Kurzweil Forte SE - Drawbars; KB3 Mode Buttons

KB3 Programs
Drawbars
D-2
Drawbars
e drawbars on a tone wheel organ emulate pipes of dierent lengths on a pipe organ. In
either case, they are controlled by changing the positions of a number of “stops”. As the
organist pulls out or pushes in these stops, he adds or reduces harmonics. Whether it’s pipes
or drawbars, though, the stops work like this: pull one out to add more of an overtone; push
it in to reduce the volume of the overtone.
e stops on the most popular tone wheel organs are: 16’, 5⅓’, 8’, 4’, 2⅔’, 2’, 1’, 1⅓’.
and 1’. Note that they are still measured in feet, a carryover from pipe organ days. e 16’
and 5⅓’ stops are considered the subharmonic group, while the third stop, 8’, produces the
fundamental of a tone, and stops 4-9 produce harmonics above the fundamental. By making
use of dierent combinations of these harmonics, a rich sort of additive synthesis is possible.
Best of all, you can make radical changes to the tone dynamically as you play.
e nine sliders of the Forte SE are set to control the drawbars. Pulling the slider towards
the keyboard increases the amount of the drawbar that is heard.
KB3 Mode Buttons
e nine buttons above the sliders on the Forte SE have special capabilities in KB3 Mode.
e functions are labeled in blue below the buttons. ese are:
Brake
Brake starts and stops the rotary speaker eect. is eect is not immediate, instead the
rotary speaker eect gradually slows down and speads up, in a similar way that a real rotary
speaker reacts.
Chorus/Vibrato
On/Off
is parameter turns the chorus or vibrato eect on and o.
Chor/Vib
is parameter determines which modulation eect is used. e choice is Vibrato or
Chorus.
Chorus/Vibrato Depth
is parameter determines how much of the eect is applied to the KB3 sounds. ere are
two levels of both Chorus and Vibrato available, depending on the setting for the Chor/Vib
button.