From tonysounds@yahoo.com Thu Aug 13 09:23:47 2015
Subject:Re: Electro module
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
From:"tonysounds tonysounds@yahoo.com [CloneWheel]"
Date:Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 10:06 AM
Subject:Re: [CWSG] Electro module
Ken do u still have electro module? How much? Interested in any trades for a nordStage 2?
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
From:"Ken Hall ken@kenhall.ca [CloneWheel]"
Date:Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 12:01 PM
Subject:Re: [CWSG] MOJO vs HX3 module
Hi Craig,
As always, this is a nice, balanced review. I haven't spent much time comparing either but I do know that the HX3 is very inspiring to play and brings the latest quality of clones to my Nord keyboards. It's definitely a keeper for me. I now have the flexibility to add a high quality organ to several different gig rig configurations and it sounds great. I'm spending some time programming these days and the HX3 is quite easy to tweak with the editor program. I'm liking it.
Cheers, Ken
On 8/12/2015 10:01 AM, ccmacdon@rogers.com [CloneWheel] wrote:
Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of hosting my friend and forum member Ron Gang who’s visiting Toronto from his home in Israel. Ron has been a member of this forum for quite some time, and he owns both a Nord (electro I believe) as well as a Crumar Mojo. He is in Toronto for a family event and he carved out an afternoon from his busy schedule to come join me at my place to talk clonewheels. Coincidentally, I’ve been wanting to find some time to play my new HX3 module and my trusty Mojo side by side to see just how good this HX3 module is, and I figured that this would be a great opportunity to do so, having Ron’s here as a second set of ears!
Before we got to the side by side comparison, I played the HX3 module by itself for Ron, and I think he was as impressed with the HX3, as I have been. Playing the HX3 in isolation, it sounds very authentic, has excellent tone, and nice presence, with a very good leslie sim. It seemed a bit brighter than my recollection of the Mojo, although it wasn’t apparent how much brighter it was until we played them side by side.
Set up for side by side comparison:
I set up the HX3 module to respond to the “Hamichord” CC set which mapped all of the Mojo controls perfectly to the HX3 module, and this allowed me to seamlessly play the HX3 from the Mojo.. I took audio outputs from both the Mojo and the HX3 into a Yamaha MG82cx mixer and then into my Roland Quad-Capture audio interface into Sonar and out to my Yamaha HS80 Studio monitors. For the purpose of an “apples to apples” comparison, I used the HX3 as it came with factory settings, although I had to tweak a few things to remove string bass and Percussion drawbar mute (which for some odd reason was set to completely mute the drawbars when percussion was set to normal). I also returned my Mojo to the VB3CE2 Standard tonewheel set and returned all controls to factory (12:00) settings. Both were EQ’d flat in the mixer and no effects were added in Sonar, except for a small amount of reverb that I added equally to both the Mojo and the HX3 in the
mixer.
As we started to A/B the two, despite the Mojo controls being perfectly mapped to the HX3, we realized that the overdrive control was a bit wonky because the 12:00 position on the Mojo control, was a LOT of OD on the Mojo, but it was only about 90 out of a possible 250 units of overdrive on the HX3 (not a lot of OD). Not only did this mess up comparisons between the Mojo and HX3 overdrive but as the overdrive went up and down, so did the overall volume. This made it a tad difficult to flip back and forth between the two sound sources instantaneously because we had to adjust volume and OD every time we switched. However, we persevered.
Results
Generally speaking, both the HX3 and the Mojo sound excellent, however when you actually play them side by side the HX3 module is significantly brighter than the Mojo. The “factory” Mojo settings have a much rounder/fuller bottom end (this may be in part due to updated lower tones in the most recent VB3CE2 update). Perhaps the perceived brightness of the HX3 was a result of listening through my flat Yahama HS80’s (and I hadn’t noticed any lack of bottom end on the HX3 when I was performing with it using my QSC K10 a few weeks back at the Toronto Beaches Jazz festival). As a result of the HX3’s brightness the Mojo tended to sound much warmer and richer, however it was easy to compensate for the lack of bottom end on the HX3 using the rotary balance control and/or by adding a couple of DB boost on the low frequency control on my Yamaha mixer. The difference in sound between the factory Mojo and the HX3 is similar to the difference between a
real Hammond with old worn caps vs new caps, although more pronounced. The HX3 is VERY clear and bright, but it’s a little too much so for my taste, especially when listening through my studio monitors. Ron and I did a bunch of recordings of the HX3 vs the Mojo, but the brightness of the HX3 was so obvious that it was distracting. SO, this morning I decided to cheat a bit and I dropped the “rotary balance” setting on the HX3 to 60 out of 200, and then I had much more reasonable bottom end for comparison purposes (for the record the Tone Generator Cap setting on the HX3 was set to 1961 from the factory).
Bottom end aside, the basic Hammond tone was excellent on both the Mojo and HX3, the percussion was comparable, the CV was a little brighter and sparkled a bit more on the HX3 (although this may simply have been a result of the HX3 being brighter sounding overall). The HX3 Keyclick had a very nice tone (although strangely keyclick level is not editable on the HX3). Both Ron and I seemed to agree that the Overdrive on the HX3 was a bit better than the Mojo because there was more useable granularity to the 0-250 “Amp 122 Volume” (overdrive setting) on the HX3, whereas the Mojo overdrive is just seems to dissolve into mush as you go beyond 12:00 o’clock. The HX3 and the Mojo overdrive are very similar up to a point where the Mojo starts to get mushy but the HX3 continues to get more piercing (taking you more into Deep Purple territory). I also noticed that the top octave of the HX3 seems to have a bit more body on an 888888888 registration and I
think this may have had something to do with the overdrive.
Regarding the leslie sims, the newest iteration of the Mojo leslie sim is a thing of beauty, and both Ron and I love it, but the HX3 sim is excellent as well. I think it’s safe to say that in a blind listening test comparing the Mojo leslie sim, the HX3 leslie sim, and a Mojo or HX3 through a Ventilator, it would be very hard to pick a clear winner. (Although, personally I would give the nod to the new Mojo leslie sim).
So what’s the bottom line? How does the HX3 stack up when compared to the Mojo..? Well, I still think that the Mojo is the best sounding clone out there. However, there is no question that the HX3 stacks up very well when compared to the Mojo, and other current clones. It’s very authentic sounding, and while it lacks a bit of bottom end/warmth, out of the box, it’s quite tweakable and adjusting Tone and leslie balance settings allows you to dial up a pretty nice sounding Hammond/Leslie. The HX3’s basic tone, percussion, C/V overdrive and leslie sim are all excellent and VERY authentic sounding. I would say that the HX3 is definitely a “contender” from a pure Hammond/leslie emulation standpoint. In this “module” format, and at this price point, it’s almost a no brainer if you have an older clone that’s a little tired, and you’re thinking of upgrading (either getting a brand new clone or updgrading your leslie sim to a Burn or a
Ventilator).
The downside of the HX3 module is its interface, and the fact that you have to build your own CC set, if your clone/controller isn’t on the list of supported CC sets. The HX3 interface is a little clunky given the way the parameters are organized, and the small display. A cursory look at the various available parameters suggests to me that it’s not as tweakable as the Mojo. If you really have a specific Hammond sound in mind, you’ll be much more likely to find/create it on a Mojo with Guido’s “organ lab” approach to the windows editor, than you will editing the HX3 module. While the Mojo allows you to start your tweaking by selecting a tonewheel set (model and year) and then logically presents you with a well organized set of parameters to tweak, the HX3 presents you with parameters such as A028 Tube Age, Swell Trim Capacitor, Tone Trim Pot and TG Cap Set, which might make perfect sense to some real Hammond owners, but they could leave
some owners scratching their heads wondering exactly what they need to tweak in order to achieve a particular sound. The HX3 also seems to lack a basic EQ, when I wanted to just bump up the bottom end a bit, I had to do it externally in the mixer. Lastly, the natural warmth and roundness of the Mojo’s tone is NOT an easy thing to duplicate, and it’s one of the things that, in my mind, sets it apart from it’s competitors. The HX3 comes close, but so far with the tweaking I’ve done I haven’t really been able to fully duplicate this on the HX3 module. On the other hand, if you like that bright “new caps” tone and you’re looking for a clone that will really cut nicely (like the HX3 does), it’s pretty easy to accomplish that on the Mojo with a few minor tweaks. The Mojo is a lot more versatile tone wise, but the HX3 still sounds great and its bright tone might very well be preferred by some.
The Mojo is still the clonewheel champ, as far as I’m concerned, but I expect that this HX3 module will carve a good sized path through clone land over the next year or two!! After that who knows.
If I have time, I’ll post some recordings of the Mojo vs HX3 module on my soundcloud page and post a link.
Craig