I don’t use these words but I guess the line between acoustic and organic is simply how realistic you wanna go.
Let’s continue with the analog hi-hat example. For it to sound more “acoustic”, all these steps will help:
- change the decay with each stroke
- change the noise type of the engine with each stroke
- change the velocity with each stroke
- change the attack with each stroke
- change the volume with each stroke
- microtime everything (a bit late, a bit early or anything you fancy)
- swing
Now you can also change the following:
8. change the pitch with each stroke
9. change the reverb amount with each stroke
all these parameters if applied very subtly will make your hi-hat sound more “realistic”/“acoustic”. Now go a bit crazy in the amount of modulation on 2 or 3 parameters (pitch, attack, noise type, reverb) and you’ll switch from the “acoustic” world to the “organic” world.
There are drum machines that do not sound like a real drum at all but feel “organic” because they have all these non-linearities in their sound engine that makes them sound “alive” = “organic”. Most often than not, analog engines will create these non-linearities (even though some of them are digitally controlled so they implement drifting like in the A4 or a “vintage knob” like in some Sequential synths to add a bit more mojo).
Organic can mean acoustic but not necessarily.
Organic certainly means (unpredictable) “movements”, that’s for sure.
But it’s just best to trust our ears.