Vibrato

Next I will soon add several sound clips of an X66, a B3 and also a Wurlitzer electrostatic organ. This will give you an idea of what different types of vibrato sound like, including a Leslie speaker recorded with microphones in several different placements.

Formerly I used Flash animation for sound clips and other moving displays on these pages. However, Flash is no longer supported or even reommended, and it will not work on cell phones today either. So to produce suitable sound clips, I will soon be making a new web page with sound clips. Meanwhile, if you'd like to hear what the two-phase vibrato of an X66 Hammond sounds like, click here for a page of demo songs on an X66 that is also equipped with MIDI on both of its manuals and also the pedals.

Although these clips primarily demonstrate what MIDI adds to an X66, you can get an idea of what the two-phase vibrato of the X66 is like. However, it is extremely important in order to hear these clips accurately that you play them back in stereo. most modern computers can play stereo, but sometimes they can be set for mono playback. Best advice that I can give you here is to Google search how to set up your computer to play audio in stereo. Likewise, in order to hear these properly, you should have your computer playing through really good speakers or earphones. Playing music through tiny little desktop speakers, or speakers built into some computers, such as laptops and/or monitors will not give good results at all. Playing them through a cell phone is useless, however, if you use the audio output jack on a cellphone and then connect this to either a good stereo or your car's sound system, this should give you pretty good to excellent results.

Another possibility would be to burn a CD of these sound clips and then play that through either a good stereo or a car sound system. It is also possible to connect a computer to a home stereo, or in the case of a laptop, to use your car's sound system for playing music downloaded or streamed from the web.

We hope you have found this exploration of the various types of vibrato interesting and helpful. For the really creative musician, if the equipment is available for his use, then he can obtain even more expressive and individual control over the final musical result if he understands about the different types of vibrato for then he can choose the one that best suits his artistic creativity, and also the type of music he is playing.

For example, if he wants a big, lush-sounding background, a Leslie speaker or a polyphase vibrato will probably be best. Next best is traditional Hammond vibrato on the #3 setting. For the simulation of a vibraharp or other typical melodic percussion instrument, then either a heterodyne vibrato or a stereo tremolo will probably be most appropriate. Now that you know all this stuff, go and enjoy your music!