From ynottnaro@yahoo.com Sat Sep 27 09:40:35 2003
Subject:Re: Finally tried the Electro ...

Hey Bruce....

Your insights are pretty dead on, as usual! The
ergonomics of the Electro do suck, period. What I
cant understand is WHY they put all the stuff in the
center of the keyboard. All their other keyboards
have all controls on the left side (where they should
be) so it couldn't have been a "template" thing. And
having seen inside it, there is no reason I can see
why the controls couldn't have been put on the left.

Now, as to particulars: The keyclick issue is
adjustable, unfortunately globally as opposed to
individual presets. But without the manual, you'll
never figure out how (shift, 8 twice then you have
adjustments from 1-9). I actually do like the keyclick
of the Korg a little better.

The drawbuttons are pretty ....um....well, they aint
drawbars, but I found myself adjusting rather quickly
to it, and after a few gigs, actually found myself
adjusting the drawbuttons almost as often as I do on
the Hammond. But YMMV without a doubt. (Playing
nothing but an old A100 for the last few weeks
recording reminded me I'm a bit more likely to tweak
with bars though.)

The chorus/vib is a little heavy, but I think they're
heavy on all the clones...in fact, I tend to think
it's a little heavy even on the Hammond itself; I only
use it on certain settings (usually upper harmonics
with very little fundamental if any). I find it
conflicts with the leslie activity, and I'd rather
listen to the leslie; if I used a Winwood/Booker
leslie with no slow rotor, it'd probably be a
different story.

As for EQ, you do realize that the right hand
bass/treble/output knobs are not global right? I tend
to set all my presets with bass at full on and trble
at like 2:00/3:00, and the distortion at about 8 or
9:00. Anything higher than that and the distortion is
useless for sure. (And my master volume is always full
on.)

As for the leslie, it seems pretty good to me, a
leslie with nice tight belts.

I was not all that crazy about any of the EP sounds
until I tried another controller, but while in LA I
heard Jeff Babcock (his band Shogun Warriors is truly
excellent), and his rig is an Electro and a Nord Lead
2. And man, he used the Electro primarily as a
Rhodes, and it was SPANKIN. He preferred the
Corea/Herbie type sound. I used the Electro in the
studio for one song, and I had more of fuller Rhodes
(more bandwith) with chorus (not quite as DX7-ish as
DeYoung's, but definitely on the pretty side) and we
all thought it was great, including the engineer. And
of course, a lot depends on which Rhodes' you have in
there. But I digress: after hearing Jeff play it
primarily as an EP, I think you can get some
expressiveness out of it, but you definitely get MORE
dynamic range with another controller.

The clav is great, no doubt about it. But now I can
really test it because I finally got my E7 clav out of
the shop. (In since my Ebay purchase, it has had new
hammer tips, tweaking...the tech was reluctant to let
it go as he says it's the CLEANEST, FUNKIEST clav he
has ever seen, and he is THE clav guy in Chicago.)

The Electric Grand is pretty damn dull...it sounds
better than the Motif Elec Grand (go figure, seeing as
it was a Yamaha product), but nowhere NEAR as nice as
the "Stage Grand" in the Roland SRX Ultimate Keys
expansion. But again, the Elec Grand sounded MUCH
better triggered from another controller, MUCH better.

The Wurli is good, but I think the Motif has nailed it
pretty well, but if the Motif were to stay at home,
this would be excellent.

Oh, and the keyboard...I can't vouch for the BX3, but
it feels much different than the CX3 keyboards I've
played, both V1 and 2. The CX has side-to-side play,
which the Electro doesn't. If the BX feels like the
Electro, I KNOW you're smiling while playing.

Oh, and don't forget, if you had the 73, the extra
keys for the split is excellent, leaving you more room
to play.

Bruce, you know your stuff, and it's great hearing
your insights on things. These things are always
subjective, but you have tech sensibilities so you can
see things the rest of us can't, or maybe can only
intuit.

YOU ROCK!
Tony

> Now we get into sounds and such --
>
> Rhodes -- It sounds good. The particular Rhodes
> chosen isn't my personal choice -- I prefer Dennis
> DeYoung's model to Chick Corea's -- but the bite and
> mellow/glass are both there. I wish the jump
> between the two wasn't quite so sudden; it almost
> seems like they put two samples in there with a
> velocity *switch*, rather than a velocity *fade*.
> (And yes, I used to own a Stage 73 model.)
>
> Wurlitzer -- Excellent basic sound, with a nice
> action to match. Again, I wish the hard and soft
> sound threshold wasn't as sudden. There was a trip
> point on my Wurli A200, but it wasn't so
> night-and-day.
>
> Clavinet -- This is where the Electro really shines!
> The basic sound is great, and the ability to switch
> "pickups" with the Presence control is very cool!
> The action is right. My only small complaint is
> that the selection doesn't seem to include my
> favorite pickup setting, ACD.
>
> Acoustic Grand -- It's not authentic, but probably
> very useable in a band setting. It kind of reminds
> me of the '80s-vintage Roland pianos, which had the
> same pros and cons. I don't think the action is as
> bad as some people claim.
>
> Electric Grand -- Sorry, this is NOT a Yamaha
> Electric Grand. It failed the "Who's Crying Now?"
> test hands down. A YEG has a very unique sound, and
> the Electro didn't capture it.
>
> Hammond B-3 -- [OK, now, the emails will start
> flying!] I like it, but I don't love it. The whole
> thing sounds a little scooped-out to my ears, heavy
> on upper midrange without mid-bass to go along. I
> also tried it with all the bells and whistles off
> (no Leslie sim or overdrive, all tone settings on
> flat): still lacking 200-500Hz, and way too much
> key click. I prefer both the native Korg and Voce
> sounds over the Electro. The slow Leslie sim is
> great, but the fast speed has a phase-y quality to
> doesn't do the trick for me. The accel/decel times
> are off, especially the fast-to-stop times. The C3
> vibrato is a bit too heavy, a lot like the same
> setting on the CX-3 V1, and the whole vibrato chorus
> seems a little electronic sounding. I like the low
> settings of the overdrive, but anything above 3 or 4
> gets a little weird. If it had a gazillion
> adjustable parameters, I could probably get it to a
> point where most of these issues would go away, but
> I can't adjust the key click, Les
> lie, etc. on the Nord.
>
> Bottom line, I wish I had one for practices, and for
> the Wurli and Clav sounds. I still like my Korg
> better for Hammond cloning. YMMV -- and probably
> will. Maybe V3.0 will change my mind?
>
> BTW, the keyboard action is EXACTLY the same as on
> my BX-3. Same keys, same springs, same keybed. I
> even connected the Korg up through MIDI to be sure.
> It feels the same to me.
>
> Regards,
>
> -BW
> --
> Bruce Wahler
> Ashby Solutions™ http://music.ashbysolutions.com
> 978.386.7389 voice/fax
> bruce@ashbysolutions.com
>

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