Any love for the Dexibell Combo J7?

[kenheeter]

This looks interesting to me, is anyone using one and if so would you care to comment?

[ElmerJFudd]

I think Scott either has one or has had his hands on one.

The pluses are that it"s an excellent organ controller with motorized faders which allows for correct drawbar position on recall of presets. The Leslie sim was very whacky in early demos but has been updated and improved in subsequent firmware updates. Also the secondary sound sets were a little weak on release but they"ve added to those since as well. For the price there"s other models that are worth a look from Nord, Hammond, Yamaha, Roland, Kurzweil and Crumar. But that said, it"s a very unique instrument and you may find you connect with it. The fact it functions really well as a controller is a big plus - even it you don"t love the organ and Leslie, it would work well with B-3X, Blue, B5, VB3v2, etc.

[Delaware Dave]

https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2957585/dexibell-combo-j7-demo

 

Although the leslie is improved it is still lackluster. Since you can't pan voices left/right totally (and can't pan the organ at all) putting an external leslie sim would require you to use bypass when not playing organ and also no way of playing organ with leslie and non-organ without leslie. I thought it was the one until I tried it; it wasn't.....

[AnotherScott]

Mostly I agree with everything Elmer and Dave said. With the new rotary, I did find the organ acceptable, and with the moving drawbars, found the board really appealing as something like a B-3X controller. It's got some nice other sounds, and I really like that you can use 1.5 GB for your choice of whatever combination you like of Dexibell sounds and soundfonts. OTOH, its TP/8O action is stiffly sprung, like Nord's, but they need to catch up with Nord in mapping its velocity response, I didn't think the pianos played very well from its keys (even as TP/8O boards go). I used to have the same complaint about Nord, but I guess their velocity mappings have improved over the years, because I do find the pianos more playable on the Electro 5D and Nord Stage 3 Compact than I did on the Nord Stage 2 Compact and Electro 3. If I had chosen to keep the J7, I would have experimented with putting lighter springs in it. Another caveat is that you can only have 36 saved programs loaded into it at a time (though you can swap different sets of 36 from a USB stick).

 

I really like a lot about the board... it might be my favorite organ controller because of the moving drawbars, and the soundset (esp. when you add the soundfont capability) is very nice. But for my own potential uses, it had too many weak points. As a bottom board, even for the times I go without a hammer action, it did not feel sufficiently satisfying for piano playing, plus it has a deeper control surface than I like on a bottom (meaning the keys on the board above can't be as close to it as I'd like). As a top board, it didn't have the kind of programming flexibility or controls that I look for (e.g. mod wheel), 36 user presets is skimpy, and also the lack of assignable outs or even full ability to pan sounds to one side or the other made it weak as a left hand bass board, something I've been doing a lot of lately (though the MIDI capabilities are good enough that it might not be too painful to address the LHB aspect with an external sound source). In the end, other than being an organ controller, I couldn't come up with many scenarios where it would be my board of choice, in the context of things I need and the other boards I can choose from. In that respect, I put it in the category of a board like the Electro 6, similarly a board I see the appeal of, but isn't a good choice for what I'd need, personally.

 

Ironically, after dismissing the J7 as a possible addition to my stable, I ended up adding their P3, and using it either as bottom or as solo (ceremony/cocktail stuff). In many ways, it's a lesser version of the J7. It gives you the same 1.5 GB to assemble your choice of Dexibell sounds and soundfonts and actually slightly more user presets (49), but it has fewer front panel controls, no organ section, no MIDI zoning, no 5-pin MIDI, and still no pitch or mod controls. And as a bottom, it still has more depth than I'd like. But the much maligned TP100 feels really nice playing these piano/EP sounds, and the speakers sound great... it's just a really nice overall experience, seeming much more like playing a real piano than you'd expect.

[pawelsz]

Why not S3/S3 Pro, Scott? P3 seems quite limited. Speakers wanted?

[AnotherScott]

Why not S3/S3 Pro, Scott? P3 seems quite limited. Speakers wanted?

Exactly. The thing that brought me to the P3 in the first place was to have a lightweight board for ceremony/cocktail gigs that I could setup and breakdown very quickly, and something with internal speakers is ideal for that... it's a rare commodity, something with good enough speakers that is still lightweight, but the P3 fit the bill. Discussed extensively at https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3111926

 

It would be nice if it also had some of the nice additions of the S3... MIDI zoning, 5-pin DIN MIDI connectors, more real-time controls (e.g. knobs for instant separate volume controls for your main sound vs. your split/layered sound), pitch/mod wheels (though I don't use those as much as some other people do, esp. on a bottom board). But really, for my particular use, I don't absolutely need those things. In fact, over the years, some of my most common bottom boards have been Casio Privias that often lacked most of those things as well. What I really needed was simply a good sounding, good feeling piano, and the speakers were more valuable for that than the other things. Not just for the ceremony/cocktail stuff, btw. Just in general, having the speakers make the board feel nicer to play, even when using external amplification, because of the haptic sensation of feeling the sounds' vibrations in your fingers as you play, making it feel that much more like playing a real piano.

[pawelsz]

Why not S3/S3 Pro, Scott? P3 seems quite limited. Speakers wanted?

Exactly. The thing that brought me to the P3 in the first place was to have a lightweight board for ceremony/cocktail gigs that I could setup and breakdown very quickly, and something with internal speakers is ideal for that... it's a rare commodity, something with good enough speakers that is still lightweight, but the P3 fit the bill. Discussed extensively at https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3111926

 

Thanks. I just realised I have already read and even liked your post in that thread before!

[Morrissey]

Why not S3/S3 Pro, Scott? P3 seems quite limited. Speakers wanted?

Exactly. The thing that brought me to the P3 in the first place was to have a lightweight board for ceremony/cocktail gigs that I could setup and breakdown very quickly, and something with internal speakers is ideal for that... it's a rare commodity, something with good enough speakers that is still lightweight, but the P3 fit the bill. Discussed extensively at https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3111926

 

Thanks. I just realised I have already read and even liked your post in that thread before!

 

That's a good thread. I opted for the S3 instead of the P3, mostly because I didn't want the extra weight of the speakers. Scott's rationale for his use case of the P3 makes total sense to me.