From ahorne345@aol.com Thu Jan 14 23:02:16 2010
Subject:Re: NAMM REPORT 1

DIGITAL MELLOTRON??? Any word on price as yet? Oh, WOW!!! I've been waiting
for something like this!

Adam

In a message dated 1/14/2010 10:00:01 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
djacques@csulb.edu writes:



Just got back from a very truncated NAMM show visit. I had to teach a
seminar at 2 so I only had a couple of hours to check out the floor.

As always NAMM is insane. Thousands of rockers, groupies, models, and
business types all over the place. I did find the Ventura booth and
sat down at the double manual clonewheel that they are now marketing.

I played it for about 20 minutes and then I saw a old friend watching
me. Had to leave the organ to greet him and have a drink to catch up,
so I will have to spend much more time with the organ tomorrow. But
here are my first impressions.he

Listening through headphones I must say I was very impressed with the
tone of the organ. The tonewheels sounded as good as anything from
Hammond or Clavia, the percussion was sharp, and the chorus vibrato
was good. It sounded very evan and Hammond-like up and down the
keyboard.

The keyboard action felt very good... Both the top and bottom
keyboards felt "right" to this old console organ player. The two
keyboards look very good together.

The organ is almost infinitely programmable. The Leslie parameters
were especially impressive. Regarding the sim, well, it sounds like a
sim. Not any better or worse than the Clavia or Hammond. I will
experiment with the parameters tomorrow to see if I can get it to
sound better to me.

The drawbars seem shorter than the originals. I am sure that with time
I will be able to get comfortable with the layout.

And the best part, it is less than 30 lbs!

They also had their new "Nord Killer" sitting on top of a stand, but
it was not plugged in so I could not hear it. Guess it is still in
prototype stage. Looked cool, though.

Steve Haye's Speakeasy speakers sounded fantastic. Plus they are very
light.

Played the new Korg digital organ/piano/Played the new Korg digital
name, but it is the one that looks like it belongs on the Starship
Enterprise. I thought that it was a weak effort. Hated the dials and
the organ sounded very wonky and "last generation". The acoustic piano
sounds were good.

Also played the new digital mellotron. This is a very cool machine. It
uses the same Mellotron keyboard and sounds spectacular. In production
it will have over 100 sounds including the entire mellotron,
Chamberlin, and Optigon libraries.

More tomorrow when I have a chance to play in peace...

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