Dexibell Combo J7

[To B3]

There's no J7 there yet...

 

 

Now available at Alto Music:

 

https://www.altomusic.com/catalogsearch/result/?order=relevance&dir=desc&cat=2099&q=dexibell

[musicbysterling]

Or Dexibell's Midnight Runners....

[teashea]

Some thoughts on the Dexibell Combo J7.

 

The J7 is a 73 key combo organ, with its primary focus on emulation of a Hammond B3 family organ. It is a direct competitor to the Hammond SK1, Nord Electro 5D and Roland VR 730.

 

There are over 100 sounds (instruments) in the J7. In addition to the B3 emulations, the J7 has an array of Vox, Farfia, electric pianos, acoustic pianos, synths and orchestral sounds.

 

It weighs 22 pounds and has very solid construction with metal chassis and top panel and wood end panels. The controls are very secure, with very good feel. It is comparable in build quality to a Nord.

 

Dexibell has one engine that powers all of it top keyboards. It uses a quad core processor and can generate 320 oscillators. Like all of its brothers, it has unlimited polyphony. Impressive. Taking advantage of this power the J7 uses sampling and modeling for its sounds. Instead of the usual 16 bit processing, it has 24 bit processing - which is a 256 times increase in the rate.

 

In its sampling, Dexibell uses long sampling times. While most competitors have sampling rates of up to 5 seconds, the Dexibell sampling is up to 15 seconds (for lower bass notes). This minimizes or eliminates the need for looping.

 

The control layout is thoughtful. There are knobs and buttons for most functions, divided into areas on the panel in a logical and useful manner. It does use menus for some functions, but the menus are first layer for most functions and do not require deep menu diving. This is a compromise. The J7 has substantially more tweekability than an Electro 5D or Stage 3.

 

The most obvious difference in a J7 is the setup for the drawbars. They are motorized and always show the actual position of the organ sound that is playing. The feel is very good and they can always be moved manually. The motorization applies whenever a preset is used. The drawbars quickly move to the preset position so that a player knows at a glance what the setting is.

As far as the reliability of the motorized drawbars, this is a mature technology that has been used for many years on high end recording consoles.

 

Ok - now the meat of the issue. How is the sound? In a word - excellent. The combination of high quality sampling and modeling is executed very well. It is on par with other high end clones. The percussion, CV and Leslie sims are quite well done. I know that there is some question regarding the Leslie sim. The nice thing about this simulation is that it is highly adjustable. With just one menu level down, one can easily and quickly adjust a variety of parameters of the Leslie effect.

 

The extra sounds are as good or better than any other clone I have used. The piano sounds are especially excellent.

 

Well done Dexibell. Well done.

[AnotherScott]

How is the sound? In a word - excellent. The combination of high quality sampling and modeling is executed very well. It is on par with other high end clones.

Which other high end clones have you played, which you feel it compares well to?

 

I know that there is some question regarding the Leslie sim. The nice thing about this simulation is that it is highly adjustable. With just one menu level down, one can easily and quickly adjust a variety of parameters of the Leslie effect.

Adjustability isn't really much of an issue. The sims in clones are typically highly adjustable (some more than others). But of course that doesn't mean you can adjust them to sound like a Vent.

 

IThe extra sounds are as good or better than any other clone I have used.

Again, I think it would be helpful to know which other clones you've used.

 

I was not particularly impressed by the extra sounds in their P3 piano, particularly the EP sounds. Though there were also things I liked about the board, including its general operational interface.

 

The J7 looks interesting. It would be nice if it were a bit stronger on the MIDI controller side (i.e. being able to store MIDI Program Changes in your user programs).

[ElmerJFudd]

Thread started before release

https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2841193/Dexibell_Combo_J7

[teashea]

To address you main question about what clonewheels I have used, I also have a Legend, 2 Legend Lives, 2 XK5's, 5D, Stage 3, Mojo, C2D, 2 Numa Organ2's, Korg Vox Continental.

 

Tom

 

 

 

How is the sound? In a word - excellent. The combination of high quality sampling and modeling is executed very well. It is on par with other high end clones.

Which other high end clones have you played, which you feel it compares well to?

 

I know that there is some question regarding the Leslie sim. The nice thing about this simulation is that it is highly adjustable. With just one menu level down, one can easily and quickly adjust a variety of parameters of the Leslie effect.

Adjustability isn't really much of an issue. The sims in clones are typically highly adjustable (some more than others). But of course that doesn't mean you can adjust them to sound like a Vent.

 

IThe extra sounds are as good or better than any other clone I have used.

Again, I think it would be helpful to know which other clones you've used.

 

I was not particularly impressed by the extra sounds in their P3 piano, particularly the EP sounds. Though there were also things I liked about the board, including its general operational interface.

 

The J7 looks interesting. It would be nice if it were a bit stronger on the MIDI controller side (i.e. being able to store MIDI Program Changes in your user programs).

[AnotherScott]

To address you main question about what clonewheels I have used, I also have a Legend, 2 Legend Lives, 2 XK5's, 5D, Stage 3, Mojo, C2D, 2 Numa Organ2's, Korg Vox Continental.

Pretty impressive that you found the J7 on a par with any/all of those.

[ElmerJFudd]

It is, right? There are very few people that I am aware of that have gotten their hands on the J7, certainly in the US to comment/share on - and there just isn't (yet) much in the way of end user audio and/or video examples. So this review is promising.

 

Ralph Schink did an amazing job putting together this definitive demo of the J7 first shared at Musikmesse (already posted above) - and it clearly suggests the J7 can cover a lot of organ timbres in a variety of organ playing styles.

[video:youtube]

 

Bonners in the UK got one in and gives some examples of additional ancillary sounds, but also gives a break down of the layout.

[video:youtube]

 

I'd really like to hear more examples that show the rotary sim, stop, fast slow - ramp up and slow down, etc. And I think we're in luck. They've just posted a few more examples.

 

[ElmerJFudd]

New demos!

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

[teashea]

Yeah,,,, They really need to get some more high quality videos out there with good sound for the J7.

[Delaware Dave]

Can the organ be split into upper and lower? can you midi in a lower keyboard and have two manuals with independent drawbar control? I have yet to see the above in a demo so I'm wondering if this is possible or is it simply a single manual organ. Does anyone know?

[bjosko]

This popped up on my Youtube account.

Seriously, they need to do something with that Leslie sim

[video:youtube]

[teashea]

The J7 can be split and layered. Split point is adjustable.

[Nordlicht]

I can't help myself, but the tonewheel organ sounds cold, lifeless and somehow "cheap" in my ears, the overdrive is quite harsh and why should I have motorized drawbars if the Hammond has been without them since the 1930s? It seems to be like a forced unique selling point in an occupied market...

 

If you dont use it as a substitute for a Hammond and if the organ sound doesnt have priority than it might perhaps work.

[Kurt W]

...and why should I have motorized drawbars if the Hammond has been without them since the 1930s? It seems to be like a forced unique selling point in an occupied market...

 

Definitely missing motorized drawbars on all clones with just a single set of drawbars. Switching between upper and lower manuals on my Mojo 61 is very confusing. Happy I have a Ocean Beach drawbar set. Motorized drawbars indeed is nice unique selling point on a clone. On a Hammond the drawbars always show the correct positions when in drawbar mode.

[analogholic]

The "Hammond" sounds like shit...

This their attempt to compete with NE5, SK1?

So this is more expensive than the Nord (which is ALREADY expensive) and sounds worse?

Oh, forgot, you get motorized faders and long samples...

No thanks!

[ElmerJFudd]

The reason you'd want motorized drawbars on a digital instrument like a Forte, Kronos, Stage 3, etc. is because the faders are used for many things as you switch sound types, layer, fx, eq etc. But when you jump into a clonewheel preset/patch the bars are where they actually are in the registration. You don't need to throw them through a previous value point to get them to match value again. Advancements and innovations always welcome IMHO. Presets can be construed as heresy as well for someone who spent a lot of time learning to grab multiple stops in real time. Or that person may say, "dang, now I can focus on more musical aspects of my playing", or "now I can push/pull more controls than are even humanly possible!". It's just perspectives, attitudes, preferences.

 

The sound of the various organ models is a totally different thing. And if the instrument doesn't sound any good... the motorized faders won't fix that. But, would be nice to see them on a Stage, Kronos, Forte, etc.

[teashea]

The reason you'd want motorized drawbars on a digital instrument like a Forte, Kronos, Stage 3, etc. is because the faders are used for many things as you switch sound types, layer, fx, eq etc. But when you jump into a clonewheel preset/patch the bars are where try actual are in the registration. You don't need to throw them through a previous value point to get them to match value again. Advancements and innovations always welcome IMHO. Presets can be construed as heresy as well for someone who spent a lot of time learning to grab multiple stops in real time. Or that person may say, "dang, now I can focus on more musical aspects of my playing", or "now I can push/pull more controls than are even humanly possible!". It's just perspectives, attitudes, preferences.

 

The sound of the various organ models is a totally different thing. And if the instrument doesn't sound any good... the motorized faders won't fix that. But, would be nice to see them on a Stage, Kronos, Forte, etc.

 

 

Well stated

[AnotherScott]

On a Hammond the drawbars always show the correct positions when in drawbar mode.

Yes, one set of motorized faders is a great substitute for the actual B3's four sets of manual drawbars. (And it's nice to be able to modify recalled presets in real time, something you couldn't do on a real B3.)

 

But while I hesitate to judge something based on youtube videos monitored on my computer speakers, from what I've seen here, no way is this "on a par with other high end clones." Fast leslie, overdrive, and percussion all sound somewhere between disappointing and atrocious. That's the stuff I can hear, but I'm also concerned about what I'm not hearing, like a nice key click (though that could be a matter of it not being fully engaged as that is usually a setting).

 

ETA: I wonder if there's enough 2-way MIDI communication that it could make for a good controller for a Gemini desktop module, to give you a keyboard with moving drawbars controlling the VB3 organ engine, that could be pretty cool. Though it would be better of the J7 made for a more complete MIDI controller (user presets that could send MIDI Program Change in particular, though picth/mod wheels and of course the elusive aftertouch would be nice as well).

[ElmerJFudd]

Oh yes, now we're talking! If MIDI implementation on this instrument is complete - and your presets throw out drawbar values while auto-zipping into position for an external sound device like the Gemini or HX-3 - that's cool as heck. Doesn't quite make up for lacking the internal goods - but only because it's $2300. Which is high for a controller, no?

 

Anyway, now that dexibell has released it and this combo organ is out in the wild - feedback will be forthcoming and firmware updates can improve most any aspect about the sound as long as the hardware is good. If they bring it to NAMM, there will be no shortage of opinions and maybe some additional artist connections can help them tweak to taste.

[Shamanczarek]

I think it sounds great. Couldn't find a list of the other sounds. There is only 100 I think and they waste one on Soprano Sax when they could put a Mellotron, Hohner Pianet, RMI, or some other more useful sound.

[Tobias Åslund]

Ok, I won't say I can't say Dexibell hasn't caught my interest with some of their products, but IMHO there are quite a lot of marketing BS here and there - and like many of you I'm not that impressed with the Hammond/Leslie sim of the J7. So here are som of my thoughts:

 

Instead of the usual 16 bit processing, it has 24 bit processing

Well, in 1997 this might have been impressive, but I'm quite sure that many companies have left the 16 bit territory quite some time ago... AFAIK Nord have been working at 24 bits for ten years or so, just as an example.

 

The J7 has substantially more tweekability than an Electro 5D or Stage 3.

Well, in some areas (like effects editing, and a number of parameters specific to some types of sounds, and there are more parameters for midi transmission and pedal assignments), but the J7 can't compete with the synth section of the Stage 3 - no LFO's or filters to adjust. When looking at MIDI, there are a lot of parameters to control what each of the four parts (upper, coupled, lower, pedal), but like someone else mentioned - there doesn't seem to be a way to send bank and program change (like you can with the external section in the Nord Stage-series). Then if we look at the tonewheel parameters that can be adjusted in the J7 we have:

 

Volume (Normal/Soft)

Leakage

Hum noise

Click On Noise

Click Off Noise

Perc manual (upper/lower)

Express Tone (on/off)

Expression Min

 

Ok, so we have a few more parameters than a Stage 3, but an Electro 5 has at least one parameter (key bounce) that the J7 does not have. When looking at the tonewheel section he J7 is nowhere near as adjustable as a Crumar Mojo or a digital Hammond, where you even can adjust tonewheels individually.

 

I know that there is some question regarding the Leslie sim. The nice thing about this simulation is that it is highly adjustable. With just one menu level down, one can easily and quickly adjust a variety of parameters of the Leslie effect.

Highly adjustable...? Again, it's not a Mojo or Hammond where you can edit the tone of the cabinet, resonance of the horn or frequency modulation of the simulation. These are the parameters of the Rotary effect in the J7:

 

Rotary Noise (lets you adjust sampled, mechanical noises of the belt and motor)

Horn Slow RPM

Horn Fast RPM

Horn RampUp

Horn RampDw

Bass Slow RPM

Bass Fast RPM

Bass RampUp

Bass RampDw

 

So again, besides the mechanical noise sample, you don't have more "Leslie" editing than in the Stage 3... and as others have stated, the Rotary simulation still sounds really bad. Good thing that you can slow down the fast speed - it might at least help some...

 

 

Ok, that's enough with critique. Here's something interesting

 

I think it sounds great. Couldn't find a list of the other sounds. There is only 100 I think and they waste one on Soprano Sax when they could put a Mellotron, Hohner Pianet, RMI, or some other more useful sound.

 

There seem to be 105 different sounds, apart from the organ engine, but unfortunately now Mellotrons etc, BUT, here it gets really interesting - the J7 has, like some of the Dexibell stage pianos, a flash memory (of unknown size, the manual doesn't say) where you (like in a Nord) can import sounds and samples of your choosing. From the Dexibell website you have about 30-40 sounds to choose from, some of them more than 30 MB or more in size, so I guess the flash memory would be at least 100 MB or more. Now the interesting part - besides from the native Dexibell format (.dxs), the J7 also supports .sf2 soundfonts(!), so then there is nothing stopping you from creating your own custom sounds as well.

 

Well, to sum up - there are a lot of good features and sounds in the J7, but unfortunately the Hammond/Leslie-engine is not one of them, IMHO... if they however would make a version without the tonewheel model and motorized drawbars, (which hopefully also would lower the price quite a bit) but put pitch/mod wheels in it, and slightly improve the MIDI implementation (what basically would make it an non-hammer action Dexibell S-3), to make it a decent controller, then it would be more interesting stage keyboard, to me at least. The Dexibell S-7 still seams like an interesting stage piano (and it can send bank and program change...).

 

If anyone is interested, the user manual, the downloadable sounds, can be found in the "my dexIbell" area, but you have to register an account to access it:

 

http://www.dexibell.com/index.php?route=account/login

[teashea]

Yes, the manuals for the various Dexibells are very good. They reveal a lot about the the capabilities of each instrument.

 

On the level of the basic engine, the engine in all of the Dexibells is the same with the same quad core processor. They also use the same sound sampling/modeling system.

 

Each uses a different system of controls and layout of the functions. For example, the Classico L3 and the Combo J7 use different approaches to the controls. Each system works for the particular keyboard.

 

As far as the Clonewheel section goes, I like it.

 

And the motorized drawbars on the J7 are wonderful. I did not realize how good it would be to have these until I started playing mine.

 

One of the other excellent things about the J7 and L3 is the build quality - very solid and excellent in all regards.

[AnotherScott]

Instead of the usual 16 bit processing, it has 24 bit processing

Well, in 1997 this might have been impressive, but I'm quite sure that many companies have left the 16 bit territory quite some time ago...

I also seriously doubt anyone could tell the difference in a live performance.

 

[if they however would make a version without the tonewheel model and motorized drawbars, (which hopefully also would lower the price quite a bit) but put pitch/mod wheels in it, and slightly improve the MIDI implementation (what basically would make it an non-hammer action Dexibell S-3), to make it a decent controller, then it would be more interesting stage keyboard, to me at least. The Dexibell S-7 still seams like an interesting stage piano (and it can send bank and program change...)

If the J7 had the pitch/mod wheels and user presets that could store bank/program changes, it would make for a nice controller for external sounds (and even more so if they added aftertouch). But as I mentioned, I really like the idea of motorized drawbars controlling an external organ source too, so I wouldn't want to lose those... plus it's one of the things that differentiates it from others as a controller. That doesn't leave much space for the wheels though, without some major panel redesign. Maybe an 88-key version. (And I suspect that removing the tonewheel modeling itself wouldn't lower the cost anyway, as it is probably only software running on the same hardware that is already there.)

[ElmerJFudd]

At some point they added 'platinum' sounds and did some work on the Leslie.

 

Some playing examples.

 

OS update history.

https://www.dexibell.com/dexibell/documents/OS%20upgrade%20history%20INFO.pdf

 

Platinum Sound Examples at the bottom.

https://www.dexibell.com/prodotto/combo-j7/?lang=en#1525703255922-500c5b93-3a51

[Delaware Dave]

i've auditioned this keyboard several times, i was and am still underwhelmed...

[AnotherScott]

i've auditioned this keyboard several times, i was and am still underwhelmed...

The factory installed pianos and EPs are not nearly as good as the platinum ones you can now load into it, that made a big difference to me. The organ/Leslie has improved from being bottom of the pack to middle of the pack. They added good MIDI capabilities... amd the idea of driving VB3m or B-3X with moving drawbars is appealing. The limitation of only 36 user presets being available at a time and the highly sprung action are probably its biggest negatives for me.

[ElmerJFudd]

So the Platinum sounds use more storage - like Nord. You need to remove/replace existing patches to load up a Platinum piano. Not a bad deal, since they include some very specific patches which you may need only in rare situations.

[AnotherScott]

So the Platinum sounds use more storage - like Nord. You need to remove/replace existing patches to load up a Platinum piano.

Yes. Though the platinum pianos are in the range of triple the size of Nord's largest, so you'll probably only want to load one of them.

 

For comparison...

 

...Nord Electro 6 gives you 1 GB for you to pick and choose which of their piano library sounds you want to use, and another half a gigabyte for whatever combination of other samples (or your own) that you want to use, with the additional caveat that samples in that second section are limited to a single velocity layer.

 

...Dexibell gives you 1.5 GB (same total) to use however you wish, i.e. for whatever combination of their piano sounds, their other sampled sounds, or samples of your own (as soundfonts), and there is no velocity layer limitation. Also, each Dexibell program can include 4-zone MIDI zoning, so you can also split/layer the internal sounds with sounds from an iPhone/iPad or whatever... that's a way of getting beyond 1.5 GB of total available sounds if need be. Nord doesn't do something comparable until you get to the Stage 3. (Dexibell's splits/layers are also more flexible... Nord is 3-way consisting of one piano, one organ, and one something else; Dexibell is 4-way with no limits on which sounds you can use.).

 

Though as I mentioned, the platinum pianos are quite large, so while you may like Dexibell's platinum pianos more than Nord's largest (XL) pianos, you won't be able to simultaneously load the multiples of them that you can on the Nord. The Electro's 1 gig of dedicated piano memory can hold 4-5 of their largest pianos (which are under 250 mb and usually under 200 mb @), the Dexibell's 1.5 gig of total memory can hold 1 or 2 of their best pianos (which can top 750 mb @).

 

Other key differences...

 

Electro has more real-time effects controls though Dexibell's effects are more flexible.

 

An Electro advantage over J7 is that you can have 416 recallable user programs instead of 36 (though you can swap different sets of 36 in and out vis USB stick). This may or may not be a significant issue, depending on how you work (e.g. fixed sets vs. being able to play any song at any time, or how much you rely on specific sound setups for specific songs) and/or what other board you may be pairing it with (i.e. if your other board has tons of user programs, you may not need that level of flexibility in your second board). Note that I'm not saying you only have 36 sounds available to you in total... you can still pick any of the available single sounds on the fly (pianos, EPs, strings, brass, etc. etc.), I'm talking about access to your own edited and/or split/layered versions of these sounds.

 

I can't say definitively which organ sounds better, that's probably too subjective (e.g. I like Nord's organ more than a lot of other people do). But Nord does have an advantage in letting you split the outputs to dual mono for sending organ out to a Vent, Dexibell does not. OTOH, Dexibell has other organ advantages... moving drawbars, support for bass pedals, ability to send high trigger over MIDI. And if you want to upgrade the organ sound to Vb3m on your smartphone or B3X on your ipad or whatever, the Dexibell can do this pretty easily (even with the moving drawbar benefit); the Nord is not so amenable to this, with its very limited MIDI implementation. Not that it would be impossible to drive an external organ sound from the Nord, but there will be more limitations/complications.

 

The other subjective thing I'll mention here is that I think Nord does a better job than Dexibell in making their pianos more playable from a non-hammer action. Though both push back too much for my taste.