedal. This is technically fine, and indeed, some pedal manufacturers have specified that their guitar overdrive units will also suit keyboards. In fact, I found some floor pedals to be an all-in-one solution for recording – even going direct to the desk with no additional processing. Observing certain ‘rules’, which I’ll cover in this post, I got some surprisingly good hard rock sounds with an old analogue Korg CX3, using the simplest of setups: organ > pedal > mixer.
For organ sounds, I would generally recommend overdrive pedals as opposed to harder distortions – mainly because overdrive pedals tend to be more natural and vintage sounding. They often have less undesirable fizz, and the keyboard’s powerful signal will in any case drive the pedal hard, so a distortion unit’s higher gain will usually just be overkill, coupled with unnatural ‘waspiness’ at the top end.
MIND THE SIGNAL LEVEL
When routing a keyboard though any effect designed for a guitar, it’s best practice to introduce the keyboard to the effect with the keyboard’s output volume at zero, and steadily increase the keyboard volume until it interacts with the effect’s controls in the desired way. Most keyboard outputs will emit a much higher signal level than a guitar, so unless you keep the keyboard output volume in check, you’ll probably get crazy amounts of distortion, which will make the sound hard to control, and so compressed that everything becomes an ill-defined mush.
KEYBOARD AMPS
Guitar pedals are designed to be fed into guitar amps – not keyboard amps – and that makes a big difference with overdrive and distortion. Modern keyboard amps are engineereed to reproduce a full frequency range. Guitar amps (or more accurately, their speakers) lop off the higher treble frequencies, and that rounds the tone, eliminating the undesirable, fizzy harmonics of distortion in its raw state. If you have to use a keyboard amp, you’ll probably find reducing the treble will give better results. If the amp has a graphic equalizer, or you can patch one in, cutting everything above 6KHz will mimic a guitar amp’s inability to reproduce high treble. Perhaps cut above 5.5KHz or even lower if you want things sounding more ‘vintage’.
DIRECT INJECTION
If you’re recording with direct injection, you might want to employ a guitar amp simulator gadget to fight the excess fizz of raw distortion. Guitar multi FX processors often have one built in. But bear in mind that most guitar amp simulators are only really glorified equalisers that cut the high trebles, whilst colouring up the midrange a little and perhaps emphasising the ‘bite’ area in the lower treble region. You can do that to varying degrees with your own EQ.
PEDALS DIRECT
As I said, though, I found I was able to patch some drive pedals straight to the mixer. I tried a Boss Turbo Overdrive, a Rat Mk.II, an old Marshall Drive Master, an equally old Marshall Blues Breaker, and a Mesa V-Twin with real tube overdrive and a built-in amp simulator. All could produce acceptable results or better, and there was nothing here I couldn't have used for an important recording.
Despite the V-Twin’s more expensive nature, its real tubes and its amp sim, it didn’t work as well as the regular pedals for me. My favourite was the Rat, which had a wicked bass end that I’ve never really noticed when using it with a guitar. It came into its own on the low notes. The Marshall Blues Breaker produced a great sound, which would have beaten the Rat had the bass been punchier on the bottom keys. Gain full, Tone full, Volume to taste. Really simple. Obviously, though, the keyboard’s output volume would dictate whether or not the Gain would need to go that high. For reference, my Korg CX3's volume was at about 10 o'clock.
The Marshall Drive Master could generate some very ‘vintage’ sounds with the Middle and Bass pulled right up, and the Treble backed well off. But I found this the hardest pedal to work with. The Boss Turbo Overdrive was good set in its normal Overdrive mode, with relatively modest levels of drive and the tone full up. Engaging the Turbo made things sound too synthetic for me though.
For my overdrive pedals photo, which heads the post, I left the pedal controls set as I’d used them, so you should be able to see most of the setiings. Incidentally, I used the V-Twin in Blues mode. And I should also mention that the Rat worked extremely well running into the Fender Pro Junior. Same settings on the pedal. Absolutely wicked rock organ sound.
‘RULES’ FOR DIRECT INJECTION OF ORGAN THROUGH OVERDRIVE PEDALS
I’d cite the general rules as follows…
- Avoid using heavy metal distortions and stick with milder or vintage-style drive effects. The Rat is very versatile so it can be used for hard distortion, but it is ‘vintage’ in character, and I set my Rat’s Distortion level to less than 9 o’clock, so it was only operating as a mild overdrive.
- Keep the gain/overdrive/distortion dial backed right off and heavily moderate the organ/keyboard’s output volume. The Blues Breaker pedal was an exception to this, because it’s not a hi-gain pedal. It was only designed to replicate a vintage tube amp with mild overdrive – not to accommodate heavy metal guitarists.
- Keep the drawbars above 2 2/3’ muted. Use the first four drawbars (16’ to 4’) for the chord backings, and then pull the 2 2/3’ bar right out when you want the organ to scream into a solo.
- Back off the treble a little on the mixing desk, or use a graphic equaliser as described earlier. If you’re recording into a digital multitracker, you should be able to EQ out any remaining fizziness with a virtual equaliser.
- Try to keep as much upper midrange as possible in the pedal's output. With many overdrive pedals, backing off a Tone control filters out the upper midrange, which is a component you need in order to make the organ scream. Therefore, it’s often best to keep a pedal’s single Tone control set high, and reduce any excess treble on the mixer. Moderating the amount of drive should in any case stop the pedal sounding too ‘waspy’. Compensate by adding bass on the mixer too if necessary. I pushed the bass up significantly on my mixer, and some magic started to happen – especially with the Rat pedal.
Rules are there to be broken, though – and these are only my rules. Yours may be different.
The Vox Continental organ has found a relationship with overdrive in indie music, but it can be harder to integrate overdrive with a Vox than with a Hammond type setup, because the Vox can’t split some of its drawbar pitches, and the 5 1/3’ can’t be isolated from the treble section. One option is to mute everything but the 16’, 8’ and 4’ bars, but a better one is probably to pull out all the pitch bars and filter off the high trebles by muting, or almost muting the triangle wave.
DRAWBAR SETTINGS
A lot of people ask what to do with the drawbars for a great organ overdrive sound, and it’s a good question. Overdrive sounds work best with good substance in the lower frequencies and a fat midrange. So what you probably won’t want is an abundance of 2’ and higher bars, or an absence of the lower bars… unless you’re going for special effects. The deep frequencies in the lower bars have most of the drive power anyway, so if you go too light on them, there won’t be enough there to produce the distortion with some setups.
As a starting point, most users are going to want the first four bars (from 16’ to 4’) full out, and then the 2 2/3’ and 2’ introduced to taste. The high frequency bars can conflict with the upper harmonics in the overdrive itself, so most players will keep them fully muted.
You can adjust the first four drawbars in lots of permutations. Don’t be afraid to experiment with them.
The drawbar setting above is a great generic starting point for screaming lead and hardcore power-chord work.
“BUT I’M USING A HARDWARE SYNTH…”
With a synth, you probably won’t be able to control drawbar settings, and you may not know which exact drawbar registrations are being mimicked in your presets. Organ sounds on synths are usually just labelled “Rock Organ”, “Jazz Organ” or whatever. Generally, “Jazz Organ” will replicate the sound of the first three drawbars (16’ to 8’). That’s okay for chord backings, but for screaming solos you’ll probably want more upper midrange. “Jazz Organ” also often incorporates percussive attack, which you may not want.
“Rock Organ” will typically replicate the first four or five drawbars (16’ to 2 2/3’), but not always. Whatever you choose, look for a thick and full sound rather than something hollow, and look for something fairly smooth. Be sceptical of cutting or glassy sounds with strong treble. “’60s Organ” probably won’t work that well. Also, try to steer clear of sounds with built-in animation, like vibrato, chorus or fake Leslie/rotary effects. These effects incorporate pitch fluctuations, which may create undesirable oscillation within the overdrive. It’s fine adding a Leslie or rotary effect after the overdrive, but not so typically before it. You might get away with slow (chorale) rotary before overdrive (I did with my CX3 > Rat > Pro Junior setup), but fast (tremolo) rotary will probably make a mess of things.
“CAN I USE ANALOGUE SYNTH SOUNDS?…”
This is usually a tough one to pull off, because the complex waves produced by analogue synths are likely to grate against the distortion. If you are using an analogue synth or a ‘virtual analogue’, try filtering the waveforms very heavily to make them sound smooth. Remember, Hammond organ tones are made up of stacked sine waves – simple fundamentals with virtually nothing in the way of harmonic overtones. In analogue synth terms, that's a set of extremely heavily filtered waves.
CHORD WORK
Overdrive and distortion interferes with harmony. This was the primary reason for the invention of the power chord for electric guitar. The power chord plays only the roots, fifths and octaves of the chords, omitting the troublesome major or minor thirds, which destroy the smoothness and focused feel of the distortion. Perfect thirds (‘Just Intonation’ thirds) are technically fine, but the equal temperament of standard keyboard tuning plays havoc, because the small inaccuracy in pitch within a chord causes oscillation, and that can sound very unmusical when distortion sets in. The fifths in equal temperament are essentially perfect, so if you only play roots and fifths in chords (like root + fifth + octave root), you’ll avoid the oscillation.
However, changing the tone of the organ using the drawbars can help soften the impact of the unmusical oscillation. You probably will be able to play more complex chords on a distorted organ, but they’re unlikely to sound as focused as pure roots and fifths.
VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS
Most of the same paradigms apply when you’re using virtual organs and effects. On a PC you can experiment for free by using any of this site’s own range of freeware organ VSTis, which you’ll find via the Virtual Organs Landing Page. Couple these up with the Stomp King Guitar Amp and you should find getting thick, overdriven organ sounds fairly easy.
In the example above, I’ve used the Stomp King Guitar Amp with the Guttersnipe virtual rock organ. You can see the settings, in which the organ is outputting a very plain sound, and the pedal’s Drive is set at halfway. The Guttersnipe has a ten-drawbar system, which is slightly different from the Hammond’s, and here I’ve got the first five bars all the way out, plus the 1’ bar. The key to this sound, and all good organ overdrive, is restraining the Drive level. You want enough to give the sound power, but not so much that things start sounding unmusical, overbright or compressed.
You could get a more typical Hammond-type sound using the Classic H organ, but once again, think twice about using the organ’s own animation effects. If still you want a Leslie effect, you could add the Ro-Tube at the end of your chain, after the Guitar Amp pedal. That, for me, is better than trying to distort the virtual organ’s own rotary.
And in this example I’ve used the Guitar Amp with the VSTV2 organ. These settings demonstrate what I was saying about Vox Continentals. I’ve got all of the drawbars out (more or less), but I’ve muted the triangle wave drawbar and just used the sine.
Don’t feel limited to my examples. The Rawgan and The Nash will be harder to use with overdrive, because they default to more complex waveforms, but the VSTX3 will be fine, and you can use the Skanksta in a similar way to the VSTV2.
IN CONCLUSION...
In the end, your own ears are what matters, and you should never take what any musician says as a stark fact. Before starting the tests for this post, I was convinced that sending pedals straight to a mixer would be a disaster, but for me, it can actually work for organs in a way it doesn't for guitars. So sometimes, theory doesn't translate into practice, and in music, those eventualities are more common than ever. Don't blow a load of money until you've tried it the cheap way, because sometimes, the cheap way is best!
