BenWaB3

What year? I ain'ta makin'any guarantees.

Oct. 5th., according to Sweetwater.

I just got an email from Sweetwater saying the ETA is October 5th., not that I'm going to bet the farm that this date will stand.

I hope you had some friendly bandmates to help you carry that rig. I see you're based in Lancaster -- is that where you used to haul that setup around? I grew up in the Reading area, and I have a few old friends who are playing regularly in a blues band based out of Lancaster now. Yes, things were a group effort back in those days. That was mostly when I lived on Long Island or Flint, MI. Came here to Lancaster in `79 and started using a Moog for bass. What's the name of your friends' band?

At least we have an embarrassment of riches to choose from today. Back in the day ("Oh crap - here goes the old geezer waxing rhapsodic about the old days again".) my layout was B3 on the bottom and a Rhodes plus Rhodes Piano Bass side by side on top of that. Luckily I have long arms

Actually there was nothing better, but nothing worth a crap as far as authentic piano reproduction at that time. I saw White Trash live and the sound was very tinny. I just take umbrage at the term authentic in the ad.

The "authentic piano" was pretty much deceptive advertising, even for the time.

I've seen (had corneas scorched would be a better description) this video around a year ago. I think it was one that had its 2:15 of (sh or f)ame on Facebook.

What is the level of tweakability of this board? Or is it more of a "take it or leave it" type of format? Since we all have our own definitions of the best Hammond sound, programmability of both the basic organ sound and also Leslie parameters would be desired, and the same would also be said for the other sounds as well. One glaring omission I did spot, checking on what info was available on the SL webpage, was the lack of a wah effect, which we would want for clavs.

It would also be the answer to many a disappointed Hammond SK-er.

Dang!!! That was one of my hopes & issues with it too. Sad to see they leave out what should be a no-brainer thing to include.

Thanks for the replies, Mal & Mark. There's a store in West Chester, PA called Taylor's that looks to have a good inventory from their web site, including some Yamaha & Casio entries as well. I may need to take a drive down there. The one thing I like (in theory, since I don't have the actual experience of playing them) is the soundboard speaker system on the Kawai's, which could give a better spatial effect than regular speaker systems.

Have any forum members seen or auditioned these new pianos since EJF posted about them? The CA98 looks very interesting. Oddly enough when comparing youtube videos from Bonners Music Centres of the Kawai CS11 (CS8 vs CS11) and the CA98 I preferred the sound of the CS11. However considering these were probably made on different days, possibly using different recording devices and all the other variables that could factor in I don't put too much credence in this particular comparison. As they say in scientific circles, more research is needed.

I got that a few times over the years as well only they used the ultimately impolite term instead, which may be your case also & you're just trying to be diplomatic. We also played a local venue (only once) where one girl in the audience kept shouting, "Play some white American Rock & Roll". We were just as glad to not get rebooked there as they probably were to not have us back.

Thanks Dan. I'll give that a try. My only concern is that, since we can't adjust the width of the band, I may create some peaks & valleys.

Lately it has seemed to me that the organ sounds are not as loud as the extra voices. The volume is set at 127 in the drawbar section and I keep turning down the volume in the EV section but it just seems the organ voices are weak, volume wise. Is there something else I'm missing? Does the organ section have its own separate section of circuitry that might be going bad in the gain stage? Let's hope it's not the last one since that would cause quite a few headaches schedule and pricewise. Thanks in advance for any expertise anyone can shed on this.

Organ sounds great, and so does the player. Nice. I'll add my agreement with MOI's statement and also add that I liked the different arrangement. Most people do Sunny as a Latin/Funk version. It was good to hear a different beat feel on it.

The Extra Voices don't go through the digital Leslie. See Pg. 38 of the manual. Ah - actually, thanks for making me research this a little further. The problem ended up being in the Allocate and Solo sections, which I've never totally understood. With the "lower" button on but the "solo" button off the lower manual drawbars were still playing (and going through the Leslie section). Pushing the solo button solved that. In the blitz of getting the 73 and trying to learn & program it in the midst of a very busy time in life I'm kind of learning it's capabilities at too slow a pace. Ironically I was working with it a little last night & learning how to put non-sounding drawbar settings in some of the EV programs. That way I could turn off the solo button & have them play instead, which is working out to be a bonus since I can now use those particular favorites with the band setting as opposed to their normal role on my solo jobs. Anyway, thanks for steering me in the right direction!!

Fairly new SK-1 73 owner here - tomorrow (11/04) makes 2 weeks. I've been going through the owner's manual & this thread (up to page 28 so far) but do have a question on something I seem to have overlooked thus far: is it possible to keep the extra voices from going through the Leslie section? I'm setting up some organ splits with the lt. hand used for either lower manual bass or the EV electric bass. I didn't see anything on the EV, Leslie or Control pages to bypass the Leslie for the EV's. So far I'm really liking this piece. It was intuitive enough that I was able to pick it up at noon & have a basic setup to play with that evening in a regular band situation, which uses a bass player, so no lt. hand bass setups needed there. So far the only possibly useful tip I have to bring to the table is using curve #1 on the expression pedal for clav wah settings. For me anyway, having the most action occur in the early part of the pedal throw gives you more control over the sweep. Of course that just might be personal preference. Anyway, if someone can steer me to getting the Leslie removed from the electric bass sounds it would be most appreciated. Thanks.

I just watched the Youtube video of the organ function. One thing that was missing was the C/V effect. Is that missing on the synth entirely? They abandoned the 76 note version on this one too, which seems to be a feature many keyboard players desire but manufacturers are ignoring lately.

Try taking the speaker out. Hopefully the problem will be one that either ChrisDespo or myself went through & it will work out.

I had the same issue not too long ago and after speaking to Aspen (who was very helpful and offered to have me send him the speaker on his dime if it was indeed bad even though it was out of warranty) I removed all the screws on the front of the SS3 and popped out the main center woofer speaker and there was a metal cap thingy that had broken loose from inside somewhere and stuck itself to the big magnet - I showed Aspen and he said it doesn't have any effect on anything and if I wanted to I could just glue it back on to where it came off, which I did and everything has been fine ever since ... It probably just came off when I was transporting it back and forth to gigs ... here's a couple pics of the part and maybe it's the same for you: http://pctechsource.com/musicgear/pix/thumb_IMG_1939_1024.jpg http://pctechsource.com/musicgear/pix/thumb_IMG_1940_1024.jpg http://pctechsource.com/musicgear/pix/thumb_IMG_1941_1024.jpg Hope that helps ... I just took off the grill & tightened the speaker screws. It still rattled. I then removed the speaker & there was no small cap like in the pics. I held it away from the cabinet & the rattling was gone (relief that the speaker isn't blown). I remounted it & the rattle is still gone. If I had to come up with some wild theory....I have no idea if I put the speaker back in the same orientation as before. It could be that the wires to the speaker were rattling against the cabinet & putting it back in a different position moved the wires to where they aren't touching. Whatever it is, I'll take it!

My SS3 has developed a rattle at mostly low pitches. Oddly enough if I tilt it more than 30 degrees rt or lt the rattle gets better - tilting forward or backward makes no difference. I checked that the screws were tight on the front & side speaker covers & the ones on the side speaker itself. The only thing I didn't do was take off the front speaker cover & check the screws on the woofer. Has anyone else experienced this & what ended up curing it? Thanks.

Great to know. I still have a 32c & had wondered if it would suffice on the occasional jobs where I would play L.H. bass.

Thanks, sleepingbear. That's good to know!