Source
r/hammondorgan•
AX-user

General quesiton about organ bass pedals

other

Hi, once my budget allows it I may want to buy a bass pedal for my Viscount Legend. I have never played bass pedals before. There are several concepts around, especially

  • radiant / straight
  • with / without heel support
  • flat / concav heel support

I suspect that a radiant pedal board with concav heel support might feel best. Do you agree? What is your experience with different board concepts?

Just as some kind of visual reference here is a sort of gallery of various concepts: https://www.promenademusic.co.uk/viscount-midi-pedalboards .

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To emphasize, I'm not interested in a certain brand or in a certain pedal model at the moment, but about what will be most suitable for playing.

As I understand it, the radiant versions support rotation of the leg about its hip joint, which the straight concepts rely on parallel shift of foot and leg. How much do these two different movements really matter in the end?

Thanks for sharing your insights and experiences :)

Posted Feb 20, 2021, 11:56 AM UTC

59
loveofjazz•

Howdy! Guitar player that simultaneously uses/plays organ bass pedals for low end support here...

My organ bass pedal rig is flat. It does the job, but radiant (the mild curve to the left and to the right) feels more natural to me. That's been my experience.

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AX-userOP•

Thanks :)

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loveofjazz•

Any time.

I just remembered that I managed to score two free organ bass pedal sets, one 2 octave and one 2½ octave, that I'm going to convert to MIDI.

The 2½ octave unit is one of the aforementioned curved (radiant, I guess) units. It does feel a bit more natural, or comfortable, if you will. It's also heavy AF.

2
AX-userOP•

Thanks again.

Just for the properties:

  • some pedals have parallel "keys"/pedals (straight), others are non-parallel and seem to meet somewhere under your seat (radiant)
  • ~~~
  • some pedals have no support for heels at all (just the pedals), some have just a flat bar, others carved out some concave space from this bar (so the heel rests lowest in the middle of the pedal and highest at its sides)

Just for my interest: as a guitarist, which other instruments or devices do you control with your bass pedals?

2
loveofjazz•

I only control bass notes with the bass pedals. My focus has been to provide the low end support I have been missing on solo gigs, as well as provide low end support on duo gigs with a drummer. While I haven't been playing with a drummer yet, I am using a drum machine to rehearse with.

At one point, I thought about running the MIDI output to a Boss DR880 (possibly running a bass drum, snare drum, and hi hat). I couldn't decide which 3 keys to give up as those controls, and I realized I would only want to loop my percussion, anyway. Also, the keys most accessible to where you sit would be best for establishing rhythms for a loop or playing them, and that could change depending on the key you're playing in.

I play bass (sub gigs), and I've been lucky to play guitar on duo gigs in the past with an astounding bassist. He did a lot with simplicity, utilizing staccato hits -or- open spaces that would land where the bass drum or snare drum would go inferring what you hear in a full band. Some of that technique translates to this set up. That's one of the reasons I haven't tried to employ this live just yet. There are a lot of different approaches to explore before you go live. Things change on stage, and I better be able to change with it. It isn't about stomping out single note root bass lines. The intention is to not ever realize that there isn't a bassist on stage.

That said, I imagine you could do what you're asking. Feels like that could be potentially complicating, but that's because I'm having a hard time imaging how you would set up a split, where you employ the highest 5 notes (for example) to control the rhythm accompaniment and leave the remaining lower notes for bass support. I know it's common for keyboard players to run split presets.

If you're really interested in doing both, you could run a Keith McMillan 12 Step separate (to control a drum module), and build a shelf or pedestal that allows it to mount over top of the bass pedal array. I have actually been considering that same physical set up for guitar preamp and effects, as I feel I'm going to need some modulation effects for some of what I play...and it kinda hurts to slap my hand on a pedal setting on a stool or music stand next to me.

1
AX-userOP•

Thanks for sharing :)

Because of your bass playing statements I was reminded of this guy, whom you may know already :Charles Berthoud. For example, there is so much truth on display from this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1HHKGlBugA which is about "playing the wrong notes". Enjoy ;-)

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That said, I imagine you could do what you're asking. Feels like that could be potentially complicating, but that's because I'm having a hard time imaging how you would set up a split, where you employ the highest 5 notes (for example) to control the rhythm accompaniment and leave the remaining lower notes for bass support. I know it's common for keyboard players to run split presets.

Hammond clones ("keyboards") allow to attach a MIDI bass pedal to it. As you may have seen Hammond organs most of the time have two manuals, i.e. 2 voices in terms of drawbar settings ( = registers on sacral organs). The bass pedal is a kind of 3rd voice, with only the lower two drawbars available.

Using the bass pedal allows for quite some playing techniques on the organ. A common one is to play the manual, assigned to bass voice tones, in parallel with the pedal. On one hand it emphazises the sound a little, but more importantly you can use the busy bass-hand every now and them to switch on or off some things like the Leslie rotor, percussion (sound) or change vibrato/chorus settings. During that time the left foot performs the job of the bass-hand.

Yes, it's both complication and expanding skill :-)

As an example here's a nicely taken blues video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_T7vgNIT6w of what I'm after, later. As you can hear, both manuals are tuned quite high by their drawbars (sometimes used as 2 voices, sometimes as 2 flavors of the same voice) while the foot is walking a bass.

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loveofjazz•

That heel-toe technique is slowly coming for me. I've never been one for boring dub-dub-dub-dub quarter notes underneath, unless the song actually calls for it.

I totally forgot that you were running an actual organ, and not doing something goofy and hybrid like I am. I reck on the ideas I offer really don't work physically, as there's not much room underneath.

One additional technique I've seen used by local church organists is the "pump note". They may be handling bass with their left hand, or they may be working with a bass player, but they will add an occasional quarter note that supports the song. They generally do it in a way that doesn't get in the way of the bass being played (whether by organist or bassist).

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