From mlongo@highmarkdesign.com Wed Mar 06 09:44:47 2002
Subject:Re: official New B-3 page..


--- In CloneWheel@y..., Bruce Wahler wrote:

>no attempt has been made to add improvements that the original
>was missing. Two that I could think of are 1) a multiple set
>(122, 147, 9-pin, 11-pin) of Leslie jacks, like many of the
>aftermarket preamps have, to allow the owner to re-use Leslies
>that he/she already has; a foot switch for the Leslie, or at
>least, a jack to allow the user to add her/his own foot pedal.

Great points.

This organ is aimed directly at the institutional (read:
churches) market, which is indeed willing to spend in the $20K+ range
for a new organ. It is intended to be placed in permenant
installations with more or less permenatly wired outputs. In that
market, portability isn't needed, and versatile configuration options
for different Leslies and amps aren't very important.

It seems obvious that this organ is not designed for the working
musician. It's not priced for musicians, it isn't designed to be
portable, it isn't designed for flexible configuration with various
Leslies, and isn't intended to serve as a MIDI master controller. As
Bruce points out, Hammon-Suzuki hasn't incorporated any of the modern
features that would make it very useful to a working musician. I'm
sure Hammond-Suzuki will be happy if a few musicians buy it, but that
isn't their target market.

I expect that Hammond-Suzuki looks at it as a follow-on to the XB-
3, which was sold almost exclusively to institutions along with other
members of their high priced organ line. In spite of endorsement
deals with high-profile organ players like Joey D (he also endorsed
the XB-3) and Jimmy McGriff, Hammond-Suzuki has never payed much
attention to the needs of the the working players with this type of
organ.

It will be very interesting indeed to see if Hammond-Suzuki
eventually puts out an organ for the gigger (likely a single manual)
that incorporates the tone and keyboard technologies developed for
the "New B3".

Mark Longo