From james_eaton@btopenworld.com Tue Jan 25 17:34:16 2005
Subject:Re: Superb, inexpensive lower keyboard for the XK-3 ?


--- In CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote:
< signal that comes out of the basic sound engine, so there's no way
to apply it to the upper or lower manual separately. If this is the
case, then the change would require a fundamental change in the XK3
architecture--possibly hardware as well as software. Does that make
sense?>>

In every Hammond and clone before the XK-3, C/V has always been
applied after the tone generation. In the XB-2 for example there is
a lot of switching of signal paths and multiple outputs from the
sound engine to allow split routing through the (analogue) C/V
effect.

Here are a couple of options depending on the XK-3 internal
architecture:

1) If the raw organ tone is converted to analogue before going to
the C/V then a second analogue output on the sound engine is
required together with some routing circuitry. This is a
significant hardware change.

2) If the C/V is applied internally via a DSP before the organ tone
goes to the preamp, then splitting the C/V could be as simple as a
firmware change.

Taking the lid off and seeing how many circuit boards there are will
give some idea as to the architecture. Fewer boards means more of
the signal is processed digitally before going to the valve preamp
leaning towards the second option.

However, it seems like this is a marketing driven issue regardless
of how easy or difficult it is to rectify.

Cheers
James