From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Wed May 19 11:27:49 2010
Subject:Re: Clonewheel Shootout 2010

Hi Scott,

I have nothing against your approach, and in fact, the 1996 Shootout
took a more clinical approach than any of the Keyboard Shootouts. Mark
Longo drove that one, and clearly spent a lot of time thinking about
what he did and didn't like about his XB-2, with the goal of seeing
whether any of the other clones shared these points. The state of the
art was a lot simpler in those days, but we all learned a little about
what clones could and couldn't do.

So, why doesn't Keyboard Mag take this same approach? Because it
doesn't sell magazines, of course. Which of the following do you think
has the most appeal to the AVERAGE player/reader:

A. Keyboard Mag has gotten four of your lifelong keyboard influences
together in a room to tell you what THEY think of the latest crop of B-3
clones.

B. Keyboard Mag has gotten together four tech-oriented Hammond
aficionados, and asked them to compare the sound and features of the
latest B-3 clones at an objective level.

While (B.) probably offers more useful information to the purchaser, it
doesn't have the 'sizzle' of (A.). And magazines care about sizzle,
because most of their readers care about sizzle. (I'd venture that the
reader base of Keyboard isn't the same as Consumer Reports.)

Also, the 1996 Shootout was conducted by CLONE owners; the Keyboard
review teams are mostly HAMMOND B-3 players. For the most part, none of
the participants in the 2010 Shootout were inclined to 'get under the
hood' of their clones -- just as they probably don't oil or re-cap their
real B-3's.

Regards,

-BW

Bruce Wahler
Ashby Solutions.com^(TM)
bruce@ashbysolutions.com
http://music.ashbysolutions.com

On 5/19/2010 1:59 PM, AnotherScott2 wrote:
> I didn't mean it to sound like ragging, but really, doesn't it seem like it would have been more helpful if, instead of throwing a bunch of (admittedly experienced and talented) players in there and saying "what do you think of these," they had made some attempt to take into account how much the sounds of these things could be varied from how they happened to have been set at the time? I mean, some of these have so many ways to adjust the sound that limiting their evaluation to the particular settings of the moment would be like asking them to evaluate them with drawbar and CV settings that were different for each one and not letting them change them.