rockkeys Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 hammond x5 or 1980 korg bx-3? BTW, nords, xk-3c, etc., are great.but I'm only looking for opinions on these two clones. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skinny Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 BX-3 with a Ventilator, and welcome to the forum. Stuff and things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yorgatron Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 BX-3 with a Ventilator, and welcome to the forum. the Ventilator is likely going to cost as much as the BX-3 at this point. get the organ first,worry about the other part later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockkeys Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 Thanks, glad to be part of the community. Funny, I didn't mention it in the OP, but I am using a ventilator. I've been using a cx-3 (1979) with the ventilator, and it gives me the sound I'm looking for. I've never played an X5 but they look great, so I am interested to hear peoples opinions. This is a psychedelic rock group, so heavy overdriven organ is the sound I need. Besides the fact that they look good, the X5 seems to have room to support a 76 note board ontop. I never thought looks mattered, but apparently having the old-school hammond logo still holds weight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yannis D Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 bx 3 is easier to carry to gigs - 5+ 5 octaves, 9+9 drawbars, B3 emulator from the 80's x5 is mostly a studio instrument, 3,5 +3,5 octaves, foot octave, 7+9 drawbars, looks and plays like a PortaB-L120 Be grateful for what you've got - a Nord, a laptop and two hands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockkeys Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 how much does an x5 weigh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CEB Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 The manual section is 101 pounds. The pedals / expression pedal section is another 41 pounds. The legs are another 30 pounds. .... about 172 pounds I guess. The X-5 is a decent organ ran through a leslie. The X-5 is a spinet setup. I would go with the Korg myself. It has full 61 key manuals and is a lot easier to transport. But I am old and lazy these days. Plus I never cared for spinets. http://www.hammond-organ.com/Museum/image_directory/X5-600.jpg "It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne "A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!! So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meisenhower Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 Don't expect that X5 to resemble a real tonewheel at all! It was electronic solid state Hammond at its finest and very antiseptic in sound! I had one in the late 1970s, so I could stop carrying the B3, and even using a Leslie 770 (a 760 in a wooden cabinet) and 147 together, couldn't get anywhere near the growl of my B. I got rid of it 6 months after I bought it! It wasn't one of Hammond's finer products, IMHO! They're heavy, bulky, cannot be used easily without its stand and pedalboard (as all connections are made via a compartment on the bottom, instead of the rear! Personally, I'd pass and buy the Korg instead! Yamaha C7 Grand, My Hammonds: '57 B3, '54 C2, '42 BC, '40 D, '05 XK3 Pro System, Kawai MP9000, Fender Rhodes Mk I 73, Yamaha CP33, Motif ES6, Nord Electro 2, Minimoog Voyager & Model D, Korg MS10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richwhite9 Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 If you have a CX-3 you know what you're buying. You won't get that level of OD and keyclick control on the Hammond and obviously the short keybed means lots of good stuff can't be done. Percussion and Chorus/Vibrato are better on the Hammond even a transistor Hammond with the 2/3 version of the percussion. The Korg isn't very subtle (which is why people still like them). The whole phaser shifter sounding thing for Leslie and Chorus on the Korg is another thing.... You already know. Keep the percussion short. Kill the phase shifter (or add a good one) and run it through a Ventilator. Do a You Tube of that retro goodness.! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 Is it an X5 or an XB5? Price difference between the Hammond and the Korg? http://homepage3.nifty.com/muthaspridetop/images/kb2.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnotherScott Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 hammond x5 or 1980 korg bx-3? BTW, nords, xk-3c, etc., are great.but I'm only looking for opinions on these two clones. Thanks! I've owned the smaller versions of both... the old CX3 and the X2. I bought the X2 when it came out... I loved the feel of the keys, possibly the best organ board I ever played. Later, I had the original CX3, which sounded much better, largely because of having the first decent leslie simulation. It also had the advantage of 5 octaves, and weighed less. However, the keys weren't nearly as nice as on the X2, plus they had an unfortunate habit of breaking if you side-swipe the keys a lot. I used to travel with spare keys so I could swap them out at gigs, and probably broke a few a month once I was gigging pretty heavily. Of course, there was no Ventilator then. If I could have gotten a decent portable leslie sound out of the X2 (instead of the MXR phase shifter I had!), I might have preferred the X2, because the action was such a joy, though I might still have been tempted by the 5 octaves on the CX3. But based on what was available at the time, the CX3 sounded far better. 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. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcgoo Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 I still have an X2, and though it's in retirement at the moment ('cause I'm too cheap to fix it for the 100th time), it has a decent sound run through a leslie or good sim. It doesn't have a Chorus- only a nasty Vibrato, which is pretty useless unless you're going for a combo organ sound. Dunno if the X5 has an actual chorus on it. I'll 2nd the nice action on it. Custom Music, Audio Post Production, Location Audio www.gmma.biz https://www.facebook.com/gmmamusic/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockkeys Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 what do you mean by "kill the phase-shifter" (or add a good one) ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richwhite9 Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 what do you mean by "kill the phase-shifter" (or add a good one) ?? The internal Leslie. It's really not fair to call it that. It sets expectations way too high. It sounds like a cross between a flanger and phase shifter and chorus or something similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockkeys Posted February 2, 2011 Author Share Posted February 2, 2011 Thanks. I've tried quite a few "portable organ" solutions and the old cx-3 through a ventilator (with an analog delay pedal) gives me the sound that I need. My only gripe with the cx-3 is that when I have to hit a lead (over big drums/guitar) it is sometimes hard to get my signal up high enough. I've even added a micro-amp pedal to try and boost things but I think it's something to do with the signal getting phased out. (That, or my band isn't dynamic enough!) Thanks to everyone who responded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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