drawbars in a organ

[sam]

I know it may sound a stupid question but can someone explain me well what are drawbars for??? I'm looking forward to have my first one but I don't know what are drawbars for!!!!!! thanks SAM

[Shreddy]

I dont know either but my guess is they're volume controlls for the various "tones" on the organ.

[Drusillus]

You can almost think of them as a sort of EQ for the tone of the organ. If only the low bars are pulled all the way out, then you'll get a low deep sounding tone, if only the high ones are pulled out, the sound will be very thin.

I think they actually represent the pipes on an old pipe organ. If you look at drawbars they're actually identified in feet, as in 8', 16', etc. (can't remeber the actual numbers). The lowest bars representing the longest pipes. Some old analog synths measure their tuning in feet too, it's so quaint :)

BTW, here's a text file I found on my computer with some drawbar settings to try out:

Tony Palermo's Soap Opera 704 0080 84 C3 Vibrato. Fast Leslie
Gospel Style 888 0000 08
Blues Style 885 3245 88
Jimmy Smith 888 0000 00 3rd Percussion, C3 Vibrato
Joey De Francesco 888 4000 80
838 0000 00 C3 Vibrato
Booker T. "Green Onions" 888 8000 00 (1st chorus) No Leslie!
888 8000 08 (2nd chorus) 2nd Percussion, No Leslie.
Steve Winwood 848 8484 48
888 8888 88 ("pulling out all the stops")
Tom Coster 888 8000 00
Keith Emerson 888 0000 00
Brian Auger 888 1100 00
Matthew Fisher "Whiter Shade" 688 6000 00 2nd Percussion-soft, short decay
Jon Lord (Deep Purple) 888 0000 00 2nd Percussion
Rod Argent (Zombies/Argent) 880 0000 00
Mark Longo's Favorites 888 0000 00 Using any of these other settings:
888 8000 00 * no chorus/vibrato, no percussion (unadorned)
888 8888 88 * 3rd percussion soft/fast attack
008 6000 00 * C-3 chorus, 3rd percussion soft/fast attack
800 0000 08 * C-3 chorus
838 0000 00

[Drusillus]

Found a more thorough explaination:

http://theatreorgans.com/grounds/docs/history.html