From dave@bombfactory.com Tue Nov 09 10:55:35 2004
Subject:Re: The allegation/Why did Hammond get the virtual B3 right?


First of all... I now as in the last 16 years make very little money
from Voce. If sales double it would pay for a nice bottle of wine.
Secondly... the XK is a keyboard and doesn't really compete with
something in the V5+'s price range. apples and oranges. The Key5 is
much more money and doesn't really compete with single manual
keyboards.

I've always been known as a straight shooter about clones whether
it's be Voce's or other companies. This has often been to a fault.
I signed a non-disclosure with Korg in 1997(?) and divulged a lot of
technical info. The CX-3 then appeared in a few years ago and Jerry
Kovarski (who I think is on this list) had the decency to pull me
aside to show it to me first so I wouldn't hear about it from anyone
else. I told him what I liked about it and what I didn't like. The
chorus rate was wrong for one thing. Of course they took my advise
and it was fixed the next day at NAMM.

Anyway... I've been watching the most absurd bunch of crap get tossed
around on this list for quite some time and against better judgment
I'm going to give you the rundown of what I know about the clones on
the market today:

New B-3, XK3, Porta (bumper car) - uses Vase for the pedal tones
(why?). Also, kinda grating basic drawbar sound (I know about the
different generator settings). I've heard a bad loop point for one
of the wheels in an organ but I think they've since fixed it. I know
of key contacts having to be replaced in the first ones that went
out. They probably should have included a buss bar shifter. I'd
watched Joey play it with a French woman who is a concert pianist and
she had the comment that it was a very male instrument. That turned
the light on. The organ never gets a sweet sound like a tonewheel B-
3. It's always very aggressive. definitely not the end all

Electro - top octave gets kinda thin. I think they exactly nailed
the Voce electric pianos though. tonewheel sharing algorithm seems
to have an error.

Korg CX-3 - ditto for the top octave thinness...

VK-7 - I don't know what happened here. The top 2 octave are really
thin and they had the advantage of the V3 to look at too. I liked
the VK-8 better but it's still thin.

Key5 - no thinness but local off just shuts off the drawbars leaving
key click and percussion (damn Italian software). Vibrato / Chorus
better than previous V series but maybe not as shimmery as a real B-
3. Percussion mimics some B-3s but maybe not everyone's favorite.

As I'm writing this I've edited out some of the more technical
details because of what happened the last time I let out too much
info. Other people usually benefit and the most I have to gain is a
bottle of wine.

/Dave

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