From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Tue May 28 20:55:26 2002
Subject:Re: New BX-3 on eBay

Ken,

>Why did Korg release a dual-manual organ with no bass pedal facilities??
>Seems like something's missing.

While it's true that some perspective BX-3 owners need the pedals, and thus view the Korg organ in a lesser light, the pedal poll I conducted a few months ago indicated that about 75% of clone users don't use pedals at all. Even if we assume that some of the non-users do so because of poor available choices, I still believe that at least half of all clone players don't need the pedals. This also seems to be borne out by the fact that, while a good deal of used Hammonds sell without pedalboards, the aftermarket pedalboard industry is very small. The pedal tones of a Hammond B-3 were never considered ideal, and many players used offboard gear to improve the sound.

Korg elected to leave out the pedal tones, in order to concentrate on other areas. I think the CX-3 does a terrific job of mimicking the crosstalk and overtone aspects of a Hammond organ. While some might consider such items "icing on the cake," they help to complete the illusion of the clone, and differentiate the BX-3/CX-3 from their competition. Correct modeling of the crosstalk is not an easy prospect: The individual TG's in a B-3 don't pick up interference from all 91 tones; rather, they only receive appreciable crosstalk from other TG's that are very close by, due to the nature of magnetic coupling. An accurate model must take this into account, and Korg has done a very nice job of the feature.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group and HiNote moderator
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com