confidence

To be honest the factory programs are the only one I'm concerned about - and I'm not sure whether PC-series ones can be loaded onto the Forte anyway. Certainly there's loads of third party ones available to increase the choice. Forte apparently uses separate memory for the KB3 organ mode so it's 128 PLUS whatever that uses. I've never owned a keyboard with more than 128 and never felt it as a bottleneck, but then maybe that's because I'm looking at it as a performance instrument not a studio workstation, as I do the studio stuff ITB. The travel weight is a double-edged sword: The Forte has a steel chassis whereas the PC4 is plastic, and Forte apparently has a better action (which probably means more weight). I don't really have a problem taking my current 24kg keyboard to gigs, so figure losing 6kg plus some length to get the 18kg Forte 7 will make it feel really easy. Losing any more weight beyond that is just not important enough to me to sacrifice build and action quality. One thing I've learnt is that quality and roadworthiness means weight, to a degree. The keyboard I'm upgrading from is an all-metal Oberheim beast that has never given me a moment's problem on stage or off.

Forte has a better name.

That's interesting. I've been looking into these three models for a while and have pretty much decided on the Forte 7, although I haven't played any of them and really want to before deciding. That's partly because I particularly want the 76 note keyboard for size and weight reasons. General consensus also seems to be that the Forte has better action, better build quality and a sturdier chassis. Comparing the PC4 with Forte (not SE), the following would remain from AnotherScott's list as advantages of the PC4: Knobs above the sliders (though no dedicated EQ knobs) Twice the polyphony (but KB3 mode in Forte doesn't count towards 128 total, so it's plenty). Twice as many factory programs (actually the PC4 has more than three times as many as the Forte) Ribbon input. Additional line inputs. Dedicated transport controls. 5 kg less travel weight than Forte 7, or 7kg less than Forte 8 (though with external power supply vs. internal) Whereas the following would be advantages of the Forte: LED ladders with the sliders. 3.3 GB user sample space to PC4's 2GB. Forte has three switch pedal jacks to PC4's two (though I can't think what anyone would use that many for). Probably better build quality. Better action. Everything else in the list is the same between the PC4 and Forte, I think. That's a fairly even number of features each way, and probably comes down to which are more relevant to you. For me, build quality and action are much more important than all the others - although I would like to have the larger set of factory programs. The Forte is much more expensive though.

Is the idea that we pay you for them or something? It sounds about as much like a piano as any cheap rompler preset, so I'm not sure how that would be supposed to work.

Easy mistake. I think online commerce has become so smooth and taken for granted now that it's easy not to even notice you're doing it, being on both sides of various transactions all the time on Amazon, Ebay etc. Most of the time it works so well, that you can easily forget that due diligence is necessary. I've had a couple of experiences like this. Funny thing was, afterwards I looked back at the site concerned and it seemed so obvious that it was a scam. But when you're buying stuff you're just in a frame of mind of "buying stuff" that carries you along because it's something you do all the time. You could try persevering with PayPal but for 200 bucks, at a certain point you'll need to consider how much your time is worth and when it's time to just chalk it up as the cost of a learning experience.

I tried a Grandstage 73 and Kronos 73 in a shop recently and absolutely loved the action. I would call them on the lighter side of piano-action boards. Conducive to controlled, expressive playing but no real effort and before long I just forgot about them and enjoyed playing. Funnily enough, they also had an SV-2 there, I had a brief play and did think it was a bit heavier, but I thought it must have been my imagination as I know they use the same action. Maybe I was actually right and it's tweaked differently.

What didn't you like about the sounds of the Yamaha, and what are looking for that's different?

Oh that's gorgeous. Thanks for posting. The third song, with the vocal harmonies, is one of the most beautiful things I've heard in a good while.

Well you certainly won't use lots of presets in real time, if you're playing an instrument that doesn't have any.

Thanks Mighty that pretty much confirms what I was thinking. I appreciate your contributing this as often when people own a piece of gear the cognitive dissonance makes them accentuate the positive and try to avoid the negative. It's weird though, considering the two products are made by the same company, marketed as a complementary pair and often sold as such with the Gemini pre-installed. I have to wonder: if this is how much of a PITA running the DMC is with their own module, imagine how much worse it could be with third party ones! How do you find the sounds on the Gemini though? As I said upthread I'm really impressed by what I've heard, and may well buy the rackmount version.

This thread has been really helpful. Thanks everyone. I'm leaning towards Mojo or Legend rather than DMC. Sometimes you just need to accept which combinations of features can't be found in the same box, and put some aside for a different box. I'm not going to get something that's an easy-playing holistically-designed Hammond and a comprehensive flexible MIDI controller as well. As I'm primarily looking for the first here, I'll put the second aside and get something else to do that down the line if need be.

I don't know the answer to that question. Viscount is the much larger company so I suppose one would have to assume there's less risk there. I've read of people having problems with Mojos getting damaged en route from Italy to America, but I'm in the UK so that's not such an issue. Should probably make sure I order before Brexit D-Day though.

Yeah, I've pretty much come round theoretically to that way of thinking, it's just it won't really "gel" for me until I have the instrument to play on. Which is stupid really because that's exactly how it works with the piano. If I'm playing an acoustic piano sound on a gig I don't obssess over being able to recall five different-sounding presets for different songs or sections of a song. I find the sound I like and play it. I suppose I've never really questioned that because I transitioned gradually from playing classical acoustic piano to electronic piano emulations. But somewhere along the line my brain put the Hammond in the category of all those things I recall with very detailed presets on a case-by-case basis. It's interesting that the people who have grown up playing real Hammonds find this just as foreign as I do with the piano. I think one reason I enjoyed playing the Mojo in the store so much was because this penny finally dropped, and I found the experience of playing all the drawbars and other controls on the fly, along with the notes, so immersive.

Why did you choose a Mojo Classic as a part of the selection ? Because I specifically want two manuals and at least two sets of drawbars. I believe (could be wrong?) that the two manual mojo XT is discontinued now. Mojo 61 + optional lower manual won't do because it only has one set of drawbars. That leaves the Mojo classic. O.k., that tells me, you´re willing to accept a single manual clone as well when it´s soundwise satisfying,- no ? No, that's not what I meant. I meant that since I loved the action and sound of the single-manual Mojo, I'd probably love the dual-manual one too. I haven't managed to find a dual manual to play on so the single i all I have to go by. But I definitely want a dual.

That's exactly my point. Both the mojo and the Legend Live have only two presets, which is practically nothing, I mean, I suppose you could quickly tweak and store those presets at the soundcheck on a gig-by-gig basis, but it's not enough to actually build up a working set of presets you can recall in future as necessary. So given the inability to operate it as a preset instrument, the second set of drawbars would come in handy, no?

Any views about the Mojo's two sets of drawbars vs the Legend's four? Not having a Hammond background, I don't really have a sense of what difference it will make, but I'm aware there's a conceptual leap I have to make in playing an instrument that isn't designed around presets. Would the extra pair on the Legend make that significantly easier?

Thanks so much The Key for such comprehensive information. I'd need to think about money, but I can see myself veering towards a solution of getting the Mojo (or Legend) and the Gemini in its rackmount form. I already use a rack for live playing. Currently it has a Motif ES rack and a Kurzweil PC2-R in it, although I mainly use the Kurzweil for the KB3 organs (as the Motif's organs are pretty lame) and any of these clones would make that redundant. Then I could trigger the Gemini from my piano board as well for EPs etc.

Rationally, I can see the sense in that. Emotionally and viscerally, however, I have a problem with the idea of buying a Mojo for it's all-in-one holisitic Hammond identity and feel, and then having to velcro a separate set of drawbars to the bottom manual to complete it! Call me OCD, but I think every time I go to play it and look at the velcroed drawbars I'd be thinking "hmm, great that I got an instrument that was 95% there; shame about the other 5%". I think if I'm going to go Mojo, I'd rather just get the Classic and forgo the other sounds. I don't really mind about the inconvenience of gigging with a dual. My plan would be only to take it for Hammond-centric purposes anyway. Outside of those I can just use the piano board, or if I want an unweighted board to go with it I can buy a simple synth-action MIDI controller for peanuts. I'm really looking for something that is confidently and unapologetically a dual manual Hammond here, hence my original shortlist.

I'm confused about the Mojo product line. It was mentioned in that thread that "the Mojo" also has other sounds on board than the main Hammond (EPs etc.) However the Crumar website currently shows Mojo Classic and Mojo XT (and Mojo 61 but that's single manual only). The specs of these don't say anything about other sounds (and I think I read that the XT has been discontinued?)

Thanks! Very informative. Feeling seems to be that DMC is great and sounds awesome, but that as I suspected the experience of playing the Mojo is a bit more "immediate". I'm wondering if that could fade in time though, once I've got the DMC set up as I want it and can get used to it. Was interested in this: Of course it is. The DMC-122 has 4 MIDI Outputs, when the Gemini is installed it takes the port n.4 named "INT" (internal), but you still have 3 ports left. If you connect your computer to the USB port and start the Editor, you can have the Editor/VB3 on the first port, the two Gemini engines on the 4th port, and you still have two more ports for other MIDI devices. Considering that the manuals can also be split, you can have four zones and direct them to whatever port or channel you wish. I have recently made a SetUp on my DMC where I have the Editor/VB3 on the upper manual playing the organ upper (with percussion etc.), a synth bass on the left part of the lower manual playing the VA synth of the Gemini, and an electric piano on the right part of the lower that comes from the second engine of the Gemini. I just mapped the upper manual to out USB and Channel 1, the lower on port INT and Channel 1 and the lower split (left part) on port INT and Channel 4. Once you save the SetUp you can also instruct it to send the Program Change messages so that all presets on the receiving devices are automatically recalled. That's the sort of thing that sounds really powerful to me in a live setup. I didn't realise the DMC had the ability to split keyboards and transmit on different channels. Could make it much easier to manage complex arrangements and take some of the heat off my requirements in a piano board (as we were discussing on the other thread).

Thanks. Can you just clarify: You say you don't find the Legend action stiff, but that the Mojo action is better? What then is better about it? I did really like the Mojo action when I played it but not having played a Legend, I can't compare. And it doesn't seem to be possible to find one to try out without placing an order. The piano sound aspect doesn't worry me as I have that comprehensively covered elsewhere. I do however get what you're saying about the fact that it separates MIDI and audio unlike the others, and that's kind of what I meant. I'm wondering if, no matter how good it is at what it does, by the time I faff about setting up MIDI parameters yada yada I'll just be in the wrong frame of mind to sit down and enjoy playing Hammond. Or maybe once I've done all the setup stuff once, it'll be good to go and from that point feel much the same as the others, I don't know?

Didn't want to make my OP too long but I can answer this. I'm primarily a pianist & keyboard player. Not gigging much at the moment but after some life changes having a major house reorganisation and rejuvenating my home studio. When I've gigged in the past, any organ I've needed has been coverable by rompler presets (mainly KB3 in my Kurzweil rack unit). However I've always loved the sound of the Hammond and want to take this opportunity to immerse myself in it a bit more. As a classically trained pianist, I'm used to independent 2-hand work and would like to investigate some of that Jimmy Smith organ trio stuff, which I love. Hence wanting a proper 2-manual job, and hence wanting something that is a simple all-in-one unit that "feels" like a Hammond, or at least like a musical instrument rather than a technology component. For these reasons I want two manuals, with a separate set of drawbars for each. (I know the Legend has two sets for each; not sure how much difference that will make). There's also a size/space consideration: My studio room is not huge and is largely dominated already by a grand piano. There's a particular space where the new instrument could go that is just wide enough for the Legend or Mojo's 61-note keyboard, but not wide enough for those models with the extra octave of preset keys. This also ties in to the fact that if gigging picks up again, I'd like to be able to take the instrument out and it would be good if it's not too large or heavy. My other board is a piano-action one so I'd also like this clonewheel to be able to function as an organ/synth-action MIDI controller, for playing parts into the PC that don't feel right on a piano board. Also, if gigging picks up again, I'd be taking it out sometimes in conjunction with the piano board, and would want to use it at the very least to trigger sounds from. It only need basic MIDI functionality for that, but I can imagine the sounds in the DMC coming in useful as well, if I were to choose it.

I'm looking to buy a new clonewheel organ, and have narrowed my choice (based on various critera) down to the Mojo classic, Viscount Legend Live or DMC-122 + Gemini expansion - all of which are about the same price. Unfortunately It's quite hard to fnd retailers with these in store to play on, as they're relatively niche. Obviously I can order one and then return it if I don't want it, but it would be best if I could choose the one I'm most likely to keep first. I had a play on a single manual Mojo the other day and LOVED it. They had a Hammond XK-1c as well which I tried and, while both sounded great, I much prefered the lighter action of the Mojo. My understanding from forum posts is that the Legend would have a similar great sound and look-and-feel, but has a stiffer action. Is that right? How "Hammond-like" does it feel playing the Legend? The wild card is the DMC + Gemini. On the one hand, I'm attracted to the DMC's aspect as a MIDI controller, and it seems the most flexible and open-ended in how it might integrate with other things. I've listened to demos of the Gemini sounds and am really impressed. They seem both highly realistic but also warm and characterful. Having a varied bunch of onboard sounds as well as the basic organ would be useful for gigging particularly. I also like that it has the ability to store 32 presets, whereas the others have practically none. On the other hand, my intuition says that the DMC won't feel as much like playing a Hammond as the other two, and I will be less likely to get the immersive experience I got playing the Mojo in the store. Is this reasonable / fair? I suppose I'm basing it on a combination of the look, and the fact that it tries to be open to different implementations of its MIDI, whereas the Mojo and Legend are totally dedicated towards everything being Hammond-like. I know this is a hard thing to quantify, but I'm interested to hear from any DMC owners how they find this aspect of it, to what extent it feels "holistically" like a Hammond performance instrument. I think if I can be convinced by this, it beats the others on spec and I'll buy it. But if not, I'd rather buy one of them and get the other functions from other gear.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/7/21028136/roland-a-88mkii-keyboard-support-midi-2-0-ces-namm-2020 As I'm on the lookout for a new 88-key piano board, largely for external MIDI control duties. Is the next year or two going to see a lot of new products like this racing to accommodate MIDI 2.0, to the point where keyboard that don't have it look limited/obsolete in a few years time? I'm also very interesting in all the new "flexible" controllers emerging - Seaboard, Osmose etc. Haven't bought one yet but intend to when the time is right. May well then want master keyboard to action as receiving device, playing sounds triggered by MIDI 2.0 input. Is it the wrong time to buy?

Spent some time at a couple of music shops this afternoon getting my hands on some of these. Thoughts: KRONOS Pros: Truly fantastic keybed. I think it's the best hammer action keybed I've played. It doesn't do what so many manufacturers seem to do and try too hard, I didn't get tired playing it like I do with some, I just forgot about the action and played. I obviously didn't have a chance to delve into the advanced synthesis capabilities. but the piano sounds, EPs and organs are all strong. I liked the screen, I didn't find the text too small as some have said. Cons: I've read about it but it hadn't really sunk in: OMG the lag in the touch screen display is annoying! It's quite fiddly - sometimes I'd touch something at the bottom and it wouldn't respond. I wouldn't be sure whether it's supposed to, but after poking it a bit harder a few times it would. And the lag isn't consistent. Sometimes it responds straight away, sometimes after a lag, and sometimes not at all. Not good. I could see myself punching a hole in the middle of the keyboard in frustration. GRANDSTAGE Pros: Same keybed as Kronos - wonderful. Basic suite of good strong sounds. Good build quality. Cons: I can see what was meant earlier about the limitations of the feature set. It's almost more like a Yahama or Casio home keyboard (ie a few pianos, EPs, organs etc. with really simple sound-choosing interface) but on steroids, rather than a professional stage piano. Well that's not fair - what it does, it does VERY well (piano action + high quality sounds). It's just it doesn't do much. Seems a bit overpriced for what it is, to be honest. If it had more advanced MIDI functionality I'd buy it as a controller just for the action, but it doesn't. MONTAGE 7 Pros: This wasn't on my radar but it was there so I had a play. To my surprise I REALLY liked the semi-weighted action, for pretty much everything except full on classical and stride piano. They seem to have done some clever programming so it feels different in different contexts. With synth sounds it's shallow and immediate, but with EPs it's not actually that far off a weighted action. I could see myself playing Rhodes etc. quite happily on it, even piano up to a point. Also loved the piano sounds and acoustic instruments generally, more than the Kronos if I'm honest. Yamaha just seem to be good at capturing that stuff without it sounding hyped or processed. Soundscapes and arpeggiators obviously amazing but I don't know how often I'd use them. Cons: I did find that when I broke into more vigorous piano playing, I found it harder to control than the others. I played more wrong notes than usual (maybe that should be "EVEN more wrong notes than usual"!), which might have been to do with the narrower Yamaha keys or might have been the lack of resistance and more ready triggering. They also had a second hand Motif XS7 (same keybed) which I played with similar reactions. Liked it a lot. Really liked the interface, the way the eight sliders and knobs on the left are shown on the screen with each one's function. Very clear and logical. And huge wide range of acoustic sounds ranging from good to fantastic. I see a few of these around second hand at the moment. I have a Motif ES rack in my rack and like the sounds, so replacing it with an XS keyboard would be a smooth way to downsize and lose the rack. Would have to rethink things on actions, however. HAMMOND XK-1C Pros: Fantastic sound, faithful to the B3 through a wide range of settings. Cons: Keyboard action has a little too much resistance IMO. MOJO 61 Pros: Also fantastic sound. For some reason I found this easier to get into and shape the sound organically than the Hammond. Got quite involved in it. Key action was more Hammond-like IMO too. Cons: None really. I've been concerned about lack of presets, but its being a single-sound instrument that you shape as you go made more sense to me once I was doing it.