Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards How about the organ sound?

I once started with organ lessons and switched to piano after 2 years. When I bought my first digital piano (Roland HP 137R), which had an organ sound, I was as happy as a child because I missed my organ.

Now that I have to replace my piano, I am going to buy a Korg D1, because it has no less than three different pipe organ sounds. It's cheap, about 600 euros, and I have a bit more to spend. Is there a digital piano up to about 1000 euros with at least 3 pipe organ sounds? I don't mean Hammond organ sounds or stuff like that, but real pipe organ sounds and a good piano sound. A midi recorder would be nice.

This I wrote on my Roland. I'm going to miss the old boy, but I think it is time to bury him along with the year 2021. I'm not going to miss 2021 though.

it's one thing to have the sound, it's another that is s actually good (= usable). Try to hear it somewhere before you make a decision
the D1 looks good on paper

I understand digital organs (like Yamaha YC, Nord Electro, Vox Continental...) have drawbars and don't have hammer-action keys. Without drawbars, you could use a VST that has them, seen CollaB3?

Some stage pianos like the MP7SE have better organ support. The D1 is more like a home DP with no speakers, not a stage piano.

Thanks, sem. I'm going to check out the MP7SE.

This is what I use. It has many complete organs available, all with individual stop selections, selectable temperaments and pitch. I use it on my Yamaha KX8 MIDI slab with a connection to the app on my iPad. It's free and open source. I have performed professional concerts where the audience did not know it was not a real organ, and that was using a cheap computer stereo plus sub system for playback. In a resonant church, no one could tell the difference.



Strand Organ

I go for this sound:



The VB3m app for $13 on my iPhone gets very close to the Jimmy Smith Hammond B3 (888000000 C3) organ sound. Digital pianos have never done a good job of a jazz B3 emulation.

Jimmy Smith's Hammond organ settings on "The Sermon"

888000000
C3 (Off)
Percussion (Off)
Leslie rotary Stopped
Amplification with slight tube overdrive is a really important part of this sound. It gives it character. A clean organ tone wouldn't be the same:

REMASTERED:

I think the OP excluded this kind of sound.


Not everybody, myself included, is keen of this kind of sound.

Thanks, prout. I should have mentioned that I really want to play on a digital piano, not a midi controller and a vst. I can have that now with a midi controller keyboard and my laptop, but the extra gear bothers me. I'm the old fashioned type, grew up with only acoustic instruments.

As I mentioned before, I'm not looking for the Hammond stuff. I don't want to pay for a lot of sounds I'm not going to use. Just a decent piano sound a some nice pipe organ sounds will do. But thanks, RinTin.

You're absolutely right, Nigo, but we're in a lockdown. You can buy online and then collect the instrument, but you can't go into the shop to test the instruments. The shops are all closed. Something to do with a virus.

Hello,

@Rowy van Hest, I am totally with you as it comes to being "old fashioned" in wanting a minimal distraction when playing music.

If at all possible, I would only have acoustic instruments too. Out of necessity, however, I do use virtual instruments but have the computer out of my line of sight and at a distance when I sit at the 88 keys.

I'm glad the MP7SE has already been mentioned, I see that as a great value for money package. In 2020 I had a Korg D1 at home to try, and I liked its build quality and action mechanically, but didn't agree with the velocity responses and certainly wasn't bowled over by its internal piano and other sounds.

I don't own an MP7SE but if I could easily spend its purchase price I just might. It is twice as expensive as the Korg D1 but I reckon it's rather more than twice the value for money.

Perhaps you can listen to examples of its organ (and piano!) sounds, and maybe you can try one with the right to return it, perhaps from Oostendorp (NL) or Thomann (DE).

All the best for 2022,

HZ

Rowy, a few comments.

If D1 has organ sounds that are satisfactory to you and pianos sound fine, then it is probably a good choice to you. It is a pitty you cannot try them live at the moment.

I suspect (I cannot say for sure) that most DPs will have one pipe organ sound, maybe two. I just checked, my ES8 has four organ sounds, called "drawbar", "jazz", "principal oct" and "church". Only the last one is close to what I guess you want, though the four could be usable, even the drawbar one (to my ears).

The video below demos two of them:



The ES8 successor, ES920, seems to have more sounds. Listen to them on the video below, starting at around 11:20:



The bad news is ES920 production stopped temporarily so it may be difficult to find.

About playing organ on a digital piano keyboard, many people do not like it because of different feelings. One of Kawai's digital panos (MP7SE if memory serves) uses a trick to make the keyboard more suitable to organ sounds, but it has no speakers, if that matters.

PS (disclaimer): I am not a Kawai fan due to my bad experience with my ES8 in some aspects related to the keybed itself, but there are many satisfied users in this forum.

Thank you, HZ, and all the best wishes to you. I've checked out the MP7SE, and a lot of other keyboards, but the problem is, Korg D1 has 3 different pipe organ sounds and they all sound good (to me). Usually a keyboard has just 1 pipe organ sound, a full organ, and I don't like Kawai's take on a full organ. But Kawaii is good, perhaps better at the piano sounds than Korg. So I listened to a lot of reviews and the verdict is that the Korg D1 has good sounding pianos, good organs and a lousy sounding harpsichord, but its built is better than you would expect for 600 euros. It even matches more expensive pianos.

It also is one of the few keyboards that has no flashing lights or colorful buttons right above the keys. The layout is even being called "simple". And that is exactly what I need, a simple layout. I had to buy a equalizer for a Casio keyboard once and it took quite some time before I found one that didn't blind me.

"In 2020 I had a Korg D1 at home to try, and I liked its build quality and action mechanically, but didn't agree with the velocity responses and certainly wasn't bowled over by its internal piano and other sounds."

This I like. You had the instrument and you know its quality. About the velocity, it isn't that important to me. I'm not really a piano player. I'm a composer and to me a piano is just a tool. It wouldn't surprise me if I only use 2 velocities, low and high, and even then I only play fragments. But I don't want to get distracted while I'm working. So, no fairground lights and no crackling keys. The organ sounds are the most important to me. I can hear a composition with my inner ear, but an organ sound is difficult, because it consists of a stack of registers. A composition that sounds good on a positiv, could sound terrible if you use a full organ and vice versa. Hence, the Korg D1. It has the sound of a positiv.

Hi EVC. Thanks for taking the time to dive into this. About the different feelings, that won't be a problem. Maybe I'm insensitive, but I've never cared what the keys feel like. I don't want them to make a lot of noise, that's all. It's a tool to me and it needs to work the way I prefer. I always use headphones, because I live in an apartment building and I think the neighbors aren't really fond of classical music. Besides, with headphones I can work all night. So I don't need speakers.

Hello,

@Rowy van Hest, Reading your last two posts, it seems like your mind is already/almost made up. And for some decent reasons.

I very much liked the unintrusive look of the D1 (in particular in white). The LEDs I found rather bright still, but there exist foils to tame those down if needed.

Cheers and happy decision making,

HZ

PS After the D1 turned out to be insufficient for my needs, I happily found a DP with almost no buttons and lights at all in the Roland FP-10. I only use its keys and MIDI output.

Rowy, I agree with HZPiano, if the D1 fills your needs, it is most likely the best one for you, especially because you have already tried it earlier.

I suppose you wanted to know about possible alternatives you may have overlooked during your search.

One that comes to mind is Studiologic Numa Compact 2X. It has drawbar controls and several organ sounds, altough some of them may not suit you. It has more controls than you may want to deal with, a few more LEDs but overall I think the interface is clean. Price is on the same range as D1. There are samples of the sounds in Studiologic's pages and you probably may find demos of the sounds on Youtube if you are interested. The keyboard is not weighted though, It is more synth like, which may be more appropriate for organ and just OK (ish) for pianos.

Other that comes to mind is Yamaha YC, but I believe it does not suit you in more than one aspect (sounds, interface, maybe price). There may be others, but as organ is not my thing, I usually do not pay much attention to products more focused on it.

Oh, I know VST is not what you are after, but Moddart (Pianoteq) has Organteq.

I just ordered the Korg D1. I could get a 10% discount, but I had to move fast, so I did. But I checked out Studiologic Numa Compact 2X. You're right, it is more synth like, and I don't like drawbars. Same goes for the Yamaha YC series. I know I'm being a bit picky, but I can't write music if the layout of the keyboard annoys me. Perhaps one day I will move to a house again and then I will immediately buy me a Pleyel Grand Piano. If they still exist.

FWIW, the Kauai ES8 and ES920 have two traditional pipe organ sounds. One is a full organ, the other is just the principal rank soloed. As a pianist who has played pipe organ, I find the sounds perfectly useful, though the keybed of course is nothing like an organ. Still, they’re fun for playing organ literature.