From hammonddave2004@yahoo.com Tue Dec 27 19:40:02 2011
Subject:Re: My Hammond SK1 saga is over!

There is a huge difference between a clonewheel with some 2nd rate extra voices and a sampling workstation. My Motif XS beats the shit out of most keyboards. If I want great piano, eps, mellotrons, or any other sounds, and layer them... Split four sounds with different effects across the keyboard... Then a workstation beats the hell out of an SK.

The SK 1/2 is aimed at a narrow market. Certainly not the clonewheel market. It doesn't even look like a clonewheel. Just look at the interface.

It sounds like you made the correct choice.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

-----Original Message-----
From: "ccmacdon"
Sender: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 03:08:03
To:
Reply-To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CWSG] My Hammond SK1 saga is over!

So my SK1 saga is over.. I returned the SK1 and I just bought a Korg Kronos... so now I'll be back using the built in CX3 engine that I used to use in my BX3! Fox recommended this and I got a great "boxing-day" deal on the Kronos.. (only $500 more than my SK1) and as a overall package it's easily 2-3 times the keyboard that the SK1 is, and yet it only cost about 20% more, and holy crap the pianos and the EP's are f-ing outstanding!!

Initially I found that the factory organ patches sound pretty "cheesy" but it only took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to edit a factory patch and get pretty great organ sound out of it. That said the leslie sim isn't bad but I'll probably use the Ventilator with it and that will add the finishing touch. There are some limitations of course, because it's not a dedicated clone, it doesn't have switches for all the various organ functions, but you can assign controls like percussion on/off and C/V on/off to the SW1/2 switches. So this is going to be a fine backup gig keyboard and it will be a great keyboard for my studio as well.

While the SK1 seems to be a pretty solid organ, it's ability to play other voices is pretty limited from what I can gather.. basically you can layer the organ with one other voice, and that's about it.. That may be a good thing from a clonewheel perspective, but entry level workstations that are half the price can handle multiple splits and layers no problem. So as much as the SK1 seems a step ahead from a clonewheel perspective, I think it's way behind from a workstation perspective.

I would have been quite satisfied with the SK1 IF it worked properly out of the box, but since it didn't, I started looking at other options and ultimately changed my mind.. So for those of you who are interested.. I closed the book on the SK1, and now I'm digging into this Kronos.. and what a beast it is!

Craig


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