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Crumar Mojo 61 Review - (LONG)


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*Since the Mojo-61 is mono-timbral, I see a high risk of misinterpretation of a "split" output option... we'd rather call it "output selection" or "OB-Dave Option" :)
I would be honored. :cheers:

Otherwise, for reference Nord called it "Output routing (hard pan)" on the Electro 2 (also a mono timbral instrument).

 

But, yeah, that would be awesome. Right now the acoustic piano pans from left to right as you go up the keyboard, so you'd want to have it not do that when the hard pan output routing is enabled, and of course make sure that the reverb and chorus effects play nice in mono.

 

What else?

It would be nice if the Cabinet simulator setting is remembered for tonewheel organ. The cabinet setting seems to get remembered for the electric pianos, but since I gig with a Leslie 90% of the time, it would be nice if the Mojo remembered this state over power cycles, or perhaps it's something that could be saved in the snapshot. Right now it comes on always when the instrument is powered up.

 

Also, the Leslie sim needs more rolloff on top. Overall I find the Leslie simulator to be excellent, but a real Leslie cabinet has a pretty sharp rolloff. I can hear high harmonics of the keyclick and other HF content in the Mojo Leslie sim that aren't present in a real Leslie. You can adjust this somewhat with the treble control, but then you have to fiddle with the treble every time you switch between tonewheel and non-tonewheel voices.

 

I have to say, I am really loving my Mojo 61. I am all-in on this instrument and just in the past two weeks sold my Rhodes, my Electro 2, and my Sk1. How's that for an endorsement?

 

 

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What else?

As long as you're asking for suggestions... Could it be possible for the Lower Manual to work with a Gemini desktop module, to add a second manual where someone is already using some other board to trigger the Gemini? Or would this require some hardware change to either the lower manual or the Gemini, and is not something that could be addressed in a firmware update to one or the other?

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Well, dang. I just discovered that the Mojo 61 does not send program changes

 

I'm taking note for the next firmware update:

 

1. Send velocity from the lower manual

2. Clavinet note-off at the bottom contact

3. Send MIDI program change events when switching between the 8 sounds

4. Split output option* (organs on the left, pianos on the right)

 

What else?

 

Snip

 

 

Since I did not find it in the online manual:

Something like local on/off or midi send on/off separate for optional lower manual and main unit

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I'm taking note for the next firmware update:

...

2. Clavinet note-off at the bottom contact

Cool. My only issue with this feature on the Nord is that it doesn't work over MIDI (so, for example, recording MIDI into a DAW while you're playing clav won't result in the exact same quick response on playback). So I hope that, when clav is selected on the Mojo 61, it sends the low trigger note-off to its MIDI Out as well as to its internal sound engine.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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What else?

 

 

Would be great to be able to change clav pickup settings from the front panel. Maybe upper hold button cycles pickup selections and lower hold button cycles filters.

 

As for split output, I would normally prefer combo organs direct instead of being grouped with tone wheel so maybe an option to pick.

Moe

---

 

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Amplitude curve settings to calm down those over powered organ high notes ?

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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4. Split output option* (organs on the left, pianos on the right)

 

[snip]

 

*Since the Mojo-61 is mono-timbral, I see a high risk of misinterpretation of a "split" output option... we'd rather call it "output selection" or "OB-Dave Option" :)

 

Guido,

 

I'd love to see this on the Gemini as well, so I'm hoping it would show up there as well. Assuming this is routing per engine, are you envisioning this as a "global" setting that one could change and affect all existing patches, or would this be a per patch setting? I would love for the former if it's feasible, as it would be great to be able to set it based on what I'm using at a gig and not need to create special patches.

"If you can't dazzle them with dexterity, baffle them with bullshit."
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Amplitude curve settings to calm down those over powered organ high notes ?

 

Hmm. I wonder what would be best way to let users shape this to taste.

Maybe a LPF with sweepable cutoff and settable attenuation.

 

Or a parametric EQ with say 7 frequencies... and an LPF and HPF.

 

 

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

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Would be great to be able to change clav pickup settings from the front panel. Maybe upper hold button cycles pickup selections and lower hold button cycles filters.

Or perhaps the C/V controls, as those are unused for clav as far as I can tell.

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Amplitude curve settings to calm down those over powered organ high notes ?

 

Hmm. I wonder what would be best way to let users shape this to taste.

Maybe a LPF with sweepable cutoff and settable attenuation.

 

Or a parametric EQ with say 7 frequencies... and an LPF and HPF.

 

 

Does a real Leslie cabinet tame the high notes?

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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Amplitude curve settings to calm down those over powered organ high notes ?

 

Hmm. I wonder what would be best way to let users shape this to taste.

Maybe a LPF with sweepable cutoff and settable attenuation.

 

Or a parametric EQ with say 7 frequencies... and an LPF and HPF.

 

 

Does a real Leslie cabinet tame the high notes?

 

Not really. I see lots of complaints from the current generation of organ clone users about this note or that note or a range being too loud. Tonewheel organs can have this problem too. They can be made worse by the room resonances, speaker cabinet resonances, speaker emulation resonances, etc etc.

 

I always have my foot on the gas pedal anyway, and am constantly riding the volume. If the top octave is too powerful, it becomes automatic to just back off a bit. You can polish too many imperfections out and before you know it you have an instrument with none of the quirks of the real thing.

 

I'll save my rants about needing a kajillion presets for another time.

Moe

---

 

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I'll save my rants about needing a kajillion presets for another time.

Waiting for that. ;)

I'm a weirdo, using presets confuses me. I have to wonder if I have the right one selected or not. Better for me just to dial in what I need. As always, YMMV.

:nopity:
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Does a real Leslie cabinet tame the high notes?

Not really.

Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but my Leslies (one with an Atlas driver, one with the original Jensen driver) seem to tame the HF content in a way that the Mojo sim does not. I'm perfectly happy with the high end on the Mojo as it is, when playing through a Leslie. When playing through the Mojo sim, there's too much HF content for my taste, which is why I suggested additional rolloff on the sim.

 

By comparison, the Ventilator is pretty aggressive in its HF rolloff.

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I've been not so happy with the Mojo (dual manual) rotary as it does seem to emphasis some high notes more than others. Although there's a lot of interaction between the simulator controls, the Mojo mic angle setting changes the emphasised note in the top octave.

 

Having said that, to my ears the tone wheel settings are pretty uneven as well, for all the tonewheel sets. Fortunately the Mojo provides a solution (that the Legend does not) - you can load a custom tonewheel set. Unfortunately they don't make any of the 22 built in sets available, but Mitch Towne has, and I'm using a heavily tweaked version of his B3.

 

Some uneveness in tonewheel levels adds to the character of the sound, and you can back off on overly loud notes with the expression pedal. This doesn't work so well when you are playing LHB and want to keep the bass even.

 

The Vent doesn't emphasise the high tones as unevenly as the Mojo sim, and neither does a real Leslie. But my tw set is still an improvement over the built-in ones, to my ears, IMHO etc. It's still evolving too, which appeals to me in another way. One of the reasons I went for the Mojo is this ability to fine-tune it. Of course if I was buying one today, I'd probably be all over the Legend or the Live. I'll be trying one out soon.

Legend Live, Leslie 251/147, Yamaha UX1, CP4, CK61, Hammond SK1, Ventilator, Privia PX3, Behringer 2600, Korg Triton LE, various guitars and woodwinds, drum kits …

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I'm taking note for the next firmware update:

 

1. Send velocity from the lower manual

2. Clavinet note-off at the bottom contact

3. Send MIDI program change events when switching between the 8 sounds

4. Split output option* (organs on the left, pianos on the right)

 

What else?

 

If it's not too late, here are two features I'd really like to see:

 

Have an option to select which drawbar is "robbed" by the percussion. I know the default is the 1', but I'd love to be able to set it to one of the others so I could get percussion with the 1' drawbar (which I believe is possible on a real console with some re-wiring, right?).

 

Allow the Reverb, Click and EQ knobs to perform other functions with the Shift button. Specifically, it would be great if they could control the percussion volume and decay time for VB3, and the rate and depth of whatever effect is selected (tremolo, phaser, etc.) for the EP sounds.

 

PS - After owning a Mojo 61 for about three hours now, I'm really, really loving it. :)

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PS - After owning a Mojo 61 for about three hours now, I'm really, really loving it. :)
Awesome. :2thu:

 

I'm taking note for the next firmware update:

 

1. Send velocity from the lower manual

2. Clavinet note-off at the bottom contact

3. Send MIDI program change events when switching between the 8 sounds

4. Split output option* (organs on the left, pianos on the right)

 

What else?

I can't recall if the possibility of this has been discussed, shot down, etc., but I would love to see the organ be able to keep settings such as percussion and rotary speeds across power cycles. I tend to keep percussion off and the rotary set up for stop/fast, but every time I turn the Mojo 61 back on percussion is on and rotary is slow/fast. Snapshots don't seem to do it.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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  • 2 weeks later...

Because this forum is still being seen by Guido himself...

I have an issue with my crumar mojo 61 which I just bought.

 

When setting the Split Octave option to +1 or +2 in the Mojo61 Editor the notes will keep on playing when I use them on the board! When I check the midi-messages it gets an Midi Note Off message, but the sound keeps on playing. When setting it back to 0 there is no problem at all, but this seems like a small software bug.

 

Does anyone else have this problem as well? Can I fix this or is this a software thing?

 

The software I have is v1.23, Build date Jul 20 2017.

 

I've tried a factory reset and rebooting the Mojo after setting this value, but that doesnt work.

 

Kind regards,

Floris

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I had a pretty serious Mojo 61 malfunction last night. Gig was at a tiny bar, so I decide to go with just the Mojo and some K10s. Got set up, and the Mojo froze. Rebooted, froze again, at the point where all the lights come on at init. Cycled power, froze again. Tried plugging into a different outlet and same thing - crashed at boot.

 

Drove 10 miles home to grab the Nord Stage 2. Awhile back I had picked up a spare power supply for the rehearsal room, so I grabbed that, and also a multimeter. Got back to the gig, tried the second power supply. The Mojo booted up and ran for a few minutes but then the control panel froze. I could play notes, but couldn't change voices or volume, and the sustain pedal stopped responding. So at the next song I swapped to the NS2 and used that for the rest of the night.

 

During the break I probed the outlet and it was reading 118 volts. So no obvious problem there. Maybe when the whole band is playing that voltage varies / browns out, or there's noise on it or something the Mojo doesn't like.

 

First thing I did this morning was unpack and fire up the Mojo and it booted as normal. My best guess is that it's hypersensitive to *something* on the power, but I don't know what. Anyone else have this happen? I'm not sure what to do? Call the service center for a problem I can't reproduce? Buy a small UPS and keep that handy? Not sure what else to do.

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I wouldn't bother Guido right now.

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Z8wTtBZRc

 

 

 

 

;) Just kidding, and not saying anything about his other hobbies. I just er, saw the shot and I took it? :D

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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I haven't commented on this much, but I noticed that some of the percussion harmonics seemed stronger than others when I used slow decay/ third percussion when I demoed the Mojo.

 

This led me to keep my HX3 module after my Mojo/HX3 shootout last spring. The HX3 has some quirks as well, but I am loving being able to use different controllers with lighter action with that module.

 

I still think the Mojo is an excellent product. Everybody likes something different anyway.

 

I like being able to edit the HX3 without external devices too.

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