From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Fri Apr 22 15:03:31 2011
Subject:Re: Vintage Korg B3 Dual Manual Organ Keyboard Hammond c3

I almost bought an original BX-3 back in 1996 at Caruso Music in CT. I
drove 150 miles to see it because they were pretty scarce by that time.
I was reasonably impressed with it, but it suddenly stopped working.
They took it down into the shop, but after an hour of waiting around --
it had the famous 'leaky capacitor' problem, and 3/4 of the electrolytic
caps were shot, or almost so -- I asked, "Well, what else you got?"
They had a V3, which I bought: my first real clonewheel product. :-)

This eventually led to my founding the Voce Support Group, which itself
spawned the CloneWheel Support Group. (True story!)

----------
As to why Korg was able to call their early products a 'B3': Remember,
they came out in 1981 and 1982, at which point Hammond was in its death
throes -- at least, the original company. They had tried the combo
organ route with the X2 and X5 (built by Ace Tone, the precursor to
Roland), which had gone nowhere, and they were probably pretty much out
of cash for lawyers!

Regards,

-BW

Bruce Wahler
Ashby Solutions.com^(TM)
bruce@ashbysolutions.com
http://music.ashbysolutions.com
877.55.ASHBY (877.552.7429)

On 4/22/2011 4:04 PM, dave wrote:
> I owned one of these original BX-3's (with matching stand) for a few years. Truth be told, it didn't sound that much like a Hammond. It used top-octave-division synthesis, so it didn't replicate the Hammond's idiosyncratic harmonic structure, and it didn't have waterfall keys. I sold it when I got an XB-2, which while also flawed came a lot closer to hitting the mark sonically.