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Hammond B-3X for IPad


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BTW: there is a free PC/Mac demo version which runs for 10 days without restrictions.

 

Nice! Even though I'd want the ipad version, knowing they sound the same I'll give this a shot. I do wish I could know if my gen4 ipad could handle it...

 

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BTW: there is a free PC/Mac demo version which runs for 10 days without restrictions.

 

Nice! Even though I'd want the ipad version, knowing they sound the same I'll give this a shot. I do wish I could know if my gen4 ipad could handle it...

Mine can . iPad mini 4 upgraded to the latest iOS as of January. There were problems before the app was upgraded. Now it works good.

FunMachine.

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I couldn't jibe with Galileo. The "out of the box" sound was not likeable to me, and the tweaking I did didn't change that much. It just wasn't fun.

 

B3-X was fun from the moment I started playing. Tweaking parameters is a total gas. It's all sweet spot, which is of course how any clone should be. But with Galileo I never found any sweet spot. I used it when there was no alternative. By contrast I could leave my Mojo at home and use the B3-X and not feel cheated. At least that's my feeling after one day with it. Haven't used it in a band context yet.

 

I do think the Mojo 61 sounds somewhat better. C/V and percussion were the first things to jump out at me as being better on the Mojo. But it's a much closer comparison than I expected.

 

I have a stupid question though. My music apps are Korg Module Pro and B3-X. The Module only plays when it's on the screen. However, B3-X is engaged all the time. I had to create a preset with all drawbars in just so I could play Module without hearing B3-X. I feel I must be missing something obvious, like an "on-off" switch somewhere. Didn't see anything like that in the manual. I'm not integrating these apps into any larger platform, just using them on their own.

 

I know I'm probably just being an idiot about this. Any thoughts?

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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Hi Adan,

 

you can set "background audio" operation in the Korg Module "setting -> advanced settings " on or off !

 

Studio: Hammond XK5-XLK5,  Roland Fantom 8, Kurzweil PC3A6, Prophet 5, Moog Sub37, Neo Vent, HX3-Expander, LB Organ Grinder

Live: Yamaha CP88, Yamaha Motif Rack ES, Hammond SKX Pro, Hammond XB2-HX3,  Kurzweil PC3-61, Leslie 251, Roland SA1000, Neo Vent2

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Yes, most MIDI apps have an option to enable/disable background operation. And then an easy way to determine what plays when is to have them set to receive on different MIDI channels (most apps permit this), and then create patches on your controlling board that are set to transmit on the appropriate channel(s) when needed. If your controller does not have that flexibility, then you should be able to use a controlling app like Keystage, Camelot Pro, or iMidiPatchbay to take your single MIDI channel input and route to your other apps as needed.

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, there you go...I found tweaking Galileo really easy and pretty quick! Lots of MIDI options and a plethora of options under the advanced tabs to set the exact sound you want. I tried the demo (B3x) side by side with Galileo and tbh, the differences were so negligible I had to use cans to actually discern them. The B3 in that test JUST shaded Galileo, but not by enough to justify the outrageous price! ymmv

 

There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence...

 

Time is the final arbiter for all things

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Well, there you go...I found tweaking Galileo really easy and pretty quick! Lots of MIDI options and a plethora of options under the advanced tabs to set the exact sound you want. I tried the demo (B3x) side by side with Galileo and tbh, the differences were so negligible I had to use cans to actually discern them. The B3 in that test JUST shaded Galileo, but not by enough to justify the outrageous price! ymmv

 

I find it hard to see the perspective that $100 is too much to pay for B-3X. I spend that much every time I take my family out to dinner. Let's see, would I rather be playing a great organ clone from whatever keyboard is at hand, or yelling at my son for not eating his $20 grass fed hamburger? Tough choice!

 

Sound goodness aside, one immediate difference I noted between Galileo and B-3X is how well the interface works. For instance, getting subtelty out of expression pedal is hugely important to me. I can do that with B-3X, whereas expression on Galileo feels much more ham-fisted (ham-footed?). Stuff like this that makes B-3X feel like a much more refined product.

 

I still think Galileo is a great value for $16! And in some contexts it might be quite enough. Speaking for myself, for organ-centered music, I'd want the B-3X.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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Yes, most MIDI apps have an option to enable/disable background operation. And then an easy way to determine what plays when is to have them set to receive on different MIDI channels (most apps permit this), and then create patches on your controlling board that are set to transmit on the appropriate channel(s) when needed. If your controller does not have that flexibility, then you should be able to use a controlling app like Keystage, Camelot Pro, or iMidiPatchbay to take your single MIDI channel input and route to your other apps as needed.

 

Thanks, Scott. Makes perfect sense. Until now I've never had multiple music apps. I just assumed they'd stay out of each other's way but I can now see it's more like connecting two or more hardware modules using midi thru.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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I can now see it's more like connecting two or more hardware modules using midi thru.

Exactly! As long as you have their background processing options turned on.

 

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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...........I find it hard to see the perspective that $100 is too much to pay for B-3X. I spend that much every time I take my family out to dinner. Let's see, would I rather be playing a great organ clone from whatever keyboard is at hand, or yelling at my son for not eating his $20 grass fed hamburger? Tough choice!

 

Sound goodness aside, one immediate difference I noted between Galileo and B-3X is how well the interface works. For instance, getting subtelty out of expression pedal is hugely important to me. I can do that with B-3X, whereas expression on Galileo feels much more ham-fisted (ham-footed?). Stuff like this that makes B-3X feel like a much more refined product.

 

I still think Galileo is a great value for $16! And in some contexts it might be quite enough. Speaking for myself, for organ-centered music, I'd want the B-3X.

 

Yep, fair dues! (haha, although down here it's near $200!) and further you cannot use jampoints for iOS software which is the version I'd be buying - don't use the PC at gigs ;)

There is no luck - luck is simply the confluence of circumstance and co-incidence...

 

Time is the final arbiter for all things

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I use Galileo when I need cutting, over-the-top, whacky sounds good for acid rock, trippy reggae, or way-out prog-rock.

 

B3-X comes alive on my blues, country, and power ballad tunes. A slightly dirtier B-3X preset covers most Tom Petty tunes extremely well, too.

 

Love them both...different tools for different jobs.

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Spent some time today A-B'ing Mojo 61 and B-3X. Surprised to hear myself say this, but I prefer the B-3X. The basic tone is just more satisfying to my ears, and the Leslie sim is unbelievably good. Mojo may still have the edge in some sound aspects like C/V and percussion, but it's close. I'm not a fan of overdriven sounds, so that was sort of outside today's thought process.

 

Bottom line, it's very clear to me which is more inspiring to play.

 

Biggest reasons to keep gigging with the Mojo are the high trigger point and reliability, because iPads do have glitches. High trigger is nice to have, but really isn't necessary. Fingers will recalibrate. As for reliability, I don't currently play the kind of gigs where a minor interruption means disaster as long as I can switch to another sound quickly.

 

I've used keyboard apps before, but it took the B-3K to make me seriously consider setting up my rig around them. So now I'm figuring out how to construct a "B-team" rig of 2 lightweight controllers. Maybe iRig 49's? A bit mind-boggling, the number of choices.

 

But as noted above, using controllers with no internal sounds means all eggs in the iPad basket. That feels like too much of a high wire act to me.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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Yeah that's too scary for me personally too. I'd go with a hardware keyboard for one of them (since you have the mojo, there you go!). Work out a way to switch fairly quickly between them (or have both running to FOH and just mute the mojo when using b3x).

 

Of course, I'm considering just using a nord stage so that's kind of going against that philosophy. I don't trust laptops/ipads quite as much as nord keyboards, whether that is sound reasoning I don't know!

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Biggest reasons to keep gigging with the Mojo are the high trigger point and reliability

Also, hardware boards let you instantly play from the current physical drawbar setting. I miss that capability when it's not there.

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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I've used keyboard apps before, but it took the B-3K to make me seriously consider setting up my rig around them. So now I'm figuring out how to construct a "B-team" rig of 2 lightweight controllers. Maybe iRig 49's? A bit mind-boggling, the number of choices.

 

But as noted above, using controllers with no internal sounds means all eggs in the iPad basket. That feels like too much of a high wire act to me.

 

STRONG dis-recommend for the iRig I/O 49 (not the original iRig Pro 49), which I've had for awhile now. Am not happy with myself for buying a controller with poor action, mostly because of being much harder to play near the fallboard. YMMV, of course, but I heartily suggest it's not a great choice because of the inadequate keybed and how easy it is to trigger the touch control surfaces unintentionally. And having a 3 character display is very user unfriendly. Not to mention the included software was difficult to install on my PC, and their orchestral program is a joke, with a non-resizeable screen. I'm selling mine, which I paid $280 for with 3 year extended warranty (still 1.5 years on that) for $100 obo.

 

IME, the ipad is very stable when used to play one app. It's been awhile, but in the past when I've used AUM and AB3 for example, I've had various problems getting different apps to play well together without glitching. Some apps are better than others for that, and I've read of various people on this forum who've achieved a stable system with a multi-app ipad setup.

 

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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Never have had a problem with the iPad music source. I'm actually using my wife's old iPhone 6 with almost all of the original apps removed, and Module, iFretless Bass, and Ravenscroft on it for my church gig. It is so small that I could use the iPad mini instead, and quickly switch to the iPhone (just carry it in the belt case) if a problem did develop. I don't really run but one app at the time, have it setup for MIDI channel 2 input, so all I have to do to switch to it is to change the Kurzweil that I use for a controller's MIDI channel. Of course, the PC3 has its own sounds, so if the iPad were to quit, just go back to the Kurzweil.

 

Just love to be able to play somewhere that has backline amplification walking in like a horn player, setting up in a couple of minutes, and packing up in five minutes. The little iRig Pro 37 controller doesn't take up much room either.

 

Be nice to have B3-X, but what I've got is getting the job done.

Howard Grand|Hamm SK1-73|Kurz PC2|PC2X|PC3|PC3X|PC361; QSC K10's

HP DAW|Epi Les Paul & LP 5-str bass|iPad mini2

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Jim

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The B-3X is preprogrammed to receive midi from various Hammond clones. Does anyone know if playing from these Hammond keyboards will send midi notes from the "high trigger" position. In other words, will playing B-3X using, say, an XK-1c, feel the same from a tactile standpoint as playing internal sounds? Jim Alfredson, can you answer this question?

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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The B-3X is preprogrammed to receive midi from various Hammond clones. Does anyone know if playing from these Hammond keyboards will send midi notes from the "high trigger" position. In other words, will playing B-3X using, say, an XK-1c, feel the same from a tactile standpoint as playing internal sounds? Jim Alfredson, can you answer this question?

 

Wow! So,does that mean it would respond to drawbar changes from my Nord E3?

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The B-3X is preprogrammed to receive midi from various Hammond clones. Does anyone know if playing from these Hammond keyboards will send midi notes from the "high trigger" position. In other words, will playing B-3X using, say, an XK-1c, feel the same from a tactile standpoint as playing internal sounds? Jim Alfredson, can you answer this question?

 

Wow! So,does that mean it would respond to drawbar changes from my Nord E3?

 

Sorry I was unclear. What I meant is that B-3X has preset midi maps for specific Hammond clones made by Hammond in the XK and SK line. I don't have one of those but I assume the way it works is you just click on that preset and all controls on the Hammond are mapped to the B-3X parameters. But midi CC's from any keyboard can be very easily mapped. I don't know whether Electro 3 drawbars send CC's.

 

The Mojo 61's drawbars can control the upper manual of the B-3X when those midi channels are matched. But the drawbars cannot then control lower or pedal. At least I haven't figured out how. The Mojo sends note messages from the "normal" trigger position, not the high trigger position. The tactile difference is noticeable, but not dramatic.

 

It's a longshot that an XK or SK sends midi from high trigger, but worth asking.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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It's a longshot that an XK or SK sends midi from high trigger, but worth asking.

 

Yes I would like to know if the XK can send high trigger too!

 

The XK-3C sends midi from the high trigger point as long as velocity for percussion is off.

Not sure about the other models.

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"But midi CC's from any keyboard can be very easily mapped."

 

I don't think this is entirely true. The viscount legend sends the same midi CC for upper drawbars and lower drawbars. It does the upper drawbars on channel 1 and the lower on channel 2.

 

This software only distinguishes channels for notes not controller functions. If u want to use 2 manuals with a keyboard like the legend, you're out of luck. For this software to with with 2 manuals, the top and bottom drawbars need to have different CCs.

 

Ex:

Viscount sends (i don't recall the exact CCs)

Upper drawbars: channel 1, CC 13, 14, 15, 16, etc...

Lower drawbars: channel 2 CC 13, 14, 15, 16, etc ..

 

B-3X expects on same channel:

Upper: cc 13, 14, 15, 16, ... Up to 21

Lower: cc 22, 23, 24, etc

 

I wrote them. They said sorry contact your manufacturer of the keyboard. I suppose that many they don't plan to support this in the future. I dropped $100 on it. And I suppose it's still a nice upgrade to a single manual board, but I wish I could use it on both channels.

 

By the way, I'm referring to the IOS version. I haven't tried the PC version.

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Kwyn-

On the PC and Mac (computers) there are a number of different plug-ins and software tools to convert midi messages from one thing to another. You can easily convert midi channels and turn an incoming cc into a different cc. Is there something like this for tablets? Can you even use multiple pieces of software talking to each other on these platforms?

 

Maybe there"s something out there that does what you need. :idk:

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They are rare, but the early 2000s Korg BX3 transmits optional high and low trigger points. As does the CX-3.

 

Good to know, because one still sees used CX-3 for sale. (Usually overpriced, like all clones, but that's a different topic).

 

Control of B-3X from the Mojo 61 isn't perfect, but is certainly "good enough for an app." I don't change lower and pedal drawbars enough that I feel I have to have them physically drawbar'd. But high trigger point is pretty desireable. There's always used XK and SK models to be had.

 

I'm still not at the point where I'd replace the Mojo with the B-3X for live playing. At this point it's another tool in the toolkit. But it would be nice to take full advantage of it with a complete controller.

 

Can't send Jim Alfredson a PM, his mailbox is full.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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Kwyn-

On the PC and Mac (computers) there are a number of different plug-ins and software tools to convert midi messages from one thing to another. You can easily convert midi channels and turn an incoming cc into a different cc. Is there something like this for tablets? Can you even use multiple pieces of software talking to each other on these platforms?

 

Maybe there"s something out there that does what you need. :idk:

Tried midi flow but couldn't get it to work

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Here's my .02...

 

While having the high trigger point is nice (I have it on my Electro) I feel that it sometimes encourages fast and sloppy playing. (On a real B3 it's the same thing).

When that setting is turned off, the organ behaves more like a pipe organ and it's more controllable.

 

So it's not a total deal-breaker if you can't get that happening...

 

Tom

Tom

Nord Electro 5D, Modal Cobalt 8, Yamaha upright piano, numerous plug-ins...

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I agree high trigger is not a deal breaker. I see marginal gains in going from a Mojo, or other waterfall clone that can map at least one set of drawbars, to an XK or Sk. Having the iPad mini right there in front of me on top of the Mojo gives me a reasonable amount of control. But grabbing a used XK1c might be worth considering.

 

But I'm not a major tweaker, more in the Jimmy Smith tradition of finding a good sound and just playing. That may be more the exception than the rule these days? Someone who's on the controls more than me will probably want as much of a one to one midi mapping as possible.

 

Midi flow didn't work for me either. It could detect some apps but not others, and didn't detect B3-X. I have the feeling that for folks who understand midi, problems like this are easy to solve. For folks like me who have always approached midi as just a physical plug-to-plug affair, there are new concepts and terminology to grasp. I haven't seriously tried to climb that learning curve yet.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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