From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Fri Jan 16 11:04:50 2004
Subject:Re: Hammond XK-3

Hi All,

My $0.02 ...

Tony Orant wrote:

>Looking at the pics though, WHY IN THE WORLD did they put the drawbars in the middle? If anyone could get the ergonomics right it would be Hammond. Its perplexing to me that the drawbars and c/v knob are in the center and the teeny screen is on the left. Just when you think they're gonna do it right.....

No, H-Z has a long track record of ALMOST getting it, when it comes to portable, gigging versions of their products. They often pick up on subtle things that competitors miss, but there always seems to be something that they do the flies in the face of "common" wisdom: the location of the controls below the keys on the XB-2, the tuning of the samples that leads to phasing on some drawbar settings, whatever.

Why did they put the drawbars in the middle? Probably because that's what they did on all of their other past products that had two sets of drawbars, but not four. Take a look at the post-B-3 Hammond consoles; they've always put the drawbars in the middle. I think the XB-5 was the same way. I guess it's to make things even for each hand, but I like Korg's position better.

David Oakley wrote:

>This and the
>Portable B3, is exactly what weekenders like myself have been longing
>for. I can't understand why it's taken manufacturers so long to
>figure out the attraction of putting a tube preamp into a Hammond
>clone. It's such a drag to have to carry and setup additional preamps.

The big question is: How good is the preamp? ANY tube preamp is better than none; however, the Speakeasy preamp is significantly better sounding than the bulk of alternatives that are out there. And that's not just my opinion -- a good deal of the list members use Speakeasy preamps, and many who don't are thinking about trading in whatever they are currently using for a Speakeasy sometime down the road.

Eric Lawson wrote:

>I am curious to know if Hammond was able to do anything better with
>Leslie simulation. This has been their Achilles heel in the past.

You took the words out of my mouth. The spec sheet says, "High Quality 2 Rotor Digital Leslie," but H-S' believability in this area is suspect, IMHO. Wasn't the XK-2's Leslie sim described as "realistic" or something? This is the area where Korg, Clavia, and even Roland upped the ante in the past. Traditionally, H-S Leslie sims have been poor cousins. I've often wondered if it was to make sure they didn't eat into real Leslie sales.

And one that hasn't cropped up yet:

Why are there black preset keys, other than a pure retro nod? The B-3's preset system was based on available technology in the '40s. I mean, it looks cool and all, but I can't count the number of times that I hit a gliss or a run down on a real B-3 or C-3 and accidentally hit the B preset key on my way out. If you hit it just right, you can cancel all sound without even trying. I've always felt that this was a shortcoming of the console Hammond design, and I've heard others mention the same thing on Hammond lists. I wonder if H-S has de-bounced it enough to prevent these issues?

Either way, that keyboard is probably going to need a 76-key case.

Regards,

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