10 Drawbars
Hammond XK-2 Quick Features Guide
- SUB - - FOUNDATION - - BRILLIANCE -
DRAWBARS
Your Hammond XK-2 Drawbar Keyboard recreates the sounds of Hammond Harmonic Drawbars. Therefore, before
explaining the features pertaining to Drawbars a few words of explanation about the Drawbars themselves are in order.
Drawbars, often called Tonebars, are the heart and the basis of the renowned Hammond Sound and have been used since the
first Hammond Organ Model A introduced in 1935. There are approximately 253,000,000 possible sound combinations that
can be produced by these Drawbars. Each Drawbar consists of sine waves of different pitches (which means tone depth).
The illustration below shows how each Drawbar relates to the manual when middle "C" is pressed.
Each Drawbar is marked with a number followed by a footage mark. For example, the first white Drawbar is marked "8'.”
This is pipe organ terminology indicating that the pipe used to produce the lowest note on the keyboard on a pipe organ is
actually eight feet long. The numbers from "1" to "8" on each Drawbar represent degrees of loudness - number 1 being the
softest, and number 8 being the loudest.
Drawbars are divided into 3 groups of sound as well as 3 groups of color. We will first look at the 3 sound groups.
Sound Groups
You may think of these sound groups in terms of the three levels - The Sub being the deep pitches, the Foundation being the
mid range of pitches and the Brilliance being the high pitches.
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