From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Fri Apr 25 10:38:43 2003
Subject:Re: Should i buy an old bx3/A100 chops

Hi Brian,

>I have the opportunity to buy an old BX3; i was lucky enought to speak to
>john medeski once and he recommended it above the new one, i think, b/c it's
>all analog.

The original BX-3 is a fine instrument, and many people still like them better than the current crop of clones. However, there are a few things to consider before owning one. I own the new BX3 (without the hyphen), and I almost bought the old one in 1996 from Caruso Music in CT. Here's my take:

- The old BX-3 (with the hyphen?) was a fantastic achievement for its day, but there are certain points of it that don't meet 2003 organ standards. For one thing, the vibrato chorus is a pretty far cry from that of the Hammond scanner vibrato; for another, it has 96 oscillators, rather than 91, so the foldback points are a bit off; the Leslie simulator won't fool anyone into thinking it's a mic'ed Leslie; and finally, the percussion is a bit artificial sounding. All of these issues and more have been addressed by the newer generation of clones. It's not that the old BX doesn't sound good -- it just doesn't sound as close to a real B-3 as most of the newer clones do.

- Many of the BX-3's that are still around are in need of some TLC. The reason that I didn't buy the Caruso BX is because it powered up with about a dozen problems in the store: buttons that wouldn't work, missing notes from the lower manual, etc. I waited around for an hour or so while they tried to "fix it," and eventually left with a good deal on a Voce V3 (which eventually led to the formation of the Voce Support Group, the forerunner of this list). During the wait, I got a chance to look inside the BX, and noticed that a lot of the electrolytic capacitors were in bad shape -- most had visible corrosion, and some of them had actually deteriorated and fallen off! I've heard of other BX/CX owners who had similar problems with failing switches and such, and I wonder if it might be a common problem. If you buy an old BX, be prepared to spend money revamping it; if not immediately, certainly within a couple of years. Remember, it's probably at least 20 years old.

- Parts for the old BX are sometimes difficult to come by these days. The original IC set in the BX/CX has been out of production for many years. There is a company called Parastream Technologies who has re-released some of the rarest components, but like owning a classic auto, be prepared to either do a bit of the work yourself, or pay well to have the work done for you. Again, age is working against you.

- The old BX is MIDI-less. There are (were?) MIDI retrofit kits for it, but these were one-way, notes-only products without velocity sensing. You cannot easily use the BX to control other MIDI gear. It also has only a few presets, and these are not user-programmable.

If none of this bothers you, and the price is right, then perhaps the old BX is exactly what you're looking for.

Regards,

-BW
--
Bruce Wahler
Ashby Solutions™ http://music.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com