Bass Pedals and exp-100

[Dkjazzpiano]

I'm thinking of getting the Hammond 1100 pedals for my sk2 rig. I have the Exp-100 expression pedal. Is there a place to mount the expression pedal on the bass pedals, or do you just have the pedals side by side? 

Sorry. The bass pedals are xk200L

[Jim Alfredson]

I don't know for sure if the EXP-100 will mount. I think it will; pretty sure. The mount is simple a bracket that attaches to the expression pedal. Might be worth an email or call to Hammond USA.

[Dkjazzpiano]

So I just got mu xk200L pedals and they look and feel great. 

However, I have a question on pedaling while playing walking bass with the left hand..

I know that many great players "tap" a note(almost any note) on the pedals while walking a quick bass with the left hand. I don't seem to be able to get that thumping sound only from the bass pedals by lightly tapping on them. I always get the note I am tapping which sounds terrible when in conflicting the notes from my left hand. What am I missing here? Do the xk200L pedals not have an area of movement where I can tap them and get the thump without the note sounding? Or is there a pedal setting on my SK2 that will accomplish this for me? I've tried everything in the pedal setup on my SK2, and can't get the sound I'm looking for.

[Dkjazzpiano]

I just got my answer by downloading Tony Monaco's excellent video series on "bass and comp". He demonstrates exactly how it's done.

[Jim Alfredson]

Well, there are two things at play here:

Firstly, the contact system in a real Hammond organ is comprised of buss bars. There is one bussbar for each drawbar, so 9 total per manual (keyboard) stacked vertically under the keys. The famous "key click" of a Hammond is the result of little wires under each key making contact with those buss bars. If you pull all 9 drawbars out and very slowly press a key you can actually hear each individual contact (1 through 9) for each drawbar being made.

The pedals are similar. There are two drawbars for the bass pedals and each drawbar has two buss bars associated with it; one for the regular tonewheels and one for the "complex tonewheels" that are exclusive to the pedals.

So... on a real Hammond, when you tap very fast and lightly, it is possible to barely make a connection with just one bussbar, resulting in no pitch but rather a percussive transient on the front of the note.

This is much more difficult on a digital organ / Hammond because there are no buss bars. Digital is perfect. When you press the note, it triggers. There's no slop, no analog electrical connection being made, it's just ON.

Secondly, your tapping has to be REALLY short, even more so on a digital organ for the above reasons.

Make sense?

[Dkjazzpiano]

Makes sense, absolutely. I was kind of afraid it was an organic issue of analog vs digital for the pedals. And thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

I'm experimenting with some settings for the pedals, as well as midi'ing out the pedal notes to a sound module to see if I can find something that makes tapping a little more like an actual Hammond.

Thanks for the reply. Funny, but Tony Monaco's extensive video on the subject made it seem like pedaling(and tapping) on a clone wouldn't be such an issue.

There's another video on tuning up your clone to match a Hammond more closely that I may buy to see if there's anything there he suggests about the subject.