From bt1955@aol.com Tue Jun 25 11:21:34 2002
Subject:Re: Nord Electro impressions

In a message dated 6/25/2002 9:17:57 AM Central Standard Time, sevush@rcn.com
writes:

> Stopped at my Guitar Center (Boston) and they had an Electro 73 setup. I've
> been wanting to play this puppy for a while, so I spent some time with it.
>
> As much as I wanted to love it, alas the chemistry was not there. After
> figuring out how to jump banks and presets, I found it very easy to "edit"
> sounds - you essentially toggle on/off sections of FX.
>
> I was very surprised that the organ sounds did not give me the warm & fuzzy
> feeling I get from my CX3. Partly the keyboard, partly the sound, it just
> didn't "gush"
> The other sounds were good, but that's the problem - they were just good,
> not great.
> The drawbars are a little odd, but easy to use. They respond quickly and
> pressing several at once works, allowing you to pull "all stops out"
> quickly.
>
> I will stop by again, try headphones and play some more with it. For now,
> my
> credit cards are safe.
>

Most musicians go and try gear at the local music mega mall and come away not
impressed. a large part of that dissapointment is the way the stores feature
their product. Most of them run the keyboards thru very revealling monitors
that are made for reproduction, not production. Go back and play that electro
thru a fender bassman reissue or something of that quality, its like nite and
day. The piano's sound killer. If you take a real Hammond and run its preamp
into a monitor or even a guitar amp, you will see how much keyclick is
gushing out, even when the bussbars have manual lube on them.

I took the Nord, set it on top of a 64 B-3 that sounds really good. I tapped
the output thru the non Vibrato section of the B-3 preamp. I set the volume
at the same as the real B volume, and ran thru a standard 122. I wanted to
see how close it was to the real thing. I had the same preamp and Leslie for
both so I had an apples to apples comparison as far as a sound source is
concerned. Its amazing how close the Nord is to the real thing. The keyclick
was actually a shade less than the real thing and the chorus was extremely
close. The B-3 preamp is a part of the Hammond sound.

I invited a very good black Hammond player from the city that everyone knows,
and has sat in with all the top Hammond players. I brought him over, sat him
down, and asked him to tell me what he heard. I had to set the drawbars for
him because, he is blind, and has been since birth. he is 50 yrs old, and
plays gospel like no ones business. The only thing he has is his ears. He was
astounded how good the Nord sounded. Yes, he did find minor flaws in the
instrument that can be corrected, but overall it sounded great.

Bottom line, you need better than monitors or inferior amps to really get a
feel for how good a clone sounds, they are a lot closer then one might think.

Tony

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]