From mitchtowne@cox.net Sat May 14 11:25:44 2016
Subject:Crumar Mojo 61 Review (Long)

I have had my Mojo 61 for a couple days now, so I thought I would put
together a few of my initial thoughts and impressions of this board.
(Please apply all of the normal caveats to my review if you feel they are
necessary: Mojo endorser, good relationship with the company, etc.)

Short version of this review: I love this board.

Long version:

Form factor

I love this board. I don't think I have had this kind of "sit and just
stare at it because it looks so cool" kind of feeling since I got my first
Hammond chop. I definitely haven't had that feeling about a keyboard. The
form factor of this board is fantastic. It is compact and very streamlined.
It just looks freaking cool. The side panels that say Crumar under the wood
look really modern. It weighs a touch above 25 lbs, so it is heavier than a
Nord Electro, which makes it feel more substantial. You don't feel like you
are going to send it flying off the stand if you do a glissando. There is 5
inches of flat real-estate above the controls, which might just be enough
for a mini keyboard. I have ordered a Korg MicroKey Air, so I will report
back later on whether or not this is a realistic possibility.

Controls

The layout and controls are, at initial glance, very straight-forward
(drawbars, EQ knobs, rotary speaker controls, reverb and click), with a few
exceptions (A-B Presets and Hold for the organ sounds), and a few hidden
features that are accessed with a a shift button.

I think the thing I love the most about the layout are the "chicken head"
knobs for Volume and Drive!! Maybe it is my long-held guitarist envy, but I
love turning the drive knob to add more grit to the mix. It just looks and
feels cool as hell.

The organ preset/hold system takes a second for you to get your brain
around, but once you do, it makes sense. One thing about this board that
you have to realize and either be ok with or not ok with, is that it
doesn't utilize a traditional preset structure like an Electro or SK. Guido
programs with a real purist spirit. "If the real thing doesn't do this,
than my instrument will not do it," seems to be his mantra. (For example,
it took just about every Mojo user to convince him to incorporate a "front
stop" on his Leslie simulation because, "the real Leslie doesn't do that!")
So, in the case of the Mojo 61, if you are someone who needs to have a
different preset for every song you play (super processed Rhodes for one
song, overdriven organ for the next song, clean Rhodes next, clean organ
next), you might be frustrated by the Mojo 61. The Mojo 61 is programmed to
be more like if you had a Hammond, Rhodes, and Wurly set up surrounding you
with a few effects pedals. You don't get to have presets on those
instruments. The Rhodes is going to sound the way it sounds unless you kick
on the phaser pedal and crank the drive knob. For me, this is not a problem
at all in the gigs that I do and the way I have structured my personal
playing and preferences.

For the organ presets, you basically have one "live" preset (labeled "Hold"
(more on that later)) which can be adjusted on the fly, and two presets
that are constant and cannot be adjusted by the drawbars. Again, some might
find this odd, but this is mimics the preset key behavior or a real Hammond
organ. Percussion is only available on the live preset…again, like a real
Hammond. For someone who is primarily a jazz organist, this is just fine.

The "Hold" function allows for presetting a drawbar setting that you don't
have saved as a preset before changing to it. It basically mimics having a
second set of drawbars that you can kick in when you want to. I probably
won't use this much. Others might.

The board can be split between upper and lower manual for playing LH bass
or comping. One thing that I wish were different is that, in order to shift
the lower manual up an octave for LH comping with a sound like 00750000,
you have to do the octave shift in the editor. You can't do it from the
panel. This is kind of a drag. Fortunately, on gigs where I might want to
comp with my LH, I am not going to be playing LH bass, so I can just set it
and forget it at the start of the gig.

I never, ever use combo organs nor pipe organs, so I can offer no
information about how these controls work. Someone else will have to speak
on that. I wish I could disable these options so I could switch between
organ and EPs with just one button push instead of three quick clicks.

The EP controls are a combination of dials (volume, drive, EQ, reverb) and
button clicks. FX 1 controls mono or stereo tremolo, and FX2 controls
phaser or chorus effects. The shift button is involved in turning the amp
simulation on and off (Shift + FX1) and in switching between Rhodes and
Wurly (Shift + EP button). Pressing and holding the FX1 button cycles
through the different tremolo effects (mono/stereo) and pressing and
holding the FX2 button switches between phaser and chorus.

Sounds

The VB3-II is the best Hammond organ clone engine on the market as far as I
am concerned. It is the only clone I have played that gets me as close to
"there" as possible. I have written about this a lot in the past, so I am
not going to belabor the point.

Again…I hate combo organs, so I assume these are great since they annoy me.

The EPs are fantastic! Guido has posted a couple Youtube videos
demonstrating the qualities of the virtual modeling technology used to
create the EPs. One of the most interesting things about the EPs is the
modeling of the key strikes. Real electric pianos don't have a static key
strike. There are different qualities as you strike a key over and over,
especially when the damper pedal is pressed. This is a really amazing
effect. Another thing that I personally have not run across in an
electronic simulation of a piano is the ability to play a key so softly
that no sound is produced. Usually, there is at least the lowest MIDI
information level transmitted with a very soft sound. Not here. If you
press very slowly and lightly, no sound triggers. That's pretty cool.

The Rhodes (er…sorry…"Tine Piano") has different default settings that can
then be adjusted to taste: Default EP, Mellow, Hard Tines, Prepared,
Wanna-Be-Dyno, So Dark, Sweet, Piano Bass, and Wurlish. My favorites so far
are Default and Sweet. From there, you can adjust the attack level, release
level (I think the default setting is too much so I dialed it back), hammer
hardness, bite and bark, the metallic nature of the tines, the amount of
resonance when the pedal is depressed (this is a fantastic emulation), the
offset of the pickups (this really opens up the amount of different
qualities you can get), a Hi Pass Filter and Pedal noise. Here is where
being able to save different snapshots of settings would REALLY come in
handy. However, at this point, you have to choose something and leave it.

The Wurly is designed with the same physical modeling engine but with less
parameters available for adjustment. I think the default setting is a
little punchy for my tastes, so I dialed it back a bit. The Wurly seems to
be have a lower default volume than the Rhodes. I am not sure if that is
the nature of the two instruments, but I find I have to bump the volume a
bit when I switch sounds (which, again, is a blast with the chicken heads.
I know…I'm weird.)

The pedal-down resonance effect of both EPs is amazing. I was messing
around yesterday and had turned away from the keyboard while still holding
the pedal down and I had this weird moment where the resonant sound of the
keyboard totally made me think I had bumped the side of my real Wurly!

The effects stay the same when you switch between EPs, meaning that if the
phaser is set as the effect on the Rhodes, it will still be set when you
switch to Wurly. However, as I said above. if you hold the FX button, the
effect will switch to chorus. Same with stereo tremolo vs mono.

The effects include a 4 stage Phaser and a two-voice chorus based on the
chorus Roland included in the RD-1000. Interesting choice!

The amp simulations are extremely realistic and have basic parameter
adjustment possibilities - EQ and overdrive. The simulations included are
Fender Twin, Marshal JCM-800, Vox AC30, Roland Jazz Chorus, and a Fender
Bassman. I initially lean towards the Vox with the Rhodes but I have to do
some more tweaking.

A note about the playability of the EPs: As I said earlier, the physical
modeling is a different beast when compared to samples. Samples are static
and sound the same every time you hit a key. I am a big fan of the Rhodes
and Wurly patches in the Korg Kronos. I think they sound extremely
realistic and they record very well. If I were to compare the Kronos Rhodes
patches to the Mojo Rhodes, on a purely "this sounds more like the real
thing" basis, the Kronos edges out the Mojo. (I would take the Mojo over
anything Roland, Yamaha or Nord offers.) However, I have always been left a
little cold by the playing experience (I have a Kronos 61 with unweighted
keys, which I think is a fair comparison in this case). I realized when
using the Mojo 61 at rehearsal the other night, that I was "digging in" to
the keybed as I would if I were playing the real thing! I believe the
combination of the Crumar custom Fatar keyboard and the nature of the
physical modeling create a more realistic playing experience. You can't
just lay your fingers on the keyboard and get a sound. You have to PLAY it,
just like a real Rhodes or Wurly. Which brings us to…

Keybed Feel

I am on record quite a few times about how much I like the
Crumar-customized Fatar TP-80 waterfall keybed. It is the best feeling
clone organ keybed I have played. Most other clones use a stock TP-80 and I
have long thought they are too stiff and springy when compared to the real
thing. When Crumar updated the original Mojo with the new keybed, it was a
wonderful improvement and made the playing experience so much more
enjoyable. I was curious as to how the new action would work with EPs and I
am happy to report that it feels great. In fact, I had a DMC-122 with a
Gemini module installed for a short time, which has the stock TP-80 keybed
and the same organ and EP sound engines that the Mojo 61. Playing these
instruments on the Mojo 61 is, for me, a much more enjoyable experience. As
I said earlier, I can dig in to the EPs and and the light action and high
trigger point of the organ set makes the whole thing much more
Hammond-like.

Editing Structure

In an effort to streamline the board and take advantage of the powerful
sound-shaping ability of the Mojo 61, Crumar has utilized a WIFI/web editor
method of sound editing. From your tablet or phone, you connect to the Mojo
WIFI and open a web browser (not an app) and you can access all of the
sound and effects parameters from the browser. This is slick as hell. Each
sound and effect can be deeply modified (the Wurly and amp sims have the
fewest parameters). It has 22 different Hammond models, including two that
I created based on my 1956 B3 and 1962 A100.

One thing I would like would be able to save snapshots of various settings.
How the board sounds through stereo monitors and how it sounds through a
mono PA speaker, for example, are totally different and it would be good to
be able to call up a snapshot of your preferred settings for whatever
system you were using. Maybe this will be part of a future update. I hope
so.

Conclusion

I am loving this board and I had a blast using it on my gig last night. It
took me no time to get used to clicking the tremolo on and off when I
wanted, and it was easy to switch between sounds. This is going to become
my go-to board for all of my gigs other than straight jazz organ gigs where
I will want two manuals. This will be great for rehearsals for those gigs,
though. I am so excited for this board that I popped for an expensive Mono
case for it. Totally worth it because it just adds to the whole experience
for me.

A few changes I would like to see:

- Settings snapshots for different amplification settings

- It would be cool to allow the ability to disable the Pipe and Combo
organs, so I don't have to click through them to get to the EP from the
organ. This probably isn't possible because it is probably a hardware issue.

- The short throw pedal is REALLY SHORT. The volume range changes
drastically with a small amount of movement. The Crumar long throw pedal or
a Yamaha FC7 work much better. Not sure if there is anything to be done
about that.

- I need to check this out more, but it seems that the drive setting stays
the same from sound to sound, depending on where the knob is set. So, if
you are running a distorted organ and you switch to Rhodes with an amp sim,
the drive is going to be cranked on the Rhodes as well. I need to get the
board back out and test this for sure, but maybe that is something that
could be changed in programming (maintain last parameter or something).

- The organ and EPs cannot be sent to different outputs, which means you
can't run the organ into a Leslie and the EPs into an amp. The original
Mojo allows this and it is a great feature that not everyone would use, but
some might (me).

- Why didn't they use mini-Chicken Heads for all the other knobs??

Obviously, I think this board is a winner. People with different needs
might not agree, but I can't wait to gig with this more. Let me know if you
have any questions.

Mitch Towne