HammondDave

Very nice, Tony....

There is a bikers club in Orange County called Cooks Corner. I was playing a gig there and went into the men's room to relieve myself. The pissoir was a four foot trough and I was cheek to cheek with the guy next to me pissing into a mound of vomit. The guy turns to me and says "It does not get much better than this..." Yuck!

Actually she was a woman... They both proved to be....

"My girlfriend and I would like you to spend the night with us...". After decades of playing I actually heard those words... I say quit while you're ahead....

Now that you mention it.... GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!! Little bastards!

So you're saying they won't like the Mojo, the Studiologic, the KeyB, and the Ventura, but love the Hammonds, Nord, and Roland? : No, I am not saying that at all.. I believe I said that they will love them all.... It has nothing to do with dissing the people who don't advertise with them... No one is that transparent, or classless... Plus, the more companies in the market, the better for everyone... Including Keyboard Magazine.

I can't believe I am reading this.... First of all, judging from past KM "Clone Shootouts" it's really not much of a competition, but a mutual love fest of companies that advertise in their magazine. We are not talking about Consumer Reports here... And please don't think that I am questioning Steve's journalistic ethics. I love reading his articles and commend him on his interviews. It's just a fact that commercial magazines will never knock its advertisers. It's how they survive... And even if the shootout was 100% legit, it's incredibly subjective on how a Hammond should sound. I have found myself disagreeing with my all time Hammond hero Booker T. regarding some of his comments about the XK3. And some of the other comments by respective artists were just off the wall. In fact, we learned that one of the reviewers was an endorser for the company whose board he raved about! So don't get your panties in an uproar over which clone, or workstation should be included. Believe me, they will end the article by saying something like "The current generation of Hammond clonewheels are closer to the real deal than ever! Any one of these keyboards will fool even the most die hard Hammond fan into thinking he is hearing a real Hammond console on stage. But to us, the one Clonewheel that slightly rises above the others is the .......". In other words, they will love them all.

The CV on my 1955 B3 is very subtle... Whereas the CV on my 1959 B3 is about as strong as any A100 I have ever heard,... Go figure...

I totally agree with Jim.... I tuned my XK3c to sound very aggressive. In fact, much more aggressive than any Hammond I ever played. It almost became a different instrument (in a good way, for the music I was playing).

Considering H/S's past history with updates, don't bet on it....

To tell you the truth, four sets of drawbars on a clone was never very important to me. I got along fine with the two sets on the XK3c. I do a lot of manual drawbar tweaking during songs, and I never had a problem with only two sets. But that is just the way I play. However, only one set of drawbars on a two manual clone is not a good design decision (as in the SK2). Imagine if there were two sets on that keyboard. You could, of course, use one set for each manual as in a real Hammond console... or you can assign one set for the top organ manual, and then use the other set as faders for the bottom manual to layer sounds, mix in parameters of an EP sound... etc... This would add a lot of flexibility and manual adjustments to an instrument that is designed for producing multiple instrumental sounds.

Excuse me... but I think you meant to say "draw-faders"

...and I think you can expect an update from Guido pretty soon that will allow you to turn off the MIDI... Just a prediction...

When will the "Asshat of the Year Award" be announced? What if I am out of town in Toronto at the time? Shall I get my tuxedo cleaned?

I have not been there but some guys I know play there on Tuesday nights. I am only in Rochester, I should come up there. Definitely! We should plan out an evening when we can all meet. My free days are Jan 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20th... The other days I am in the theater.

Toronto Hammond Summit is ON!

Excellent! I will be there next Sunday for two weeks.

Dammit! I thought I had it in the bag!

Damn, Adan.... You stole my playing technique!

You are absolutely right. But if you remember my posts on the H/S SK 1/2, you would realize that I would never buy one. I felt that it was a poor design from day one... One set of draw faders instead of two sets of real drawbars, non-traditional control layout, using the old technology from the xk3c sound engine instead of upgrading to KeyB or VB3 organ engines, substandard Leslie sim, bad overdrive, external power brick.... The list goes on... But it is what it is. A lot of people like it because it weighs less than a typical keyboard and they feel it sounds good enough for them. Musicians with critical ears would never put up with deficient qualities of sound. I was watching The Kennedy Center Honors the other night, and the excellent organist was not using a clone.... He was playing a Hammond B3.... I also see B3's used on most top act tours.... Must still mean something....

I think we can all expect this to happen with modern electronics. Take the new Samsung 7000 and 8000 series of plasma tvs. Many are reporting a very loud buzz emanating from these sets. However, many are not. I just purchased one, and it is absolutely silent and has a beautiful picture. If it buzzed, I would send it back, and hopefully the replacement would be fine. Hammond/Suzuki may be experiencing poor quality components from China. But it also sounds as if people are turning these keyboards up to high levels to hear this abnormality. Now, it is true that these keyboards should be super high quality... But let's be real. We are talking about a 2000 dollar clone with some extra sounds. The SK series is a live performance keyboard. No one could probably hear this hiss in a live band situation... And I doubt anyone with critial sound quality needs would consider recording with one. We are not talking Yamaha Motif or Korg Kronos here.... Do you want pristine sounds? Then buy a high end workstation...

Beautiful pics! Thanks.. Love the quality of the wood... and Real Drawbars! They look like the same drawbars used on the Korg CX3! Love the dials... Looks like a real performance keyboard that is easy to tweak on the fly. Thats what I liked about the XK3c... those dials on the upper right allowed me to change the key click, reverb, EQ, etc.

This. But then again, I've never had to restart one in the middle of a song. I have, and it's not a pretty sight!

Beautiful work! Congrats!!!!

I think they liked the biker chic....