From ynottnaro@yahoo.com Mon Aug 04 14:13:44 2003
Subject:Re: Electro 2 reviews

Hey Jake, as you know this all subjective. As a guy
who owns 2 Electros, I can concur with a lot of the
statements, such as:
only organ split, no midi into a second sound to play
with a controller.

It would have been nice, but again, the theme of this
keyboard is ELECTRO MECHANICAL KEYBOARDS. Those were
not multi-timbral either.

> out of the six pianos available the negative
comments only found some were usable, either
the clav or the wurly or the rhodes was great and
the others poor, the electric and acoustic grands not
making the grade; several comments about uneven tone
quality range and volume falling off at some point
from high to low, and too bright on top.<

Ok...as to these points, make sure the reviews you are
reading are about v2.0. I tried the Electro when it
first came out and hated it....sent it back after 2
hours of playing it. V2.0 was a total turnaround and
a head turner for me. I still agree that the acoustic
pianos suck...but as far as I'm concerned, the 2
keyboard sounds that EVERY keyboardist needs are piano
and organ, and those are the 2 that seem to be hardest
for anyone to do (organ and piano sounds on just about
every keyboard are inferior to their ancestors).
Anyway, yes, the acoustic pianos here stink, but the
organ simulation is phenomenal, simply phenomenal.
The electric grand sounds SO MUCH BETTER when
triggered from another keyboard, and this is because
of the velocity issue. If Clavia does some velocity
work in their new upgrade, this could be cool. If
not, use another keyboard to trigger the electric
grand. And for that matter, the rhodes and wurli
sound better triggered elsewhere as well, but they
sound pretty decent when played from the Electro
itself. As for uneven tonal quality....apparently
none of these "reviewers" have played the real
instruments. I have owned 4 Rhodes in 20 years, and
not only were they all different from each other, but
they were inconsistent top to bottom on their own
keyboards...even after being serviced by the top
Rhodes guy in Chicago. My wurli is the same way,
although it's a bit more consistent than my Rhodes'
were. And on the real things, the volumes are
definitely lower at both ends of the keyboard than the
middle. Part of this was design: harsh tonalities due
to proximity of tines to pickups and their shorter or
longer lengths, much like a piano and string lengths.
So I must say, while I use my Motif for these sounds
(mainly for ease of use) I wouldn't hesitate to use
the Electro versions triggered from my A90 or Motif8.
I have no quibbles with the EPs and Clav on the
Electro, nor the Electric Grand. But they do need to
up the ante in the piano department, but I suspect the
amount of memory and velocity processing will prohibit
a really good piano from being a reality on the
Electro. As for too bright on top???? I don't think
so. Especially in the organ mode; that's only one of
the reasons I like it better than the CX3, because of
the way it's NOT shrill in the upper registers.

> There were also some quality control issues, the
leslie effect getting stuck on fast, key action didn't
feel right for instrument selection, too loose and
moveable etc. I wonder if Clavia has a quality
control problem?<

Ok, here are my thoughts on this. I had to get 3
Electros shipped to me to get a good one, at least one
I was 100% happy with. The first sounded and played
great, but had something rolling around inside.
Rather than take it apart, Sweetwater said they'd ship
me another one, and just send this one back when my
new one arrived. The second one had a bend in the
chassis, underneath the keyboard, a really good crimp.
I suspect this was because of Clavia's packaging.
Their box looks large, and most keyboard boxes of
course are heavy. I think the shippers mishandle
these boxes anticipating heavier packages, and are
surprised when the overexert themselves to pick up
this 20lb box that looks like it should weigh at least
45lbs. I think the packaging of the NordElectro needs
to be addressed. As for the keyboard quality and feel
you mention, the Electro's keyboard is a fine
controller....for HAMMOND emulation. The feel of the
keyboard when applied to the other sounds doesn't
appeal to me, but this issue is addressed in my
earlier paragraph, under the VELOCITY issue. But as
to the construction of the Electro keyboard, I think
it's great. Now go play a CX3 and wiggle any of those
keys left-to-right. There is a LOT of play in there,
a serious flaw as far as I'm concerned; but the
Electro's keys are tight, and have very little, if
any, play in that regard. Sorry, but I think their
keyboard is well constructed. If they made, say, an
Electro "PRO" (something with weighted keys) I would
actually buy one. I've never had a problem with the
stuck leslie speed, or some of the other things I've
heard about, but every keyboard, and computer-based
product for that matter, has "bug" issues to deal with
when first thrust into the marketplace. One of the
things that has totally impressed me about Clavia is
the way they have addressed those issues. They have
swiftly dealt with just about everyone on this list
who had problems with their keyboards, in many cases,
just sending them a whole new unit. They, or the
retailer, dealt with me in the same fashion. So I
have NO QUALMS about telling you not to worry about
those things happening to you....if they do, I'm
confident you will be dealt with in a fashion you deem
satisfactory.

> Generally on a good piece of gear, review comments
are similar and mostly positive; negatives relate to
nit-picking, not sound or hardware quality - of course
one person always hates whatever it is. Seems like the
agreement was that Electro's a good all-purpose single

keyboard, not an all-good-sound-quality single
keyboard.<

I disagree here too. I love going to Harmony Central
and looking at reviews of gear I'm interested in. FX
pedals for instance: I LOVE going there and trying to
wade through everyone's ideas of what's right and
what's wrong with these items. 8 guys will say it's
great, or it's pretty good but the construction is
topnotch even if they're not crazy about the sound,
then the next 3 will be ramblings about how poorly
this box is made. You need to be the judge. If I had
a dollar for every time I went the store to buy or
examine a piece of gear based on a glowing "review" of
an instrument, especially by "real" critics in
Keyboard Magazine ("This gets our KEYBUY award!"),
I think I could just about afford to buy YOU an
Electro. The first Electro was being touted as
expensive but really dynamite, and I hated it. But v2
sold me. But I examined and played and considered the
instrument, I didn't rely on someone else's
"objective" opinion.

> I don't feel as positive about buying an Electro
after a weekend of playing, talking with other
musicians, and looking for more info on the web -
even downloaded the pdf manual and looked through it,
seems easy. It needs a separate reverb unit, and I'd
still need to carry another sound module to play with
a keyboard controller to get two keyboard sounds.
Also, listening to the mp-3's before finding out no
reverb, they seem 'sweetened' up to sound good in
headphones or computer speakers.<

But have YOU PLAYED an Electro? The manual is very
easy...there aren't any menus to page through on the
Electro, everything has its own dedicated knob (or
shares ONE duty with another knob). Yes, if you WANT
a reverb, you'll need to get one. Remember, the
instruments modeled didn't have reverb either; that's
the point. The fact that they DID give you chorus,
phaser, flanger, wah and leslie is pure bonus. I
don't know about the MP3s...Ive never even bothered
listening to them. It wouldn't make a different
anyway...to me, an instrument purchase is based on 3
things only: 1, how it sounds when I play it; 2, how
it makes me play (does it inspire me? THEN it's a
purchase....if not, close your wallet and wait for the
next new toy to come out); 3, how reliable is it?
None of those questions can be answered by an MP3. As
for talking to other musicians, the thing that kills
me is all my guitar snob friends (you know the ones:
has to be the "right" year guitar, the "right" speaker
in the amp....and as for your keyboard sounds, "leave
that noisemaker at home...just bring the Hammond")
have absolutely flipped out over the Electro. They
hate the little red keyboard visually; but EVERY
SINGLE ONE OF THEM has come back and said "Holy Sh$t,
that thing sounds AMAZING." And I'm the guy who's
been schlepping a REAL Hammond around with leslies for
a long time. And if not a real Hammond, then either a
CX3 (old and new...and those LOOKED right to them), a
VK7, or a Voce V5. So it's not like I just all of a
sudden showed up with this groovy retro tone. No,
looks were deceiving, but the tone made believers out
of every one of them. Bottom line is, if you like the
way it sounds, like the way it makes you play, THATS
why you should or shouldn't buy it. And a reverb can
be had for $100 and up, depending on how critical you
are. But if you're playing your Electro through, say,
a Roland KC500, then you certainly don't need a big
$$$ Lexicon. And really, a decent reverb can be had
in a pedal version (Boss) or a used SPX90 for around
$150.

> The organ isn't better than my V5; simulation isn't
better due to lack of tweakability (plus has
glassy/shimmer effect like Dynacord).<

I'm a longtime V5 user, and yes, it IS better than the
v5. My V5 had the percussion mod which improved it a
lot, but the Electro's percussion sounds much better.
The Chorus/Vib on the V5 is useless. The C3 on the
Electro is better than anyone else's...IMO. What
tweakability was there on the v5???? Leakage? Yecch!
There is a lot more tweakability on the Electro, not
nearly as much as what's on the CX3, but again, when
you bought a Hammond or a Rhodes or a Wurli or a Clav,
how much tweakability was there on those instruments?
The Hammond was the most tweakable of all, and all of
those tweaks are pretty readily available on the
Electro (some more than others). But unlike the CX3,
the Electro is more like the Hammond in that the organ
you bought is the one you have; the CX3 does have a
few organs inside that box. That may or may not
appeal to you. But in relation to the V5, there is no
comparison, and I am a guy who swore by the V5 for a
long time; in fact, I got Electro #2 by trading my V5
and SpinII for it. Oh yeah, the V5 has no leslie, the
Electro does. And I'm not sure what the glassy
shimmer effect you refer to is: maybe it's the better
chorus that the Electro has compared to the V5; maybe
it's in the leslie sim that the Electro has and the V5
doesn't. I don't know.

> I still want the Clav (autowah?), Wurly, Rhodes, and
great acoustic piano Electro promises - maybe another
manufacturer - a module? I'm disappointed, didn't
expect to find any negatives(except for that 'one
guy'). If Electro got all high marks, I was going to
buy today :-( fooey!<

Jake...what we are talking about here is SO
SUBJECTIVE, you're never going to get 10 guys to agree
on it. And honestly, shopping for equipment in the
fashion you're describing is like basing your ideas on
sex from watching porno: the presentation is skewed to
the "director's" own agenda. I know this email I'm
typing might seem a little harsh on you, or critical,
or that I'm pushing the Electro. Honestly, that is
not my intention. My intention is to alert you to the
fact that the only way you can buy gear knowledgeably
is to get your OWN hands on it, and wrap your own EARS
around it. I'm a guy who happens to be very happy
with the Electro (at least as far as the organ sim is
concerned); I'm also a guy who owns 2 Hammonds, owned
4 Rhodes, 2 Wurlitzers (still have one), 2 Clavs
(still have one) and an Electric Grand (never even set
that one up...owner couldn't bear to throw it away
even though it was a cosmetic junkyard dog, and for me
it's just not a reasonable keyboard to own anymore;
but I did play and record with that keyboard in its
heyday); I know what those instruments were supposed
to feel like, sound like and play like. But who cares?
You need to play it for yourself. It makes no
difference to me whether you buy an Electro or not,
but I'd feel bad if you missed an opportunity to find
a keyboard that really got you off just because you
read some crap in a magazine or some websites. I'd
feel just as bad if you BOUGHT a keyboard that you
hated for those very same reasons.

If you can't find one in a store, then order one from
an online retailer (like Sweetwater) who has a VERY
LIBERAL return policy. I'd recommend BT Productions
based on all the great things said about him here, but
I have no idea of his return policy; but a huge store
like Sweetwater can afford to sell you an Electro and
have it come back to them if for no other reason than
you hated the color than a smaller business can.
(Maybe Tony at BT won't even care about that!)

Bottom line, go play it yourself dude! And then let
us know what you ended up doing!

"Think For Yourself"....(G.Harrison, R.I.P.)
GOOD LUCK!
T

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com