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Playing the Organ
Changing the Organ Sound (Wheel
Type, Leakage Level)
Tone Wheel and Leakage Noise are important elements in creating tone wheel organ
sounds.
Tone wheel
Tone wheels are the ninety-one metal disks that produce the sound on tone wheel
organs. Teeth are cut into the edge of each disk, and sound is generated by rotating
the disks past an electrical coil at a fixed speed. The VK-8 digitally simulates the tone
wheel mechanism of a tone wheel organ, and thus provides the rapid response and
full polyphony that characterize these instruments.
The sounds that are produced by the tone wheels of a tone wheel organ are not
precisely pure sine waves, since they are affected by the manufacturing precision of
the wheel and by the characteristics of the analog circuitry. However, it is these
imperfections in the waveform that give a tone wheel organ its unique character.
Leakage Noise
On tone wheel organs, the sound of the note that was pressed was slightly
“contaminated” by audio signals from tone wheels not related to that note.
Formerly, this was seen as a problem, but today this idiosyncrasy is considered an
important element of the distinctive sound of a vintage organ.
Tone Wheel type
Selects the type of tone wheel.
fig.01-17
1 Press the [TONE WHEEL] button to select the type of tone wheel.
Each time you press the [TONE WHEEL] button, the tone wheel will switch between
the following settings.
Leakage Noise
Separately from the leakage noise selected by the Tone Wheel Type, you can add
leakage noise independently.
2 Turn the [LEAKAGE] knob.
Turning the knob toward the left will decrease the volume of the leakage noise, and
turning it toward the right will increase the volume of the leakage noise.
Type Explanation
VINTAGE1
A tone wheel that simulates the tone wheel organs of the
70’s.
VINTAGE2
A tone wheel that simulates the tone wheel organs of the
60’s.
CLEAN A tone wheel with no leakage noise.
2 1
NOTE
If the “VINTAGE1” or
“VINTAGE2” wheel type is
selected, there will still be
some leakage noise even if the
[LEAKAGE] knob is turned all
the way to the left.