Comparing Jiggery Pokery Combo Organs (Compact, Continental, 310, B3, X-705, Ch Supernova)

[challism]

These are all on sale for MM and I'm having a hard time deciding. I don't think I need to buy them all (seems like way too many organs). Obviously, I can try them and I will do that before making my decision. I am feeling a little overwhelmed, though. I highly value the RT community's opinion, so please let me know what you think of these different JP organs?

Based on the shop pages, I am leaning toward 310, B3 and X-705.

Thanks in advance.

JP.JPG (44.64 KiB) Viewed 2591 times

[motuscott]

Bet you can't eat just one.
I have most of them. JP's work is immaculate.

[Synthopathe]

I have the 310 and it's excellent. I'm thinking of getting another and I'm most drawn to the X705 but that probably has the most overlap in terms of sound with the 310 so maybe the B3? Tricky decisions

[rootwheel]

These are all on sale for MM and I'm having a hard time deciding. I don't think I need to buy them all (seems like way too many organs). Obviously, I can try them and I will do that before making my decision. I am feeling a little overwhelmed, though. I highly value the RT community's opinion, so please let me know what you think of these different JP organs?

Based on the shop pages, I am leaning toward 310, B3 and X-705.

Thanks in advance.
JP.JPG

Have you got the Selig B3-Leslie? If not I would get that first, it's still an amazing organ - I prefer that to Jiggery-Pokery Retro Organs but I've not tried the JP REs so they might sound better than the ReFill

[challism]

Bet you can't eat just one.
I have most of them. JP's work is immaculate.

Yes, the collector in me wants to buy them all. I've already got Revival and I'm really trying to limit this JP organ purchase to 2 or 3. Or 6.
I'm planning to buy JPS Harmonic Synth & Transcendent, as well. So I'm really trying to keep the organ purchases down to 2 or 4. Or 6.

These are all on sale for MM and I'm having a hard time deciding. I don't think I need to buy them all (seems like way too many organs). Obviously, I can try them and I will do that before making my decision. I am feeling a little overwhelmed, though. I highly value the RT community's opinion, so please let me know what you think of these different JP organs?

Based on the shop pages, I am leaning toward 310, B3 and X-705.

Thanks in advance.
JP.JPG

Have you got the Selig B3-Leslie? If not I would get that first, it's still an amazing organ - I prefer that to Jiggery-Pokery Retro Organs but I've not tried the JP REs so they might sound better than the ReFill

No, I don't have Selig B3. I've heard it is great. I think I would prefer to have REs. They are just more fun than Combi Version1s. Combi Version2s on the other hand!

[Noises]

I just bought the Combo 310. I found it really inspired me when I trialled it.

[orthodox]

If you're gonna compare a Jiggery Pokery synth, you compare it to every other synth ever made... that wasn't made by Jiggery Pokery.

[MrFigg]

Continental and Compact. They’re the ones to get in my opinion. Replaced the Martinic plugins for me.
There’s better B3s and the other ones are a just ok.Selig refill also has you covered for a Leslie which in my opinion sounds better than Psyclone.

[crimsonwarlock]

I have Compact and B3 as those were the two specific organ sounds I want to have. I have been tempted by X-705 for the strings, but I have Gforce ReStrings, so the Eminent strings are covered for me already.

[challism]

Just saw this (picture below) in the description of Compact and now it's a must have (HUGE Floyd fan here). I think I'm going to buy Selig's refill, if I can find it - not on his website or in the shop (?). That would be good for the B3 and Leslie. And then I'll either get teh X-705 or the 310.. not quite sure. But I think Compact and B3 are also the sounds I'm looking for.

Also, at <60MB, it takes up a pretty small footprint on the old HDD.

compact.JPG (76.99 KiB) Viewed 2401 times

[eusti]

Just saw this (picture below) in the description of Compact and now it's a must have (HUGE Floyd fan here). I think I'm going to buy Selig's refill, if I can find it - not on his website or in the shop (?). That would be good for the B3 and Leslie. And then I'll either get teh X-705 or the 310.. not quite sure. But I think Compact and B3 are also the sounds I'm looking for.

Also, at <60MB, it takes up a pretty small footprint on the old HDD.
compact.JPG

Not sure where you could get it these days either... The older links are dead... Any pointers @selig?

D.

[MrFigg]

Just saw this (picture below) in the description of Compact and now it's a must have (HUGE Floyd fan here). I think I'm going to buy Selig's refill, if I can find it - not on his website or in the shop (?). That would be good for the B3 and Leslie. And then I'll either get teh X-705 or the 310.. not quite sure. But I think Compact and B3 are also the sounds I'm looking for.

Also, at <60MB, it takes up a pretty small footprint on the old HDD.
compact.JPG

Not sure where you could get it these days either... The older links are dead... Any pointers @selig?

D.

https://edited4tv.sellfy.store/p/gt21/

[eusti]

https://edited4tv.sellfy.store/p/gt21/

Great. Thank you!

D.

[motuscott]

OK if I had to choose,
which I don't
Continental is pretty cool,
It's cos I'm old. It just just brings back the time when I coulda given you young whipper snapperz a run for your money.
Those times is dead. Now i'm just spittin' out advice no one wants to know
But I find it very relaxin'

Like me on FaceButt

[AnotherMathias]

My biggest problem with the JP combo organs is that the oscillators don't behave like a real divide-down set of oscillators usually found in combo organs.
In most cases those oscillators are one for each note of the very top octave (so 12), and for every octave below that it's just those same oscillators with a divide-down circuit, much like the sub oscillators on a Roland Juno or Korg Polysix.
And for the registers usually found on these organs (16, 8, 4, etc) it's the same deal - it's just playing those same 12 oscillators, divided down.

What this means for the sound is that every single note (say C) on every octave is in absolute phase lock with one another. The same goes for every register setting. So when you hold, say, a C3, then add a repeated C4, those two notes will always sound the same added together, with no phase variation for each note press, and certainly no pitch drift.

This gives a combo organ a solid, flat, lean sound that can't be replicated with sampling or regular oscillators.

It's been a while since I trialled the JP organs, so there's a risk that I'm misremembering how they sound.

[selig]

Not sure where you could get it these days either... The older links are dead... Any pointers @selig?

Stay tuned…

[challism]

Not sure where you could get it these days either... The older links are dead... Any pointers @selig?

Stay tuned…

Oh sick!

My biggest problem with the JP combo organs is that the oscillators don't behave like a real divide-down set of oscillators usually found in combo organs.
In most cases those oscillators are one for each note of the very top octave (so 12), and for every octave below that it's just those same oscillators with a divide-down circuit, much like the sub oscillators on a Roland Juno or Korg Polysix.
And for the registers usually found on these organs (16, 8, 4, etc) it's the same deal - it's just playing those same 12 oscillators, divided down.

What this means for the sound is that every single note (say C) on every octave is in absolute phase lock with one another. The same goes for every register setting. So when you hold, say, a C3, then add a repeated C4, those two notes will always sound the same added together, with no phase variation for each note press, and certainly no pitch drift.

This gives a combo organ a solid, flat, lean sound that can't be replicated with sampling or regular oscillators.

It's been a while since I trialled the JP organs, so there's a risk that I'm misremembering how they sound.

Interesting. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

[selig]

My biggest problem with the JP combo organs is that the oscillators don't behave like a real divide-down set of oscillators usually found in combo organs…
This gives a combo organ a solid, flat, lean sound that can't be replicated with sampling or regular oscillators. '

Interesting. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

You can’t effectively recreate this quality with samples or standard oscillators, you need to ‘code’ the oscillators specifically to act this way. The easiest way would be to use 12 oscillators and octave dividers, just like with the originals.
Each of these organs has it’s own special quirks. With the B3 it’s the odd octave “foldback” and level drop for the lowest octave, and the fact that playing more notes causes a slight volume sag, the way the level changes for each drawbar across the 5 octave keyboard, etc (yes, Selig B3 mimics all of this).

[challism]

Interesting. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

You can’t effectively recreate this quality with samples or standard oscillators, you need to ‘code’ the oscillators specifically to act this way. The easiest way would be to use 12 oscillators and octave dividers, just like with the originals.
Each of these organs has it’s own special quirks. With the B3 it’s the odd octave “foldback” and level drop for the lowest octave, and the fact that playing more notes causes a slight volume sag, the way the level changes for each drawbar across the 5 octave keyboard, etc (yes, Selig B3 mimics all of this).

Well.... DOUBLE SICK, THEN!

[MrFigg]

Cool. Selig Combi 1 refill is what I use mostly even despite having 5 or 6 B3 plugins. Combi 2 version? As said above…sick. Or even double sick.

[challism]

Giles, I'm curious why you don't build this into an RE? I'd much rather have an RE than a refill. Plus, you could probably charge more for it, sell more licenses, not have to worry about pirating, etc.

But it looks amazing as a Combi2. That's beautiful! It would actually be fun to open it up and see how you built it. Nevermind... keep it as a refill, please!

[Neo]

SOLD.

1978 Elka X705 Space Organ.jpg (446.79 KiB) Viewed 2144 times

[JiggeryPokery]

My biggest problem with the JP combo organs is that the oscillators don't behave like a real divide-down set of oscillators usually found in combo organs.
In most cases those oscillators are one for each note of the very top octave (so 12), and for every octave below that it's just those same oscillators with a divide-down circuit, much like the sub oscillators on a Roland Juno or Korg Polysix.
And for the registers usually found on these organs (16, 8, 4, etc) it's the same deal - it's just playing those same 12 oscillators, divided down.

What this means for the sound is that every single note (say C) on every octave is in absolute phase lock with one another. The same goes for every register setting. So when you hold, say, a C3, then add a repeated C4, those two notes will always sound the same added together, with no phase variation for each note press, and certainly no pitch drift.

This gives a combo organ a solid, flat, lean sound that can't be replicated with sampling or regular oscillators.

Yes, you're spot on.

And indeed it's not possible to replicate that sync-lock aspect of divide-down oscillators with samples, and honestly the price reflects this: they predate Arturia's VSTs, but they're not really competing with those (not everyone who might want a classic Combo of that sort could justify the cost of the Arturias, just for a track or two, and IMHO Arturia's GUIs are damn wierd to use and I'm not convinced they even sound any better even if they are correctly applying divide-down. That's dangerously objective as of course I'll defend my own stuff, but Arturia often seem to use their hyper-realistic GUI's to sell their product being "authentic", rather than the actual sound). The Combo range is simply a useful way for a majority of users to easily get those lovely old sounds into Reason without having to spend a fortune.

What I would note however is that in practice the only place I've ever actively noticed phasing in any of the JPS Combo range is in certain note combinations when using the Combo Continental (and its ReFill version before that). In terms of phasing issues I have a hunch that the tones of the Compact are just a little more varied so that phasing is less likely to be noticable. Even with the Conti, most people won't notice a little phasing in a bigger mix but again it depends on the exact note combinations as to how noticeable it is, when it ever occurs at all. People can listen and decide for themselves what limitations they're willing to pay for.

Interestingly, the Continental is not only the Combo RE I ended up using the least, even as much as I love the tone, and intriguingly it was the one with the fewest sales as an RE last I actively totalled up figures for them, some years ago now. The Farfisa is probably just a little more versatile and, with its tabs rather than drawbars, just a little bit more direct to dial in that 60s tranny tone? I do love the Farfisa, and frankly, for the price, I feel it sounds more authentic and lively than Arturia's, divide-down or not. FWIW, Arturia's Continental has issues, or at least it did compared against the C100 I used: their foldback, or octave positioning, was out of kilter on at least one the manuals. (I do have their organs as part of my V Collection license, but I've genuinely never used their organs in a track, I honestly prefer mine. I do use their Piano sometimes, though).

[AnotherMathias]

I didn't mean to compare the JP organs to the Arturia offerings, or to any other virtual combo organs, really. While Arturia really has stepped up their game in the emulations in the last couple of years, I still don't think of them as an absolute authority when it comes to authenticity.
I bet that Martinic, with their Elka Panther organ, is likely to have done a good job, but their prices are quite steep.

The only hardware combo organ that I own is an AceTone TOP-8 (AceTone later became Roland).
When I took a stab at sampling it, I sampled each tab separately (16' flute, 8' flute, 8' clarinet, 8' string, 8' trumpet, 4' flute, 4' string) as well as key clicks for on and off, for every third key. Top octave foldback for the 4' tabs is maintained as well.

For each sample (apart from the on/off clicks) I then looped them carefully at 4, 8, and 16 oscillator cycles, making sure that they all start at the same phase, and have the exact same number of samples in the loops.
These layers all play on every keypress, using separate outputs in an NN-XT, mixed in a 14:2 mixer, with mutes for each tab controlled with a combinator.

This assures that when adding up tabs, say a 16' flute, an 8' trumpet, and a 4' string, the combined tone always will sum properly, with no phase offsets, and zero detune beating. Of course, it's a flat digital summing of the tabs, so there are no funky analog nonlinearities, but it sounds quite close to the real thing.
What this DOES NOT do, unfortunately, is maintain the phase between notes from different octaves. But at least it DOES remove any detune beating between octaves.

I think the only way to really do it right is to have 12 always-on raw oscillators with a divide-down algorithm, OR 49 (perhaps 61) separate always-on phase locked raw oscillators. It's ALMOST doable with a big bank of NN-XTs, but the matrix needed to organize all the key presses and tab combinations is probably unrealistic.
Then you'd need to emulate the different tab filter settings, but that could possibly be done using stock devices.

One fun quirk, at least on my AceTone, is that each of the three footages is triggered with a separate key contact underneath each key, They don't all neccesarily activate at the same point of the key travel, and each key is different. This means that if you VERY slowly play a key (using a sound that uses at least one each of 16', 8' and 4'), each register starts playing one by one as you press the key further. Almost like a velocity sensitive arpeggio!

[selig]

One fun quirk, at least on my AceTone, is that each of the three footages is triggered with a separate key contact underneath each key, They don't all neccesarily activate at the same point of the key travel, and each key is different. This means that if you VERY slowly play a key (using a sound that uses at least one each of 16', 8' and 4'), each register starts playing one by one as you press the key further. Almost like a velocity sensitive arpeggio!

I've seen this on other organs too, it is related to how the actuators make contact with each individual bus bar.