Hammond Organ Simulator

© Ing. Radovan Konečný - radkon, 2014-2021

This project is one of the components of a virtual music studio.

Download the program - version V2.6: (what's new?)

	Hammond_Organ_Simulator.exe	- version for Windows
	I have read and agree to the Software Licence

	Hammond_Organ_Simulator.jar	- version for Windows, Linux, Mac
	I have read and agree to the Software Licence

To run this program, you must have Java JRE installed.

Utilities:

Program control

The control of the program will be apparent from the window and controls. The organ inputs are MIDI commands from the piano keyboard connected to the PC via MIDI, or MIDI commands from NetSound. MIDI channel 1 is for the first manual (bottom on the original Hammond organ). MIDI channel 2 is for the second manual (top on the original Hammond organ). MIDI channel 3 is for pedal keyboard (only 25 bottom tones). The "Leslie" effect is accelerated or decelerated by either a sustain pedal or a pitch-bend controller.

Screenshot:

About the project

This is a simulator of real Hammond B3 organ. The project originated in the attempt to simulate gears in the Hammond organ, which are the core of this electric organ. It has become a usable virtual musical instrument that can be played in real time.

Hammond organ simulator simulates the following things:

• tone frequencies exactly according to Hammond B3 organ, including inaccuracies (Hammond's tone frequencies are only an approximation of the ideal equal-tempered tuning),
• two manual keyboards each with 61 tones and one pedal keyboard with 25 tones,
• harmonic tone composition exactly as on Hammond B3 organ,
• simulation of "Percussion" function for first and second manual keyboards (difference to the Hammond B3 organ),
• transition effects when pressing and dropping a key - transition noise and time shift of switching of individual harmonic components (under each key there are usually 9 contacts),
• simple approximation of the "Rotary speaker" effect with varying rotation speed,
• full polyphony - the instrument can play all the tones at one time (61+61+25),
• when "percussion" is turned on, the number of harmonics is not reduced (again, the technical simplification in Hammond organ).

The program works with MIDI and with NetSound. It also supports ASIO audio devices (smaller sound latency).

- sound sample (my improvisation)

- sound sample

- sound sample

- sound sample

- sound sample

ASIO support

In the case of a Windows operating system whose sound driver produces a latency between the (MIDI) command and sound, this program also supports ASIO audio devices that do not have this audible delay (are so-called "low-latency"). This requires a special driver installed (e.g. ASIO4ALL). ASIO enables to play with a small delay between the (MIDI) command and the sound being heard.
For other operating systems, ASIO driver is probably not needed. This program does not support ASIO for non-Windows operating systems.

What is new?