Hammond Teaser ???

[AnotherScott]

The keys are less tightly sprung (the action is quite close to that on my Vox).

Salivating.

 

Your vox should make a nice lower manual companion to it, I would think. It's a combination I'm considering.

 

The pianos might have 4 layers but I can"t hear much tonal change and if I didn"t know they"d been improved I"d actually assume they were the same as the SK1/2.

Where did you see any indication that they were 4 layers in the first place? I had been keeping an eye out for that kind of thing, but never saw any reference to it.

[niacin]

The keys are less tightly sprung (the action is quite close to that on my Vox).

Salivating.

 

Your vox should make a nice lower manual companion to it, I would think. It's a combination I'm considering.

 

The pianos might have 4 layers but I can"t hear much tonal change and if I didn"t know they"d been improved I"d actually assume they were the same as the SK1/2.

Where did you see any indication that they were 4 layers in the first place? I had been keeping an eye out for that kind of thing, but never saw any reference to it.

 

yes it will go solo or sit above my Vox.

 

And you're right, I just assumed they're 4 layers cause they're touted as really significantly improved and the architecture allows for 4 layers, but I may be wrong. Having said that I've got the pianos in my SK1 to a happy place for blues and pop by tweaking the EQ. One of the little-mentioned bonuses with the SK1/2 is that each sound gets its own 3-band parametric (though it's a fixed points menu rather than swept) plus you get the master EQ on the front panel. I got it to a point where it sits great in a live mix.

[Adan]

The keys are less tightly sprung (the action is quite close to that on my Vox).

 

This is great news. imo, one of the best things about the Crumar Mojo is just the difference in feel of the keys from the standard Fatar version, including the prior generation of Hammonds. If you've never played a real B3, you might not care. If you have, you would definitely miss that feeling on the standard Fatar. Same could be said for the Vox keybed, which is not Fatar but achieves a similar plush feel as the Mojo.

 

Another thing they've done on the SKPro that I think is new for Hammond is to allow momentary triggering of Leslie fast. I'm probably in the minority who prefer this, but the point is, once you've picked a preference it becomes a matter of muscle memory and you don't want to do the other. Hammond finally gives us a choice.

 

Is it possible to finally rename this thread? No? OK, never mind . . .

[niacin]

The keys are less tightly sprung (the action is quite close to that on my Vox).

 

This is great news. imo, one of the best things about the Crumar Mojo is just the difference in feel of the keys from the standard Fatar version, including the prior generation of Hammonds. If you've never played a real B3, you might not care. If you have, you would definitely miss that feeling on the standard Fatar. Same could be said for the Vox keybed, which is not Fatar but achieves a similar plush feel as the Mojo.

 

I have no idea how close it is to a Mojo. To me it feels somehow more solid but less springy, a little less side to side movement, plays cleaner, but it's less pianistic than the Vox. One of those things you'll have to try for yourself.

 

Another thing they've done on the SKPro that I think is new for Hammond is to allow momentary triggering of Leslie fast. I'm probably in the minority who prefer this, but the point is, once you've picked a preference it becomes a matter of muscle memory and you don't want to do the other. Hammond finally gives us a choice.

 

I use a footswitch to trigger the Leslie on the SK1 and have always had it set to momentary.

 

Is it possible to finally rename this thread? No? OK, never mind . . .

 

Yeh that would be a good idea. I thought about starting a new thread but there's already a lot of info and video links here.

[Adan]

 

Another thing they've done on the SKPro that I think is new for Hammond is to allow momentary triggering of Leslie fast. I'm probably in the minority who prefer this, but the point is, once you've picked a preference it becomes a matter of muscle memory and you don't want to do the other. Hammond finally gives us a choice.

 

I use a footswitch to trigger the Leslie on the SK1 and have always had it set to momentary.

 

.

 

Ah ha, I didn't realize the SK1 could do momentary, but I just looked at the online manual and sure enough it does.

[AnotherScott]

Is it possible to finally rename this thread? No? OK, never mind . . .

Maybe Hammond should rename the product from "SK Pro" to "Teaser."

[BenWaB3]

One of the little-mentioned bonuses with the SK1/2 is that each sound gets its own 3-band parametric (though it's a fixed points menu rather than swept) plus you get the master EQ on the front panel. I got it to a point where it sits great in a live mix.

 

Just to clarify: When I first saw this I thought you meant the three bands only had one fixed point each, but I see what you mean is that you can choose between multiple point options per band but it jumps from one to another w/o letting you do a continuous sweep to put it exactly where you would like on the spectrum. Yes, that is a bit limiting. We could hope they may fix that in an update but I have a feeling it's probably baked in to the hardware. Those with more computer knowledge than me (which is just about anybody) can chime in with a more informed answer.

 

I was hoping to see a new thread also but understand the reasoning behind keeping it all on this one.

 

One thing I did notice was that it could take close to a half second to switch between combinations, a distressing thing when playing one drawbar setting and doing a palm smear while going to a different one. I put this problem on the SK Pro group on Facebook and someone suggested having all the settings match as far as organ model & serial number, Leslie setting, effects settings & having the other 3 allotments the exact same. That did solve the problem. It kind of means you have to dedicate a whole bank to what is essentially organ only but at least there's 9 other banks to do everything else (plus different organ sounds when you don't need instant change) so it's definitely not going to make me ship it back to the store.

 

I hope to see more people weighing in with options, tips & tricks in the near future and I'll also be putting in my unsolicited $0.02 worth from time to time

[niacin]

When I first saw this I thought you meant the three bands only had one fixed point each, but I see what you mean is that you can choose between multiple point options per band but it jumps from one to another w/o letting you do a continuous sweep to put it exactly where you would like on the spectrum. Yes, that is a bit limiting. We could hope they may fix that in an update but I have a feeling it's probably baked in to the hardware. Those with more computer knowledge than me (which is just about anybody) can chime in with a more informed answer.

 

In the SK1/2 the master mid band has a swept frequency, the drawbars and extra sounds get separate 3-band EQs, the frequencies are:

 

Bass: 20Hz, 24, 31, 40, 50, 63, 80, 125, 160, 200

Mid: 250. 315, 400, 500, 630, 800, 1.0kHz, 1.2, 1.6, 2.0, 2.5, 3.1

Treble: 4.0, 5.0, 6.3, 8.0

 

The overdrive is also set up separately for Drawbars and Extra Sounds. Using the Drive, the EQ and the FX I've turned more than a few of the Extra Sounds, which out of the box are not great, into something I can use.

 

On the SKpro the master EQ has gone from the top panel to a menu. There are still separate EQs for each section plus a master EQ, and the shelving/swept-mid options are much the same.

[Adan]

SKPro 73 arrived today. I'll try to make a long story short as to why I did this. We moved across the country with only a carload of stuff and some big duffels checked on a plane. I drove with the dog and my Vintage Vibe, but other music gear stayed in California. This prompted a serious examination of whether I wanted to pay to ship the YC61. Instead I decided to replace it. The main reason for doing so had very little to do with the sounds, but more to do with it being a 61 and not a 73 as a prefer for one keyboard gigs. So after about a half dozen low profile pandemic gigs, the YC is gone, to be replaced by . . . maybe the SKPro?

 

Impulsively pulled the trigger on a demo model. Impressions after a few hours with it:

 

What impressed me right out of the box is the improved action. Hammond has modified the standard Fatar action to make it looser and it now feels much more like the Crumar Mojo or the Vox Conti. In a word, fantastic! I much prefer this over the too springy Electro or SK. It's better not just for organ but for pianos as well, as there is less of that top of the stroke resistance that, for me, made playing with dynamics so challenging.

 

The Hammond sounds great, and that's no surprise. The opportunity for customization is seemingly endless. Not sure yet how close the virtual multi-contact system comes to the real deal, but after a couple hours of playing I feel like it does add an additional spark of authenticity.

 

The operating system is not intuitive. After scratching my head trying to execute the simplest functions, I cracked the manual and started to make some slow progress. Not a big deal in the long run.

 

Whether I keep this board will depend mostly on how I feel about the pianos over the next few days. Clearly they are better than the SK series. The AP on the SK was unuseable. The SKPro gets into the useable category, but my initial impression is that it's still well behind most of the competition (YC, Nord Stage, Vox). The sound itself is tolerable but there is very little in the way of dynamics. This is clearly not a keyboard for a piano-heavy gig.

 

The EPs are comparatively more dynamic and playable, and they sound pretty decent even if they don't go head to head with other brands. More fun to play than you would think based on what you hear on youtube. Not a strong point, but not a weak point either.

 

Haven't done much with the monosynth yet. Seems promising but for me personally it's not high on my list of needs so won't have much impact on whether the SKPro passes the audition.

 

My early verdict is the SKPro still has some significant shortcomings in the piano department. It may well be my new favorite clone, and so the difficult question is whether I want to live with the mediocre aspects of it for the organ.

 

If the SKPro doesn't work out, I may try the YC73. I don't really want to play organ from weighted keys -- would much rather do the opposite. One thing I feel pretty sure of is that having played the Vox, the Mojo, and now the SKPro, I'd be reluctant to go back to the springier version of the Fatar action.

[AnotherScott]

Nice writeup, Adan, and good to see another encouraging post about the improvement in the action.

 

If the only significant disappointment ends up being the piano, a nice thing about the 73 is there's a bunch of free panel space at the end. Put an iOS device there with any of a number of reasonably decent piano apps, use the SK Pro's MIDI zoning function, you should be able to address that. At least that's an easier fix than adding an octave to your YC61. ;-)

 

If you end up looking for a different all-in-one, the Kurzweil PC4-7 could be a possibility... nice action, great sounds, tons of control... but obviously not as immediate in its interface, and lesser organ sound (though assignable outs nicely facilitate adding a Vent if desired).

 

YC73 is obviously largely a known quantity for you, since it is operationally/sonically identical to the YC61 you had. I never played one. I did play a CP73, though, and I just couldn't get into the action. But that's subjective.

[JMcS]

Whether I keep this board will depend mostly on how I feel about the pianos over the next few days. Clearly they are better than the SK series. The AP on the SK was unuseable. The SKPro gets into the useable category, but my initial impression is that it's still well behind most of the competition (YC, Nord Stage, Vox). The sound itself is tolerable but there is very little in the way of dynamics. This is clearly not a keyboard for a piano-heavy gig.

 

The EPs are comparatively more dynamic and playable, and they sound pretty decent even if they don't go head to head with other brands. More fun to play than you would think based on what you hear on youtube. Not a strong point, but not a weak point either.

 

 

Page 93 has a couple of Velocity adjustments that may help bring out the dynamics. If these work the way Velocity Offset works on the SK-1 they allow the user to add (or subtract) a value to/from the value generated while playing. On the SK-1 it is hard to generate a high velocity value which makes the tone sound dull. Adding to the generated value brings out the attack and other harmonics. Good Luck.

[niacin]

Whether I keep this board will depend mostly on how I feel about the pianos over the next few days. Clearly they are better than the SK series. The AP on the SK was unuseable. The SKPro gets into the useable category, but my initial impression is that it's still well behind most of the competition (YC, Nord Stage, Vox). The sound itself is tolerable but there is very little in the way of dynamics. This is clearly not a keyboard for a piano-heavy gig.

 

The EPs are comparatively more dynamic and playable, and they sound pretty decent even if they don't go head to head with other brands. More fun to play than you would think based on what you hear on youtube. Not a strong point, but not a weak point either.

 

 

Page 93 has a couple of Velocity adjustments that may help bring out the dynamics. If these work the way Velocity Offset works on the SK-1 they allow the user to add (or subtract) a value to/from the value generated while playing. On the SK-1 it is hard to generate a high velocity value which makes the tone sound dull. Adding to the generated value brings out the attack and other harmonics. Good Luck.

 

This. And as far as i can tell every factory sound or combi has velocity set to 1 for all the parts, and at 1 you can't reach the highest velocities. I've changed it to 3 for a couple of the pianos, and it's better, a bit brighter when i dig in, but don't expect too much in the way of tonal change.

[Adan]

Whether I keep this board will depend mostly on how I feel about the pianos over the next few days. Clearly they are better than the SK series. The AP on the SK was unuseable. The SKPro gets into the useable category, but my initial impression is that it's still well behind most of the competition (YC, Nord Stage, Vox). The sound itself is tolerable but there is very little in the way of dynamics. This is clearly not a keyboard for a piano-heavy gig.

 

The EPs are comparatively more dynamic and playable, and they sound pretty decent even if they don't go head to head with other brands. More fun to play than you would think based on what you hear on youtube. Not a strong point, but not a weak point either.

 

 

Page 93 has a couple of Velocity adjustments that may help bring out the dynamics. If these work the way Velocity Offset works on the SK-1 they allow the user to add (or subtract) a value to/from the value generated while playing. On the SK-1 it is hard to generate a high velocity value which makes the tone sound dull. Adding to the generated value brings out the attack and other harmonics. Good Luck.

 

Yes, this is a good way to fine tune the velocity response. No wonder they call you the "tip and tricks guy!" OK, I don't know if anyone calls you that outside my household.

 

My comment on the pianos really has more to do with the samples themselves, which don't seem to have a lot of nuance in the sample layers. At least not by today's standards. I think if I was hearing these samples 20 years ago I might not have noticed as much.

 

That aside, I think the piano sounds themselves are acceptable to me. Even the APs are growing on me. The Yamaha sample sounds ok through headphones. The Steinway sample not as much, but would probably cut through a mix pretty well.

 

And it's worth repeating that pianos feel very playable from the semi-weighted keys. If I try to separate in my mind how I feel about the sounds from how my fingers feel playing them (a difficult mental trick, to be sure), I have to say the SKPro works pretty well, and is a noticeable step up from the SK.

 

I think most people who try the SKPro will reach the same conclusion -- that this is a great all-in-one keyboard as long as the "all" is about 70% or more organ.

[AnotherScott]

If I try to separate in my mind how I feel about the sounds from how my fingers feel playing them (a difficult mental trick, to be sure)

You need to record it and then listen to the playback. But in reality, if it sounds good on playback but you don't feel the joy when playing it, I'm not sure how much it matters.

[stoken6]

this is a great all-in-one keyboard as long as the "all" is about 70% or more organ.

+1. Often it's tricky to integrate a clonewheel into a two-board rig, because it's such a one-trick pony, it leaves the other board with so much to do. Hammond have thought hard about integration of this board into a wider rig (assignable outs, audio in, MIDI controller and slave capabilities, monosynth...) and its deficiencies are easily filled by a wide range of stage-piano or weighted-action workstations. I'm thinking Korg SV2 would be a great companion.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[AnotherScott]

Finally got my hands on this! I've only been able to spend a short amount of time on it, but here are some of my impressions so far:

 

Nice looking and solid feeling, though the dark green, in the subdued lighting I had, looked close to black, and some of you may remember I'm no fan of black controls on black backgrounds, it makes them unnecessarily hard to see in many stage situations. Black knobs and sliders can be replaced with after-market differently colored ones, which will largely address this if need be, but the buttons are going to be stuck at black.

 

Even though it's a Fatar TP/8O like the Nord Stage 3 I had right above it, it seems to feel more solid, and I think it's because the keys make a more satsifying "thud" on release, wheras on the Nord, there's more of a sound of the top metal panel resonating on key releases. Surprisingly, I felt that Hammond did a better job than Nord at making the semi-weighted keys reasonably playable for pianissimo piano playing.

 

While I immediately heard things I liked about the organ sound, I'm also very familiar and comfortable with the Nord organ sound, and I felt that sometimes, that's still what I'd want. I don't know how many people would play the two and think, "I wish I could make my Hammond sound more like the Nord," but I decided to jump in to the editing screens and see if I could quickly get something like my Nord sound out of the Hammond... both because I wanted the comfort of knowing that I could still get that sound if I wanted to, but also as an excuse to get my feet wet with the board's editing functions. It was actually very easy to get close to the Nord (where you can't change much, but I have click and leakage set high). If you've got an SK Pro and want to hear it sound much like a Nord, I've posted the settings below. (The only non-Nord-specific possible point of interest there is Note 1, I'm disappointed in the Hammond's key click on release.)

 

On to the clav. I cut the Release time to zero, which I thought was a big improvement. Maybe it's been too long since I've played a real one, but the long release they built in didn't seem right to me at all, there was no snap to the clav, but it was easy to fix. The strangest thing--and maybe it's a bug?--is that the sound has a second component which is just the release noise. I thought I might want to edit that as well, but whenever I selected component 2 to edit, I got no sound! It's hard to edit something when you can't hear what effect your changes are making on the sound. Ultimately I found the workaround... in order to hear component 2, you must also have component 1 turned on. You can lower its volume to zero, so there's still a way to hear only the component you're editing, but you can't actually turn it off.

 

Anyway, that's all I've got so far. Except that I haven't figure out how to select a new Combination yet. I can navigate through the combis, I can hear their different effects affecting my organ sound, but the sound itself never changes. I must have hit some button somewhere... or I'm missing something that should be obvious... we'll see...

 

-----

 

Nord-like settings:

 

DRAWBAR SCREEN

Type = B-3

Envelope = R2*

Leakage = 63

Set = F2

 

CONTACT SCREEN

Offset = 12

Damping = 17

Mode = Rdm

Depth = 64

 

CHORUS (C3)

Rate = 6.83 (the default)

Mix = Even

 

LESLIE

Cabinet = F7 (145 Wild) **

 

EQ

Bass = cut to -7 at 360***

Mid = boost to +5 at 1k

 

I left the overdrive and other screens at the default settings (based on starting with the sound the board loads when turned on). I didn't address/compare the percussion.

 

* Note 1: I was disappointed at having to set Envelope to R2 to smooth the release, because it meant losing the release key click (which the Nord has), but I just did not like the sound of the SK Pro's release key click, it didn't sound like key click to me, but more like the sound being "sucked" away.

 

** Note 2: I picked this Leslie as part of getting the tone I wanted. I made no attempt to make the actual Leslie effect more similar, that wasn't my concern.

 

*** Note 3: As you may know, the Nord's Leslie sim sucks out a lot of bass. This bass cut roughly approximates it, though not exactly. Moreover, many people are disappointed that the Nord gets as bass shy as it does once you turn its Leslie on, so you might want to go easy on this bass cut anyway. But my goal here wasn't to "improve" the Nord sound, but to create a starting point that very closely duplicates it.

[Adan]

 

Anyway, that's all I've got so far. Except that I haven't figure out how to select a new Combination yet. I can navigate through the combis, I can hear their different effects affecting my organ sound, but the sound itself never changes. I must have hit some button somewhere... or I'm missing something that should be obvious... we'll see...

 

Scott, someone posted on the SKPro facebook page about something similar. Here's the post:

 

"Spent a whole night trying to recall combinations and couldn't do it, very frustrating! Then I figured maybe there's a system toggle somewhere. There's something in the system menu called patch load, I wandered in there and under combi all the sections were defaulted to off. turned them all on and it's all working. Maybe that'll save someone else from pulling hair out!"

[niacin]

I'm also very familiar and comfortable with the Nord organ sound, and I felt that sometimes, that's still what I'd want. I don't know how many people would play the two and think, "I wish I could make my Hammond sound more like the Nord," but I decided to jump in to the editing screens and see if I could quickly get something like my Nord sound out of the Hammond... both because I wanted the comfort of knowing that I could still get that sound if I wanted to, but also as an excuse to get my feet wet with the board's editing functions. It was actually very easy to get close to the Nord (where you can't change much, but I have click and leakage set high). If you've got one and want to try it. I've posted the settings below

 

Lol, almost choked on my coffee, that's hilarious, I mean I knew Nord was a benchmark for some things, but lol. I'm happy you achieved what you wanted though. Rotflol.

[niacin]

 

Anyway, that's all I've got so far. Except that I haven't figure out how to select a new Combination yet. I can navigate through the combis, I can hear their different effects affecting my organ sound, but the sound itself never changes. I must have hit some button somewhere... or I'm missing something that should be obvious... we'll see...

 

Scott, someone posted on the SKPro facebook page about something similar. Here's the post:

 

"Spent a whole night trying to recall combinations and couldn't do it, very frustrating! Then I figured maybe there's a system toggle somewhere. There's something in the system menu called patch load, I wandered in there and under combi all the sections were defaulted to off. turned them all on and it's all working. Maybe that'll save someone else from pulling hair out!"

 

Yeh I've pulled up a split and put the sound I've programmed on the left side and got nothing and wtf. But after spending a solid morning with it over the weekend I'm flying, and I've only cracked the manual a few times. But yes some of the factory defaults are head scratchers, everything seems to default to velocity curve #1 which more often that not isn't a happy choice.

[AnotherScott]

Scott, someone posted on the SKPro facebook page about something similar. Here's the post:

 

"Spent a whole night trying to recall combinations and couldn't do it, very frustrating! Then I figured maybe there's a system toggle somewhere. There's something in the system menu called patch load, I wandered in there and under combi all the sections were defaulted to off. turned them all on and it's all working. Maybe that'll save someone else from pulling hair out!"

Bingo!

 

So I'm thinking, clearly, there was a screwup. They'd have to be seriously high to intentionally ship this thing with no ability to move it off of combination #1 (well, I could visually move it off #1, I could scroll through the different factory presets, but I couldn''t actually hear any of them, I could only hear effects changing on the one sound I was playing). So I did a Factory Reset, because who knows what else may have been messed up? All is well. And Factory Reset did indeed leave these settings in their correct, instantly usable and operating-as-expected modes, and not the way it was out of the box.

 

It's interesting that it seems I'm not the only one who has experienced this. Some number of these apparently got out with the wrong settings, even though a factory reset installs the correct ones.

 

To add insult to injury, the manual explanation is wrong. If you look up "Patch Load" in the manual, it says "This Function Mode allows you to select which Parameters of the intrument will be Recorded as part of a Patch," and that "On" means "The Parameter setting will be remembered as part of a Patch," and so forth. But as the very word "load" implies, this setting does NOT determine what gets recorded/remembered (saved), but rather it determines what gets loaded/recalled, which is the opposite. (Or maybe it does both? Who knows?) Having just written this, I can see where, in part, this could have been an example of the manual writer not being a native English speaker (there are numerous instances of that in the manual), because of the ambiguity between when "remember" and "recall" can mean the same thing ("I can't remember" is the same as "I can't recall"), and when they do not (instructing a computer to remember your settings is the opposite of instructing the computer to recall your settings).

 

Some new observations...

 

...The ability to seamlessly switch from one combination to another is mysterious. I understand (and was prepeared for) sometimes hearing a glitch if the effects settings are very different, Jim Alfredson mentioned that in one of his videos. But sometimes a sound just cuts out, and I haven't yet found the pattern. It's something that may--or may not--happen when switching among combinations that have different organ sounds or different mono synth sounds. I don't think it happens among sounds in the piano/ensemble sections (at least not that I've seen). But I'll have to figure out what the pattern is if I want to avoid not being "surprised."

 

...There are numerous ways to call up the saved Combinations, but there appears to be no way to navigate through them without loading them. There is direct recall from the numeric entry pad or via assignable Favorites, but that assumes you know a sound's location. If you don't, there are three ways to scroll through the available sounds... you can use the knob to step through them along the top of the screen, or you can hit Enter to bring up a page with a scrollable list (so you can see 5 at a time) and at that point you can either again use the knob to move through them, or you can use the up/down buttons to move through them. Whichever way you do it, each sound will load as you navigate through it. This is reasonable when you simply move the knob to navigate to the next patch, you could have a bunch of patches set up to access in sequence. But on the Page view, where you presumably would not have likely called it up if the patch you wanted was the very next patch, it would make a whole lot more sense if you could navigate to the patch on the screen but not have it invoked until you hit Enter (or Play, whatever). You may want to continue playing something with one hand, while you look for the patch you want with your other hand... and there's no way to do that, because as soon as you start scrolling through to try to find the patch you want, the sound you're playing will keep changing.

 

Related to that last one, when you're on page view, the Left and Right buttons do nothing, and the Page Next/Previous buttons do nothing. So maybe they could make use of these inactive buttons. If they can't or don't want to change the current operation of the up-down buttons, one of these sets of buttons might be used to navigate the list without activating the sound (requiring Enter or Play to actually invoke the sound). I'd also like to see one of these button sets used to take you to the next/previous page (i.e. navigate to the screen showing the next 5 patches, so you could scroll a page-of-5 at a time instead of only being able to scroll one item at a time).

 

...Navigating the Favorites is about as probematic as what I described above regarding navigating Combinations... except it's the opposite! Holding down a Favorite button brought me to a list of Favorites. In this case, I can nicely navigate through the list, through different pages and different banks, and not have the sounds automatically selected. But now, there's NO way to select a sound from the list. Enter button is used for something else (to change the sound you want to store in that Favorite location, which appears to be the only reason they thought you might want to bring up this list), the Play button exits you from that mode and leaves you back at the sound you were playing in the first place; the Exit button--pressed twice to step back through the menus--similarly exits you from that mode and leaves you back at the sound you were playing in the first place. I couldn't find any way to select one of the Favorites I'm looking at on the screen and simply Play it. (I'd vote for the Play button doing that... still taking you back to the play mode screen as it always does, but also bringing you to the sound you had selected on the screen... and if you decide you don't want to change sounds after all, you'd still have had the option of using the Exit button to back you out without changing your sound, so you don't lose anything; and it is still conceptually consistent and sensible that the Play button, while always taking you to the Play mode, will also invoke any sound that had been selected when you hit it... though there may be other ways they could address this problem if they prefer.) The only way I found to quickly select the sound you've found on the screen is IF you happen to be looking at the list of Favorites that corresponds to the currently active bank, you can use the ten buttons to select from those ten sounds (though you will not get any indication on the screen of having selected that sound). But if you find the sound you want to play in a different bank, you can highlight it, but there's no way to quickly play it, you have to actually go through the multi-step sequence of navigating to the bank and then recalling the patch with its number. Cumbersome, especially if you're mid-song!

 

Since I'm not going to have memorized which Favorites I've put in each of the 100 locations, it's kind of crucial to be able to navigate the list to find the sound I want and play it. Hopefully there's some other way to do this. As I said, I understand that the "hold a button down to bring up the list of Favorites" seems to be "officially" there to allow you to redefine them, but unless there's some other way to bring up that list for mere information/navigation purposes (did I miss it?), this seems to be where you would have to go to ever keep keep track of and navigate through your 100 Favorites, unless you're going to memorize them or keep a printed chart taped to the board.

 

Related to that, with ten buttons, it's kind of a shame that the list of Favorites only displays 5 at a time, so right away you have to flip between two screens just to see what the ten buttons currently are assigned to. There are screens, like the one posted below, that have two columns of 5 entries each... something like this could be used to display the names of the current 10 button-selectable Favorite sounds, even if names had to be truncated or shown in a smaller/thinner font. They could save space by not displaying the underlying patch number as they do now... you don't usually need to know that, and you can always get in another way anyway (e.g. the screen it takes you to when you hit Enter on one of the entiries also takes you to a screen that shows its patch number).

 

This is not the easiest board to get around. I realize, I could be missing some things, maybe some people here will have some tips...

 

[Al Quinn]

Scott, someone posted on the SKPro facebook page about something similar. Here's the post:

 

"Spent a whole night trying to recall combinations and couldn't do it, very frustrating! Then I figured maybe there's a system toggle somewhere. There's something in the system menu called patch load, I wandered in there and under combi all the sections were defaulted to off. turned them all on and it's all working. Maybe that'll save someone else from pulling hair out!"

 

It's interesting that it seems I'm not the only one who has experienced this. Some number of these apparently got out with the wrong settings, even though a factory reset installs the correct ones.

Scott, you are not alone: I had the same problem. I received my SK Pro 61 yesterday and unfortunately pulled out most my hair before I read the posts by you and Adan. Thanks guys! Let"s just say I got off to a bad start with the SK Pro. Such a frustrating experience.

 

On a positive note, the B3 and Leslie sim sound great! And the abundance of controls and layout are to my liking.

 

I don"t think I would use the APs on a gig but they should be fine for rehearsals. The action feels like about the right stiffness to accommodate organ and piano playing. I was able to play the piano with enough nuance to make it enjoyable. Too bad the piano doesn"t sound good. I can"t say for certain but I think the Roland MKS20 piano module I used in the 80"s and 90"s sounded better and a couple of APs on my iPad (Ravenscroft and True Piano) also sound better. Makes me wonder why Hammond couldn"t do a better job with the APs. But, keeping things in perspective, my main purpose for this board is to have a great organ over the CP4 without having to connect other devices. In that respect the SK Pro excels. No need to use the Vent 2 or HX3 Expander Module with this puppy.

[Doerfler]

my main purpose for this board is to have a great organ over the CP4 without having to connect other devices. In that respect the SK Pro excels. No need to use the Vent 2 or HX3 Expander Module with this puppy.

 

Thanks for the update, Al. This is good information for the forum. (especially me, also a CP4 owner)

[Adan]

I wouldn't say "never" as far as using the SKPro APs. I mean, sure, it's nowhere near the sound or the playing experience of, say, a CP4. Are there situations where it's passably good enough that you could bring just the SKPro to the gig? I think so, and that's a statement I would not make about the APs in the SK1/2. But like the SK1/2, the other sounds on the SKPro still feel like they exist on a different level of quality than the organ such that the question is always going to be whether they are "good enough" for this or that situation.

 

Scott's frustrations with the organization of patches and combi's illustrate why this may not be a good board for cover band gigs where you need to call up 30 different splits. But if anyone can crack the code on the operating system, it will be Scott.

 

The main thing that's currently disappointing me is that my FC7 expression pedal isn't sympatico with the SKPro. No matter how I adjust parameters there remains a 10ish increment jump in the expression level and I just can't abide it. I've reluctantly ordered the very expensive EXP50 Hammond pedal, so we'll see how that works out. My SKPro was a discounted demo model, so I can think of myself as still coming out ahead, but having to buy a $220 pedal is still a bitter pill.

[Al Quinn]

Adan, I"m also using an FC7 expression pedal. It seems I"m getting a larger swing via the pedal (i.e., 71 to 127). I used the menu reached by MENU/EXIT -> SYSTEM -> CONTROL -> EXP.PED and set the CURVE to 2 and ORGAN MIN LEVEL (dB) to Off.

[AnotherScott]

I decided to jump in to the editing screens and see if I could quickly get something like my Nord sound out of the Hammond

 

Lol, almost choked on my coffee, that's hilarious, I mean I knew Nord was a benchmark for some things, but lol. I'm happy you achieved what you wanted though. Rotflol.

It could have been worse... I could have said I was trying to duplicate the clonewheel sound of the Vox Continental. ;-)

 

I can"t say for certain but I think the Roland MKS20 piano module I used in the 80"s and 90"s sounded better and a couple of APs on my iPad (Ravenscroft and True Piano) also sound better. Makes me wonder why Hammond couldn"t do a better job with the APs.

Ah, the MKS20/P330! Maybe not the most authentic piano by today's standards, but a nice sound and very playable. It wasn't sample-based, it was their first modeled piano, essentially the forerunner to the V-Piano. As it happens, I was just listening to an old recording of my band where I used it... sounded pretty good!

 

I don't recognize "True Piano," I'm guessing you meant "Pure Piano"? I haven't played that one myself. But it does require something like a gigabyte of space, which is still a lot in the keyboard world. But that's an old conversation.

 

Scott's frustrations with the organization of patches and combi's illustrate why this may not be a good board for cover band gigs where you need to call up 30 different splits. But if anyone can crack the code on the operating system, it will be Scott.

Thanks. :-) I'll have to spend some more time with it to be fully comfortable, but I think I've got the gist, except for bundles, which I've ignored. As for its suitability for the scenario of needing to call up many splits... it's not ideal, but I think pretty workable at least for people who set up their splits in advance. But before I talk about this further, I think I need to temper my patch select criticisms with some more perspective. These limitations are not unique to the Hammond, or even particularly unusual. But in 2021, they are less common than they used to be, and I think for me, the particular frustration arises from the fact that it looks like it is so close to being better here. So for example, yes, it is frustrating that I haven't found a way to navigate through a list of Combinations without selecting each one as I go... but the same problem exists on the far more expensive Nord Stage 3 when navigating Programs. (In fact, the earlier Nord Stage 2/2EX had a feature called "Pending Load" that took care of this... but they actually DROPPED that from the NS3!) Whether you need this capability is related to how much you plan out your performance in advance vs. how much you do on the fly... lots of people won't find it to be a problem at all. Also, there IS a way around this on the SK Pro (as well as on the Nord), because those Combinations are selectable via MIDI Program Change, so one could use an iPad, for example, to give you a touchscreen with the 100 selectable Favorite combinations, and each one should be directly reachable. Anyway, I'll get back to this in another post, maybe tomorrow.

 

In the mean time, I did some comparison with the Numa Organ (original). Without overdrive, using the default SK Pro organ sound as a point of reference, tonally, they weren't terribly far off, once I switched the Hammond's Leslie setting to "145 Wild" (though the rotary effect itself is better on the Hammond, and of course, more adjustable). Leakage is different, but I can't say which is "better" or more authentic, they're both fine. Percussion sounds about the same, I didn't compare C/V. You can make the Hammond's overdrive more like the Numa's by lowering its crossover to 1.75kHz. (and raising the drive amount to 47 was about equivalent to the Numa's drive knob at about 10:00). Some EQ got the Hammond a bit closer to the Numa, but a quirk of the Numa is that its tone changes quite a bit with the overdrive as well. For a quick approximation of the Numa sound with no overdrive, I set the Hammond EQ to +6 at 440 Hz (OD switched off on the Hammond as well). For an approximation of the Numa with the OD levels set as mentioned above, I set the Hammond EQ to -6 at 152 Hz, +6 at 1.2 hKz, and -6 at 4 kHz. (These won't get you an exact duplicate, but it's in the ballpark, a bit closer or further depending on drawbar registration and which octave you play in, but usually pretty close.) I still really like the sound of the Numa. But not only can you get close on the Hammond, it is enormously tweakable from that starting point whereas the Numa is not, and as I said, I liked the Hammond's Leslie more, plus of course it has all its non-organ capabilities.

[drawback]

I don"t think I would use the APs on a gig but they should be fine for rehearsals. The action feels like about the right stiffness to accommodate organ and piano playing. I was able to play the piano with enough nuance to make it enjoyable. Too bad the piano doesn"t sound good. I can"t say for certain but I think the Roland MKS20 piano module I used in the 80"s and 90"s sounded better and a couple of APs on my iPad (Ravenscroft and True Piano) also sound better. Makes me wonder why Hammond couldn"t do a better job with the APs.

 

Could it be that everything other than Hammond Organ is from the venerated Suzuki sound set? Just conjecture on my part of course, but what else would you expect from this alliance?

[AnotherScott]

Makes me wonder why Hammond couldn"t do a better job with the APs.

 

Could it be that everything other than Hammond Organ is from the venerated Suzuki sound set? Just conjecture on my part of course, but what else would you expect from this alliance?

You bring up an interesting point... Where do these samples come from? It is certainly possible that the sample set was not generated by Hammond/Suzuki themselves, but was outsourced or licensed from a third party.

[Al Quinn]

Scott, sorry my mistake: I did mean Pure Piano and not True piano.

 

Drawback, perhaps your right about the piano coming from the Suzuki soundset. To be honest, I hadn"t thought of that because I didn"t know there was a Suzuki soundset. I"ve never had a Suzuki product or even a Hammond product other than my '61 A100.

 

Interestingly, the more I play the APs the more comfortable I am expressing myself. It"s not that they"re sounding any better but they are quite playable which is a pleasant surprise. I"m going to use them for a rehearsal tomorrow night.

 

I connected my laptop last night and played Pianoteq APs and Keyscape EPs. The setup was simple with just a USB cable and a cable from the MacBook Pro headphone out to the SK PRO aux input. I would have preferred audio over USB to make it a one cable setup (and technically better audio quality) but not a biggie. This setup was nice to play and sounded really good.

 

Bank selection isn"t working as expected for me. The manual says 'Press and Hold the [bANK] button and press the [5] [FAVORITE] button. The LED of the selected number will flash several times.' When I do this all of the LEDs flash rather than the LED of the selected bank. I would prefer that it worked as described in the manual. Does anyone else have this issue?

[Adan]

 

Interestingly, the more I play the APs the more comfortable I am expressing myself. It"s not that they"re sounding any better but they are quite playable which is a pleasant surprise.

 

Al, that's my take on the pianos and epianos as well. The sounds themselves don't thrill me, and they are very far from being the best available. But they feel pretty good to play on this semi-weighted keyboard. To pick a point of comparison, I'd rather play these mediocre pianos and epianos on the SKPro than I would the much better sounding pianos on the MODX, the difference being the playability.

 

It would be interesting to put the SKPro side by side with an Electro or Nord Stage. I feel like the action on the Hammond lends itself more to pianos, but that's just based on my memory of playing the Nord, and my memory could be fooling me.

[drawback]

 

Drawback, perhaps your right about the piano coming from the Suzuki soundset. To be honest, I hadn"t thought of that because I didn"t know there was a Suzuki soundset. I"ve never had a Suzuki product or even a Hammond product other than my '61 A100.

 

It"s been a consumer brand for a long time. I would have compared them with early Casio, although clearly Casio has upped their game in the last few years! I"ve seen a few in places like Costco, played a couple of them in my time â I didn"t consider them pro level. I"ve always wondered why Hammond would have taken up a partnership with them, but I haven"t read enough history of either company to reveal who rescued whom, or if it was purely a strategic alliance, but it may be fairly safe where to assume the non-organ sounds come from.

 

https://www.musiciansfriend.com/digital-pianos/suzuki