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Playing the Organ
Changing the Organ Sound
(Wheel Type, Leakage Level, Key Click)
Tone Wheel, Leakage Noise, and Key Click 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-88 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 traditional organ.
Key Click
Key Click is the “blip” noise that is heard when a note is pressed or released on a
traditional organ.
fig.01-17
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VK-88_e.book 34 ページ 2004年4月20日 火曜日 午前9時0分