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Hammond SK2 - My Impressions


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The leslie effect sounds a little digital to me but the organ itself sounds good. I like the overdrive actually

A.J. Blues

Manager and Keyboardist

The Tash Brothers Band

www.myspace.com/TheTashBrothersBand

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I will buy a SK-1 as soon as they get a Rhodes in it on par with the Electro Rhodes.

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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Sounds great !

 

Got my SK2 last week and I am also very happy so far !

Played a Numa for 6 month but missed my lower manual I was used to play when I had my XK3c-System for live use.

 

Nice lightweight solution that sounds with a little tweeking as good as my XK3c. In some points (perc, leslie sim) even better...

 

ExtraVoices and Overdrive are better than expected, usable but ..... OK.

 

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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Mister M do you like the combination with sk2 and leslie 3300?

 

I am also very happy with my Sk2. Sometimes I connect my ventilator to the sk2, but there is not that big differ... is ventilator is 10/10 the Sk2 is 8/10 (maybe 9/10).

 

Please "like" this: http://www.facebook.com/HammondSk1AndSk2

 

 

NS2 88, Yamaha Cp300, Moog Little Phatty, Hammond Sk2, Roland Fantom X6, Ventilator, Nord C2D, Leslie 3300, Leslie 122

 

 

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Hi octopus,

 

no facebook account...(not yet)

 

The 3300 is great, so the SK2 is sounding great with it.

For a gig I will play the SK2 directly into my SA300. The 3300

is too heavy for my back to carry around nowadays...

:-(

 

My personal "leslie"rating:

3300 - 10

Ventilator - 9

Numa Organ/SK - 8

XK3c - 7

 

Maybe I will take the Ventilator for gigs because of the overdrive, but that means more cabeling, more wall-warts....

Hopefully Hammond will tune their overdrive algos in an update, we will see...

 

cheers

Markus

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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I really like the SK2 thru my Leslie3300, but I am looking for a decent keyboard amp for the piano/epiano sounds, will a Roland SK1000 be overkill? Or do you have other suggestions? We play in small clubs and venues so I very rarely mic up the Leslie to the PA so the pianoamp will have to be as load as the Leslie :-)

It would be nice to find an amp that also could do the organ sounds as well for the gigs when carrying the Leslie is too much.

cheers Otto

 

C3 & 122, XK3C & 3300, SK2 & Ventilator/3300

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  • 4 weeks later...

just for fun, a couple of new examples....

nothing sophisticated, just few minutes of random chords, just for testing it.

 

as usual, my lazy friend has no time and no will to install the new sounds on his SK2 so I'm the lucky one who is in charge for doing that! :-)))))

so here are two new recordings....

 

in my opinion, the SK2 is a really useful and handy live instrument.

the addictional sounds are good enough and the internal leslie simulation really rocks!

 

but, again in my opinion, the organ sound is no comparable with the Mojo/Hamichord or with the KeyBDuo, at the moment.

 

 

SK2 --> Speakeasy AMA 122 --> leslie 3300

http://soundcloud.com/marcoballa/slow-impro

it sounds as a good digital clone in a leslie....

 

 

SK2 --> Ventilator

http://soundcloud.com/marcoballa/sk2-ventilator

don't know if it is really better than the internal sim, but it sounds good!

 

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The only problem I have found is that it is somewhat directional so placement is very important. I have tried on floor, up on pole, on chair etc. On floor results in too much bass output, sound coming from speaker on elevated pole does not seem natural after playing so many years through Leslie, so slightly elevated has worked best for me. Definitely a crisp sound though.
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Yes sure is. I was in a show the other night where someone had them as PA speakers and the vocals were nice and crisp.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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another ROCK SOUND example....

:-))))

 

SK2 with a "Y" cable line out to both a "Leslie" (Ventilator) and a "guitar amp" (ZOOM G3).

the Airey/Lord (r.i.p.) configuration :laugh:

a really interesting ROCK sound!

 

both signals in stereo ("leslie" and "guitar amp") to my Roland SA-1000 miked with a little ZOOM H2 (connected to mixer).

 

just random improvised chords, to test the sound.

watch in HD!

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

comparable to the previous one (same random chords, but with real hammond and real leslie):

 

[video:youtube]

 

ciao!

Marco

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  • 9 months later...

One thing I thought I would mention,

 

In regards to the original post, where it was mentioned the overdrive on the SK2 was not up to par. It felt that way as well when I tried one out - the drive got too brittle and granular all at once.

 

But, if you can get into the editing section, I found that if you switch the drive to EP (I think that was what it was called - it was the electric piano distortion) that made a huge difference!

 

Also, I found the Leslie parameters could be adjusted to reduce that amount or phase (or flange) that was built into the SK Leslie model.

 

...just something to consider. Switching the drive model made a big difference to me.

Electro 5, NI Kontrol S61/49, MX49, PC3, Rev2, Prologue, Pro3, Juno-DS, Mopho Keys, SE02, drums, tons of synth software, guitars, amps, and pedals...help me!!

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One thing I thought I would mention,

 

In regards to the original post, where it was mentioned the overdrive on the SK2 was not up to par. It felt that way as well when I tried one out - the drive got too brittle and granular all at once.

 

But, if you can get into the editing section, I found that if you switch the drive to EP (I think that was what it was called - it was the electric piano distortion) that made a huge difference!

 

Also, I found the Leslie parameters could be adjusted to reduce that amount or phase (or flange) that was built into the SK Leslie model.

 

...just something to consider. Switching the drive model made a big difference to me.

 

Actually that has been mentioned many times, and switching to the EP mode helps but still does not bring the overdrive up to par with something like the real tube overdrive of the Hammond XK3c. I am currently using a ElectroHarmonix Stereo 2ube pedal with my SK2 and it STILL does not have that warm overdrive that I crave (although the pedal does give the keyboard a nice boost in volume). While holding out hope that HS may yet come up with an OS update that addresses the brittle overdrive of the SK2, I am just learning to live with the fact that it may never purr like I would like it to.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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