From Markweisgram@aol.com Thu Sep 15 10:59:02 2005
Subject:XK-2 vs. XK-3

I haven't lived with an XK-3 yet. I did get an XK-2 recently super cheap (
250 dollars with anvil case) and was prepared to hate it .... but figured I
could make a hundred dollars or so on it. This thing also came with the beefy
Hammond expression pedal by the way.

The thing is, I don't hate it . At that price I wound up keeping it and
enjoying it.

Yes I know about taking a "harmonic beating" from the XK-2. It seems that
there may be a few ways around it though.....as in using it with chorale on a
real leslie, which is what I find myself doing with most clones anyway. I don't
find that the beating bothers me much in this situation.

On the plus side, the XK-2 has a certain character that I like. I use it
mostly for practice with headphones and I have found that I really like the C-3
chorus vibrato with on 606000000 with a bit of second percussion. Through my
dual leslie setup at home, 888000000 third percussion doesn't sound too bad on
chorale, but some of the upper drawbar stuff tends to show up some of the
beating . But then , some of these settings lend themselves well to fast leslie
tremolo, so that is what I do.

I like the fact that the XK-2 does not sound shrill and does not have
extreme amounts of keyclick ( which made me shy away from the XK-3) . One other
reason why I have decided to keep this is that the XK-2 makes a killer lower
manual . The lower register can deliver some real oomph, it sounds good on some
typical lower manual settings and I can stack my VK7 on top of it and still
access the drawbars. Also, the XK-2 can be programmed to eliminate foldback.

All I can say is that I gigged it Friday night and had fun. An XK-2 can be
had dirt cheap these days and I have been surprised how much I have enjoyed
playing this.


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