Using B4 leslie simulation with Hammond M111

I picked up a Hammond M111 for free on Craigslist, but don't have a Leslie at the moment.
How could I hook this up to the B4 plugin? the Organ will be in the live room of my studio and the computer and keyboard controllers will be in the control room. If this works, how can I turn the leslie on and off.

a Hammond M111, is called a baby "B" because it has the percussion, the vibrato scan, but only 49 notes per manual. It was used on recordings like "Green Onions" and "Whiter Shade of Pale" so I hear.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Lucky you! (ALWAYS keep one eye on teh Craig, I say...) -- Google the Hamtech (Hammond Technical) discussion List, join it and ask the good folks there. I have a C-2G that I pull the signal out of the amp (they told me how) to send out, for the moment, to a Line 6 Roto-Machine pedal (you might want to consider getting one as well, using a full-up laptop with B4 installed just to get the Leslie effect out of it seems like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer IMHO -- you can demo the sounds at the line 6 website). There will be a set of terminals on the back of your amp that you can tap the pre-amp signal from. The reason I don't tell you which ones I tap out of on mine is because mine is a rare, odd duck and yours will be different on the M-111 (I *know* they will be marked differently than on mine).

I just looked at my M-series service manuals, and although I don't have anything on the M-111, i see that the M-100 came with at least three different amplifier options. Find out which pre-amp and amp you have on yours, if you can, before you post to the list, it is possible that the terminals on each amp might be slightly different.

How to hook up to B4? You need to be able to digitize that M-111 output signal and get it to B4. Do you have an external Input/Output soundcard box? That would be your best bet. Especially if you play guitar also, you might want to look into NI's Guitar Rig Session or Guitar Rig Mobile (which come with a Lite version of GR3, which also includes its own rotary-speaker effect, the same one as B4). GR Mobile is selling on Ebay for $99 nowadays.

You also want to be careful to balance the output signal from your M-111 to the input tolerances of your IO device. That might mean adding a potentiometer between the M-111 and the IO device. Grounding issues might also pose a problem, but might not.


There are a couple of ways you might turn the Leslie off and on, and also switch btw slow and high speeds. Your best bet, I would think, is with some sort of a MIDI pedal setup. I am not sure, but doubtful at the moment if B4 (original version) has a "learn" function, but I'm pretty sure B4ii does. Any version of Guitar Rig, in conjunction with any one of the Rig Kontrol pedals, would get you into all of the flexibility you would want in the onboard rotary speaker sim, I am sure. At the moment I am using an RK2 pedal with GR3, and with the "rig" setup that I intend to use for live sound, I have dedicated two buttons for "Les ON/OFF" and Les speed", and I might use one or two other buttons for other rotary speaker parameters. I think that if you have B4ii you can also "teach" the software to recognize MIDI foot controller signals from any such device.

Sorry to be pedantic, but I'm pretty sure that, like the M-3 and all other Hammond spinet models, the M-111 has 44, and not 49, keys per manual. I only mention it because I have found that I can live with a 49-key clavier instrument, but not a 44-key one (with the possible exception of the Hammond-44 melodion, simply because there is nothing out there with more than 44 keys...).

Oh, and you might also be delighted to know that the classics from Tom Scholz of Boston were originally performed on a 44-key Hammond M-3: most notably Foreplay/Long Time, Smokin', and the rest of the songs on their self-titled album.

You might want to find a copy of the M-11 service manual if you are even in the slightest way electronically inclined. I am sure you can get an electronic copy on Ebay for something like 5 bucks...

Let me know how this all turns out for you. I am on the Hamtech list as well, under the same moniker, and I wil be watching for your posts as well..

 

I did the exact same thing with my M3 a few months back and I've been tracking with it like crazy. The folks @ http://organforum.com/forums/34/ShowForum.aspx
are really nice and they'Ve been helpful. I modified my AO-29 amp to have an XLR out and I get the signal in my computer through my MOTU 896HD. I got a hold on a Halfmoon switch that I modified a bit and then plugged into my MIDI interface's pedal jack. That way I have basic midi on/off information from the halfmoon switch.

I use the B4II within plogue bidule which is a VI host. To get satisfying result from the leslie simulation of the B4II I found myself stacking 3 instantiations of it with all identical settings but one is set to Leslie 122, the 2nd is set to Leslie 147 and the third is set to direct out. Combining all of this to taste with a bit of use of Altiverb, I got some pretty convincing results...
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And http://www.dairiki.org/HammondWiki/HammondOrgans is another great source for infos on hooking up a spinet to a mixer/amplifier or computer...