HX3 MIDI expander module

[hardware]

hmmmm...so my only option would be to buy the module and then experiment with the remote editor??

 

Be glad to help if you get one.

Nothing beats total MIDI Control and a module that exceeds the hardware in terms of non traditional sounds.

On my Physis K4 I can attach 8 x different messages, inverted, linear, logarithmic, curve modifiers, all on an expression Pedal or the 3rd Mod Wheel.

Sick stuff.

Using super slow CV modulation rates/depth is fun too.

 

If the HX-3 had audio inputs I'd really have ARP String Ensemble sickness.

[KRK]

fw 4.25 (beta)...

 

sounds great

[Doerfler]

thanks for posting

[LX88]

OK 4.25

Grunge and Balls.... I get it

Can it do jazz?

In actuality I guess this what you guys have been talking about. And no something like a Numa was not initially geared toward this though I could get grunge if I used speakers that were not shrill.

 

Is the person who posted this on Youtube on this forum?

[analogholic]

OK 4.25

Grunge and Balls.... I get it

Can it do jazz?

In actuality I guess this what you guys have been talking about. And no something like a Numa was not initially geared toward this though I could get grunge if I used speakers that were not shrill.

 

Is the person who posted this on Youtube on this forum?

 

KRK (three posts up) posted this clip on youtube

Waiting until it´s no longer Beta before updating my unit...

But this sounds promising

[Doerfler]

 

Is the person who posted this on Youtube on this forum?

 

yes.

[Polychrest]

fw 4.25 (beta)...

Great stuff. Useful and entertaining. Thanks.

[M_G]

OK 4.25

Grunge and Balls.... I get it

Can it do jazz?

In actuality I guess this what you guys have been talking about. And no something like a Numa was not initially geared toward this though I could get grunge if I used speakers that were not shrill.

 

Is the person who posted this on Youtube on this forum?

 

 

Can it do jazz?

 

It can do Lambada too!!!

 

It's the player not the instrument....

 

 

[vanderSchoot]

OK 4.25

Grunge and Balls.... I get it

Can it do jazz?

In actuality I guess this what you guys have been talking about. And no something like a Numa was not initially geared toward this though I could get grunge if I used speakers that were not shrill.

 

Is the person who posted this on Youtube on this forum?

 

 

Can it do jazz?

 

It can do Lambada too!!!

 

It's the player not the instrument....

 

I am not a Hammond purist and started to explore the Hammond sound intensively 10+ years ago.

 

First thing i noticed is that there is ''clonewheel jazz''.

To name a few a encountered.......

Tony Monaco on the NI B4

Joey DeFrancesco on the Diversi

Jim Alfredson on the Hammond XK3

 

A sterile, clean, better than rompler kind of Hammond sound.

It was nowhere near the sound of the likes of Jimmy Smith and his ''jazz'' sound.

I always thought it was solely down to the use of a tube leslie cabinet.

But no......the more i explored, the more i became aware of all the subtleties missing in modern clones.

My first ''WOW'' clone was the Nord Electro3, but it became clear after a year that it was severely limited in producing a real Hammond sound.

 

HX3 has THAT character (organic Hammond sound of the old days) that my Numa and all others seem to lack.

 

But i believe there are many ''clone jazzers'' out there that really like the clean, open, mild character of modern clones and for them the HX3 has to much organic flutter going on, so they see HX3 mainly as rock organs.

I am sure my HX3 can mimmick this jazz sound way better than my Numa or most of the other clonewheels out there......

[video:youtube]

 

[LX88]

It's the player and not the instrument?

 

Then why do truly great master musicians spend MILLIONS on a Stradivarius?

 

Joey DeFrancesco , Tony Monaco, Brian Auger all dumped Hammond Suzuki years ago. They have all showed up playing clones from italy in recent years. They are masters. This tells me something.

 

Their ears have heard something valid in Key B and Crumar products.

 

Yes and I really like a clean and open( but not necessarily mild character) of Key B and Crumar examples that I have heard. And I do play jazz, and the reason I do is because I learn things from it every day. I like other kinds of music but if you want to learn there is much to learn from the real masters of the instrument. A lot but not all play jazz.

 

The above audio example looks and sounds like a Hammond. And it is Joe Diorio, and very good player from the Seattle area.

 

If you will notice, what he is playing is very skilled and the instrument sounds good.

 

But there is no leslie spinning. He is using CV and nothing gets in the way of it. So you can actually hear what is going on with the sound of the organ.

 

I will cut to the chase. I have not yet heard an HX3 audio clip that does this. Someone always has the damn leslie sim spinning.And when I did have an HX3, which I admit was almost two years ago, the CV sounded like something other than what we hear above.

 

It's an important part of the organ. I guess I could get by with the grungy sound with balls but every time I play an actual chord the distortion piles on top of itself.

 

That CV is there for a reason and it is a big part of what made Hammond what it is. CV is not an afterthought on its way to the pursuit

of some sort of undefinable "character" .

 

If the HX3 can "mimic" a jazz sound I have been really waiting to hear it.

 

And please turn the leslie sim off.

[M_G]

 

What does this tell?

 

It tells nothing! Joe D is now endorsing Nord.....

Ever listened to the Nord CV?

 

Here again: It's the player not the gear!

Joey D sounds great on a C2D, he will sound great on the

cheapest Bontempi!

 

Brian Auger always plays his chop live.

I met him a few years ago and asked him why he

doesnt use the Numa live..... well his face did tell me

everything!

;-)

 

[Dnsmo]

Before this thread goes off the rails entirely, the question LX88 is asking is pretty straightforward: what does the HX3 expander CV sound like in its current iteration (4.25) without animation from Leslie effects?

 

We don't know because no one has recorded an audio sample of this latest version of HX3 using chorus without spin.

 

Dennis

[vanderSchoot]

If the HX3 can "mimic" a jazz sound I have been really waiting to hear it.

 

And please turn the leslie sim off.

Is this more or less the jazz sound you are looking for LX88 ?

If not i will try to find something else......

[video:youtube]

[Doerfler]

updated to 4.25 just now without any problems. Running it using the leslie sim through my CPS SS3.

[TKN]

Still trying to get some idea about the C/V update.

 

I went to the Keyboard Partner site and they have some live clips. Of course they are still running the leslie sim and the C/V together.

 

It's not my favorite sound. When it gets into the upper octave you can tell it's not a leslie. It's a decent sim but this is what sets it apart from the real deal. Especially with C/V on.

 

The other companies Like Crumar ( Tony Monaco, Max Tempia and Mitch) and Key B ( Pat Bianchi, Joey D) have recorded all kinds of clips showing us what C/V sounds like with out the sim. Even Numa put out clips back in 2011 with Brian Auger and Joey D. using just C/V and no sim.

 

Why is this important? Because if I have to run in MONO, at least I can use C/V and get a decent sound.

 

So far I haven't been able to find clips of the HX3 with the leslie sim OFF.

 

Sorry to get back on this rant but I just don't get it.

 

LX88 - I have made a very easy (and extremely boring) test of the C/V (C3) straight from HX3 version 4.25 to Cubase 9 with no effects and with the Leslie disabeled.

 

The C/V is highly adjustable, and this is the standard settings.

 

There are 5 takes pr chord from the mid of the keyboard to top C of the keyboard :

 

1. 888000000, no C/V

2. 888000000, with C/V

3. 888000000, with C/V and 3. perc. soft, fast,

4. 888888888, no C/V

5. 888888888, with C/V

 

 

 

[Doerfler]

just listened. Very kind of you to do this for another forum member. Hope he finds it helpful.

[TomKittel]

I made a short jazzblues track with HX3 version 4.25 to showcase the pure organ sound and C3 chorus. No Leslie Sim and I tamed down the original C3 C/V a little bit.

 

https://soundcloud.com/organaut/shacky

[Delaware Dave]

That C/V is tamed? That C/V sounds like the C/V on my Voce V5+. It sounds more like V3 than C3. The C/V on the Mojo is more of a background purr and close to my '57 B3.

[TomKittel]

That C/V is tamed? That C/V sounds like the C/V on my Voce 5+. It sounds more like V3 than C3. The C/V on the Mojo is more of a background purr and close to my '57 B3.

 

Yes, I changed some C/V parameters to my liking for this kind of sound. You can hear the factory setting in TKN's file above. The many C/V parameters of the HX3 are individually adjustable. You can surely get all kinds of purr how you call it.

[TomKittel]

Here's some more fooling around with C/V off/on

 

https://soundcloud.com/organaut/hx3-fooling-around

 

 

[Delaware Dave]

Tom, I was talking about TKN's demo ...

[TKN]

Tom, I was talking about about TKN's demo ...

 

No, it is the standard C/V settings in the 4.25 update Delaware Dave.

 

As I said, the C/V is highly adjustable in the HX3.

[bill bosco]

i have the uhl x3-2 , pre 4.25 obviously , i'm not liking

the c/v in that demo , doesn't sound the same to my ears

[LX88]

Thank you TKN I will check it out.

 

And thanks once again to Delaware Dave...for his bit of Devil's Advocate. CV has to be right or it's half an organ IMO

 

By the way Dave strikes me as one of those guys who has been around Hammonds a while and knows a thing or two.

 

As far as me... I have only rented to just about every major jazz player and I know what they want. If the CV wasn't right on one of my rentals... I would hear about it

[TKN]

i have the uhl x3-2 , pre 4.25 obviously , i'm not liking

the c/v in that demo , doesn't sound the same to my ears

 

That proves that you can program the C/V you like with it.

[TomKittel]

 

And thanks once again to Delaware Dave...for his bit of Devil's Advocate. CV has to be right or it's half an organ IMO

 

By the way Dave strikes me as one of those guys who has been around Hammonds a while and knows a thing or two.

 

A demo of the MoJo CV without Leslie would help to judge.

[wd8dky]

If you can program it to sound the way *you* like it and believe it should sound, then who cares how it sounds stock, out of the box? That's just someone else's opinion on how it sounds *to their ears*. There aren't two B3's or A100's that sound identical, are there? Dial in the settings you like and be happy.

[mate stubb]

You can't always dial in the setting you like and be happy. I dialed and dialed and dialed my XK-1C. But I couldn't ever get the CV to shimmer instead of whoosh.

 

For those trying to eval clone CVs via soundcloud - you need to check middle of the keyboard, 888000000 and 888888888, and also in the top octave, 888000000 and 888888888. Some CVs sound good in the middle but not up top.

 

Then, you need to check again with how the CV combines with the leslie sim, on both fast and slow.

[Delaware Dave]

I'm thinking your 'shimmer' and my 'purr' are synomyms ...

[LX88]

I looked at some of the latest parameters of the HX3 and to their credit, quite a bit of work has been done on the CV. So they are taking it seriously.

 

However - tweaking this or that forever and ever can lead to at least temporary insanity.

 

The HX3 now has adjustable parameters for Scanner Gears, Scanner Leak \Vibrato Amp Mod,Vib Channel Pre emphasis,Vib Channel reflect,Vib Channel response,Line box level, and Modulation amount.

 

I would think that you would really have to know what you are doing to edit on this level. One thing could cancel out something else.

 

I am used to Hammonds and I know what sounds good, but am I up to this? A little more info might be helpful about what I am messing with.

 

I do know that the HX3 I had in 2015 had a very strong throb in the upper octave, and sounded like it could benefit from a line box level adjustment and perhaps a change in modulation amount.

 

So I am glad they are at least addressing it.

 

On the other hand, isn't it nice to just turn the thing on and hear that it's already there?

 

I was A NAMM in 2011 and saw Joey D. show Dr. Lonnie Smith the Numa.

 

The first thing Dr. Lonnie said was "they got the chorus right"

 

And they did.