Hammond SKX Pro

[niacin]

That the pianos actually sound pretty good played from a weighted action keyboard has been noted by others. 

I think the clavs on the original SK1/2 beat those on the SKPro and the YC61 hands down. 

On the Hammond FB group its been suggested you can fatten up the electric pianos by layering them with a sine wave.

Yeh the monosynth is actually even more limited that might first appear.  Can't split the oscillators 2 octaves.  The lfo can only sweep the filter through half the range.  And so on.  It has its uses, but given they could've squeezed a Roland/Studio Electronics SE-02 into that space for relatively few $$$ it's imo disappointing and I'd have preferred a second set of drawbars.

YMMV

[funkyhammond]

2 hours ago, niacin said:

I think the clavs on the original SK1/2 beat those on the SKPro and the YC61 hands down. 

 

It is so frustrating when a new model seems to take a big step backwards in some way. 

 

2 hours ago, niacin said:

On the Hammond FB group its been suggested you can fatten up the electric pianos by layering them with a sine wave.

 

I don't even consider hacks like that until after I have decided to buy the instrument anyway. And that's the kind of thing I might have done 20 years ago when we had much more limitations in computing power and quality sample sets. 

 

2 hours ago, niacin said:

Yeh the monosynth is actually even more limited that might first appear.  Can't split the oscillators 2 octaves.  The lfo can only sweep the filter through half the range.  And so on.  It has its uses, but given they could've squeezed a Roland/Studio Electronics SE-02 into that space for relatively few $$$ it's imo disappointing and I'd have preferred a second set of drawbars.

YMMV

 

I agree that I would have preferred a second set of drawbars that could also function as sliders for the mono synth (I know that's been suggested in this thread). It looks to me like there is room for that even on the 61. I noticed the limitation of only a one octave split in the oscillators. I didn't know about the LFO but hopefully not too big of a deal in practice for just the occasional synth lead. At least it has actual pitch and mod wheels -- I'm not a fan of the sticks on the YC because they are very awkward to try to use together. 

 

Anyone know if there is a way to get the SK Pro to transmit high trigger notes through MIDI for controlling external organs?

[AnotherScott]

10 hours ago, funkyhammond said:

I'm sure the YC organs would be just fine for many situations. They at least have a gritty sound and good overdrive...But, overall, the SK Pro has the best organ and the best Leslie sim, IMO.

I agree. In today's multi-function clonewheels, I'd rank Hammond first, and Yamaha second. Which is a big jump up for Yamaha!

 

10 hours ago, funkyhammond said:

I still prefer the {EPs} in the YC and there is a much greater variety of EP sounds (sample sets) in the YC to pick from. Same goes for the NE6.

and again, I agree, Yamaha beats Hammond on the EPs. And again speaking to a jump up for Yamaha, the new CP/YC are the first Yamahas with EPs that I've been thoroughly happy with. (Though I haven't played the EPs on the CP4/40 or CP1/5/50 which I know are also well respected.) I've actually never considered the Nord EPs to be first-rate, they're always missing something for me. EQ helps, but even then, you can't save your EQ'd EPs as their own entities to easily make part of subsequent combinations, so it's clumsy. I think I might actually take the Hammond over the Nord for EP.

 

10 hours ago, funkyhammond said:

The YC only has two different Clav sounds (representing two pickup settings) but they sound pretty good and much better than all four of the Clav sounds/pickup settings in the SK Pro. The Clav in the SK Pro sounds kind of thin/distant/lifeless in comparison to the YC and NE6.

It's funny, years ago, there were numerous posts about how good Hammond's clavs were, and that they were better than Nord's, and I preferred Nord's. I understood the appeal of the Hammond's release noises which Nord lacked, but Hammond had very noticeable velocity switching, much more than Nord. Nord also had a lower release point, so the Nord had a snappier feeling when playing the clav. I actually haven't paid any attention to the YC clavs yet, though it is conceptually irritating to me that something that is largely a "stage piano" doesn't at least have all 4 clav pickup positions (true of the CP73/CP88 as well).

 

11 hours ago, funkyhammond said:

It's great having that level of editability

Yes, and this may be an area that tends to be overlooked. Unlike most of the other multi-function clonewheels, the sampled "other" sounds are very deeply editable. There is virtually no such editing a Yamaha YC, Nord Electro (or even Stage, which has synth editing, but no sample editing), Roland VR (ditto). You'd have to look at a Roland Fantom, Korg Kronos, Kurzweil PC4, which are really different kind of boards entirely.

 

11 hours ago, funkyhammond said:

One minor point about the mono synth. I'm more than happy with the way it is but considering they put so much attention to it, I'm surprised it's not a tiny bit more flexible with the oscillators. I would have expected one of the modes to be two independent oscillators where you can choose each oscillator to be any of sine, saw, or square.

 

There's a button for oscillator type, which is also marked "hold to edit." Hold it down (while on the "Duo" type) and it will bring up (surprise!) the edit screen, where you can indeed set either of the two oscillators independently to saw, square, or a combination. 

[AnotherScott]

4 hours ago, niacin said:

I think the clavs on the original SK1/2 beat those on the SKPro and the YC61 hands down. 

In what respect do you find the SK1 clavs superior? (e.g. basic timbre? attacks? releases? how they respond to your playing?) With all the editability of the Pro, I wonder if there's some way to replicate what you find missing, unless it's somehow just an inferior sample set.

 

4 hours ago, niacin said:

I'd have preferred a second set of drawbars.

as funkyhammond said, it's come up before taht it would have been nice to have a control to repurpose 9 of the synth sliders to second drawbars when they are not being used for synth, similar to how I've said I would have liked for them to be available to edit the sample-based poly synth sounds instead of having to use the on-screen menus. Being able to switch the functions of those controls to do these different things would have been very cool. They took a step in that direction with the SKX Pro in allowing 4 of the sliders to be repurposed for EQ.

 

33 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:

At least it has actual pitch and mod wheels -- I'm not a fan of the sticks on the YC because they are very awkward to try to use together. 

That's one thing they improved on the later YC73/88, the sticks are at least parallel rather than perpendicular, so you can more realistically use them  together when desired.

 

 

[funkyhammond]

27 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

There's a button for oscillator type, which is also marked "hold to edit." Hold it down (while on the "Duo" type) and it will bring up (surprise!) the edit screen, where you can indeed set either of the two oscillators independently to saw, square, or a combination. 

 

I'm aware, but what I meant was that I also wanted a sine (or triangle) wave to combine with saw or square and a mode where you could have one osc + noise. And as niacin pointed out, the limitation of only one octave split is pretty strange, too. My general point was that for a two oscillator VA, it's not as flexible as I would have hoped.

 

 

41 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

I think I might actually take the Hammond over the Nord for EP.

 

You seem to be very much in the minority on that point. I was just reading through the posts on the 'Hammond SK PRO Forum' facebook page and there seems to be wide agreement that the Nords are much better for EPs. Have you done anything to tweak the Rhodes in your SK Pro aside from adjusting the velocity offset and maybe some EQ?

[drawback]

56 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:

 

I'm aware, but what I meant was that I also wanted a sine (or triangle) wave to combine with saw or square and a mode where you could have one osc + noise. And as niacin pointed out, the limitation of only one octave split is pretty strange, too. My general point was that for a two oscillator VA, it's not as flexible as I would have hoped.

 

 

 

You seem to be very much in the minority on that point. I was just reading through the posts on the 'Hammond SK PRO Forum' facebook page and there seems to be wide agreement that the Nords are much better for EPs. Have you done anything to tweak the Rhodes in your SK Pro aside from adjusting the velocity offset and maybe some EQ?

I’m interested to learn how deeply editable the EPs are. As much as for example VTines?

[funkyhammond]

10 minutes ago, drawback said:

I’m interested to learn how deeply editable the EPs are. As much as for example VTines?

 

I think the organ is the only thing that is very deeply editable right down to the tonewheels, drawbar behaviour, detailed leakage map, etc. I believe all the sample-based sounds just have the more typical kind of component editing with envelopes, EQ, etc. I don't think you can do anything about the limited velocity layers in the waveforms, which are a bit obvious on the EPs unlike the smooth velocity transitions of VTines. VTines uses a lot of modeling on top of the samples. 

[AnotherScott]

8 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:

You seem to be very much in the minority on that point. I was just reading through the posts on the 'Hammond SK PRO Forum' facebook page and there seems to be wide agreement that the Nords are much better for EPs.

 I know, a lot of people like the Nord EPs more than I do. But there's always subjectivity to this, and I don't think the Hammond comes out badly here for example...

 

 

There's only one back-and-forth there where I clearly prefer the Nord, on the others I either prefer the Hammond or it's too close to call. Also, when listening to his velocity gradations, keep in mind that he's playing the Nord from a hammer action, which would provide better velocity responsiveness.

 

Of course, the Nord also has a wider range of different EP sample sets to choose from. OTOH, you can tweak what's in the Hammond more than you can tweak what's in the Nord.

 

8 minutes ago, funkyhammond said:

Have you done anything to tweak the Rhodes in your SK Pro aside from adjusting the velocity offset and maybe some EQ?

 

No... but I by no means claim to have fully optimized them to my liking. Velocity tweaking made them instantly better, but I haven't spent all that much time on the board, and 90% of the time I have spent on it has been on organ.

[funkyhammond]

7 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

I know, a lot of people like the Nord EPs more than I do. But there's always subjectivity to this, and I don't think the Hammond comes out badly here for example...

 

I've watched that video a couple of times before and I find it hilarious how totally unhelpful it is. When he's playing properly with full chords he's always playing super light to only trigger the low velocity layers and sometimes playing very different patterns on each board. There's just the one exception where he plays the same very short rhythmic pattern in the middle of both boards and then I can hear a fair bit of difference even with that very limited comparison. And I'm way beyond online videos now since I can compare these boards in person in the store, which is the real test (and that's not even taking into consideration how they would sound in a live band context).

[AnotherScott]

1 hour ago, funkyhammond said:

 

I've watched that video a couple of times before and I find it hilarious how totally unhelpful it is.

We may just be focussing on different things. To me, not always, but overall, the Nord sounds more "sterile."

[niacin]

Regarding the electric pianos, I'd take Nord for the Rhodes and the SKpro for the Wurli.  The Wurli on the Hammond is much closer to a real 200A in its basic tone and response, though yes the split points are obvious though I should get into the menu and set them to respond better to my playing.  The Nord is thinner and imo not even close in its basic sound.  The various Rhodes available in the Nord sound library, by contrast, give you some pretty sweet options and I think they sound great.  The SKpro's Rhodes are rather lifeless and one dimensional. 

 

There's an interesting Youtube video of Jack Duxbery of Anderton's in the UK listening to another guy playing Jack's 200A and a Nord, a Korg SV1 and a Yamaha.  The Yamaha wins on sounding closest, but to me sounds lifeless where the Nord does have some dynamic variation and responds when you dig in, which I think is what people like about it.  It just doesn't sound much like a 200A. Nord really should update their wurli and clav samples.

[niacin]

7 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

In what respect do you find the SK1 clavs superior? (e.g. basic timbre? attacks? releases? how they respond to your playing?) With all the editability of the Pro, I wonder if there's some way to replicate what you find missing, unless it's somehow just an inferior sample set.

 

basic timbre? attacks? releases? how they respond to your playing? yes, all of the above.  I find the loss of character in the SKpro clav a head scratcher but I'm not the only who's commented on it so I don't think I'm dreaming.  I suspect it's the release noise which appears to be randomly triggered in the SK1/2, which is where most sample based clavs fall down.

[funkyhammond]

5 minutes ago, niacin said:

Regarding the electric pianos, I'd take Nord for the Rhodes and the SKpro for the Wurli. 

 

Yeah, I should stop saying EPs because it's mostly the Rhodes and Clav I have issues with on the SK Pro, not the Wurly. 

 

2 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

We may just be focussing on different things. To me, not always, but overall, the Nord sounds more "sterile."

 

It could very well be. Like niacin pointed out, for some people dynamics are very important and that is certainly true for me. I don't care if it only sounds pretty playing softly if it doesn't come alive with expressiveness when playing with a lot of dynamic variation.

[niacin]

If you want modelled rather than sampled Rhodes Wurli and clav in hardware with a pretty fine Hammond emulation thrown in check out a Crumar Mojo 61. Definitely my favourite Rhodes emulation.

 

[funkyhammond]

1 hour ago, niacin said:

If you want modelled rather than sampled Rhodes Wurli and clav in hardware with a pretty fine Hammond emulation thrown in check out a Crumar Mojo 61. Definitely my favourite Rhodes emulation.

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I had played someone's dual manual Mojo years ago and I own VB3-II, so I'm very familiar with the organ. I don't know what the EPs are like other than the early GSi software VSTs (32-bit) that I tried the demo versions of. I assume the Rhodes in the Mojo 61 is vastly improved although that early software clav was quite decent. Too bad he hasn't released the newer EPs in VST form like he did with the overhauled VB3. But I'm actually looking for a 73-note board, not a 61. I just happen to be testing 61's that are on the floor in the store. 

[funkyhammond]

P. S. Before you say I should look at the Seven, it's too heavy for my current needs, and I also have some reservations (not sure if it's justified) about good warranty support for Crumar products here in Canada. 

[drawback]

11 hours ago, funkyhammond said:

P. S. Before you say I should look at the Seven, it's too heavy for my current needs, and I also have some reservations (not sure if it's justified) about good warranty support for Crumar products here in Canada. 

Brother kenheeter is the Canadian authorized servicer and is in Kingston.

[KRK]

ciao 👋

evolution of XK5?
new version of the previous Skx?
here... both things 🙂

SKX PRO has some common elements with the old Skx but in some ways it sounds better than Xk5 (I refer you to my video test), even if only for the immediacy in finding interesting settings (example: overdrive, which is in fact the same of the previous Skx, but with some more simple parameters that allow the correct frequency cut, in the "Mojo Classic style" 😉 ...).

my first test, as usual "as a moron": hearing the sound through the stereo amp that I use with all the hammond clones and their internal rotary simulation. in the info of the video itself there are links for comparison with the other instruments, with the same audio configuration. 

all the software (albeit renewed in the graphical interface) is in fact the same as the old Skx, with new parameters added in an "intelligent" way. in fact it is perceived that they have "studied" the top competitors (Mojo and HX3) and have introduced some things drawing constructive inspiration. now it seems that, for some tonal characteristics, the sound is similar to HX3, with solutions "derived" from Mojo Classic... 

 
improved rotary simulation (even compared to the "top of the range" Xk5? - and this happened even years ago, at the release of Sk2, with the new leslie simulation of Sk2 which was never implemented in Xk3... ). in some nuances on the full organ you can guess a distant similarity with the IK Multimedia plugin ... but maybe it's just a coincidence...

keyclick ...
the focal point of the whole operation 🙂
It is NOT a true analog keyclick, far from the real one. but the simulated effect with the midi contacts of the "random" harmonic contributes to give more and more realism under the hands.

 

additional sounds (dedicated videos will follow) of good quality.
substantially everything already included in previous SK2 / SKX, with some additions here and there (improved acoustic and electric piano, but the CP80 is definitely better on the old SKX!!!!!!!) and, above all, the presence of pitch and modulation wheels (not present in the previous SKX double manual) which guarantees a more effective expression with various synths.
the virtual analog "mono synth" section is interesting, although substantially useless in the context, but it is there and you can use it 🙂
all layerable and splittable with everything in simple immediate moves (in this sense it remains a unique machine).

 

https://youtu.be/eBI7NsmcGg4

[AnotherScott]

42 minutes ago, KRK said:

but the CP80 is definitely better on the old SKX!!!!!!!)

Whenever I see a comment about older versions of sounds being better than the new, I always wonder if it's not addressable via the velocity settings. It may be the responsiveness/velocity mapping of the action that is different, rather than the sampled sound.

[Jim Alfredson]

I agree that the clavs on the original SK line sound better than the new SK Pro. I have no idea why that is. It is frustrating. 

I think the biggest frustration for me is Hammond Suzuki ignoring musicians like myself during the development phase. By the time I see the product, the physical form and feature set is already in place. For example, I saw the SK Pro single manual about two years before it was announced and the first thing I noticed was the lack of dedicated EQ controls and a dedicated overdrive knob. I told Scott May (who was with me in the room at Hammond USA HQ) that those two items were going to cause a lot of complaints and asked whether they could be added. He informed me that the physical form was set in stone. Likewise, the first time I saw the XK5, I immediately saw there was no FX loop, like in the XK3/c. And again, the physical form was in place, no changing it.

 

To me the most obvious solution to increase the level of sonic quality of the non-organ voices in the SK line would be to utilize the partnership with IK Multimedia and license their vast sample library. Hammond could even offer downloadable instrument packs for a reasonable fee. IK’s Sampletank has great samples of every instrument conceivable. Their Syntronik software has every analog synth sampled meticulously. I actually prefer it to the Arturia stuff in most cases; it sounds more ‘alive’ and ‘organic’ even though they are samples. Not sure how they do it. 

I’ve mentioned this to Hammond hundreds of times but Hammond-Suzuki in Japan does things their way and that’s that. Oh well. Seems like a huge missed opportunity to me to make the SK Pro the defacto single-board gig machine. The organ engine is killer. The acoustic and electric pianos are good enough to get through most gigs but honestly nowhere near where they should be or where we musicians expect them to be in 2022. I’m using my SK Pro 73 just by itself for a run of shows at the moment with Janiva Magness and Larry McCray. They are predominantly organ centric songs but several require significant acoustic piano and the Pro does fine. But it could be so much better. On one gig I had the opportunity to use my Kurzweil Forte with the SK Pro and the difference in pianos and clavs was like night and day. I was actually inspired by the piano sound in the Kurzweil (no surprise) and even my bandmates noticed it. They commented “You were playing some SHIT on that tune last night!” Yeah, because the piano was inspiring, rather than ‘just good enough’. 

I’m thankful for the SK Pro, as I can fly with just that one board and do the gig, but it is frustrating that it could be so much better with just a bit more from Hammond Suzuki.

[KRK]

1 hour ago, AnotherScott said:

Whenever I see a comment about older versions of sounds being better than the new, I always wonder if it's not addressable via the velocity settings. It may be the responsiveness/velocity mapping of the action that is different, rather than the sampled sound.

it seems a different (worst) sample...

[allan_evett]

5 minutes ago, Jim Alfredson said:

Seems like a huge missed opportunity to me to make the SK Pro the defacto single-board gig machine.

 

Good points, Jim.  I'm sticking with the Hammond-sanctioned IK MM B-3X (iOS) when nailing the drawbar organ sound is required. Though I can capably cover TW organ for rock and blues, I'm specialized more on piano and synths. So that means choosing among a few other brands in my stable to cover single-board gigs.  For that 'sound' though, it's hard to top a Hammond, even a digital version.  Often miss my earlier XKs...

[Jim Alfredson]

4 minutes ago, allan_evett said:

 

Good points, Jim.  I'm sticking with the Hammond-sanctioned IK MM B-3X (iOS) when nailing the drawbar organ sound is required. Though I can capably cover TW organ for rock and blues, I'm specialized more on piano and synths. So that means choosing among a few other brands in my stable to cover single-board gigs.  For that 'sound' though, it's hard to top a Hammond, even a digital version.  Often miss my earlier XKs...

 

I’m super happy with the SK Pro as an organ. I’m not even using a Leslie or a Ventilator with it. The sim is great. I just wish they’d spend a bit more resources on the other sounds. There are so many good sample libraries out there, they don’t have to start from scratch.

[kaptainkeys]

1 hour ago, Jim Alfredson said:

Likewise, the first time I saw the XK5, I immediately saw there was no FX loop, like in the XK3/c. And again, the physical form was in place, no changing it.

Seems like hammond is trying to lose customers... even Viscount has an effects loop on their clones, and they are a small Italian outift, not the name in tonewheel organs.

[drawback]

2 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

 

I’m super happy with the SK Pro as an organ. I’m not even using a Leslie or a Ventilator with it. The sim is great. I just wish they’d spend a bit more resources on the other sounds. There are so many good sample libraries out there, they don’t have to start from scratch.

I could be (likely be) wrong, but I thought one of the things about the Suzuki merger was that Suzuki had its own batch of sounds from its keyboard line, and the dollars to shore up the Hammond company. For those reasons I don't see changes to the rest of the sounds anytime, unless Suzuki decides to upgrade their own core sets.

[AnotherScott]

23 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

I agree that the clavs on the original SK line sound better than the new SK Pro. I have no idea why that is. It is frustrating.

 

The SKX had an interesting feature listed on its web page, see https://web.archive.org/web/20181120232754/https://hammondorganco.com/products/portable-organs/skx-2/

... it said it had a "Full Modeled Clav". The previous SK models did not appear to have that, and while I haven't seen it mentioned on the SK Pro, I did ask Scott May about that, and he said the SK Pro has "Same Clav as the Skx but higher Res" - so maybe what we're seeing here is the difference between the sampled clavs of the 1st gen SK models and a modeled clav in the Skx and SK Pro...? Did you ever get a chance to try the clavs in the Skx?

 

23 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

I think the biggest frustration for me is Hammond Suzuki ignoring musicians like myself during the development phase. By the time I see the product, the physical form and feature set is already in place.

 

Even after the hardware is set in stone, it would be good if they could get musicians input on software/interface things that could probably be tweaked ever after the hardware is set in stone. I don't know whether you have any better luck on that end...

 

23 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

To me the most obvious solution to increase the level of sonic quality of the non-organ voices in the SK line would be to utilize the partnership with IK Multimedia and license their vast sample library.

 

There may be something here to the stereotype that Japanese companies are particularly susceptible to NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. My guess is that the IK partnership is probably one-way... i.e. IK licensing name and maybe some tech FROM Hammond, but not providing anything TO Hammond (except money).

 

But also, IK's sample sets--as expected for something that will run on a computer--tend to be quite large, which might make them prohibitively expensive to install in most keyboards, just for the memory, completely apart from any licensing issues.

 

23 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

Hammond could even offer downloadable instrument packs for a reasonable fee. 

 

...and picking up from the previous comment, rewritable "live" memory for a keyboard (NOR flash) is I think still more expensive than fixed memory (ROM). (By "live" memory, I mean something the keyboard can directly play from, as opposed to standard flash).

 

23 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

Their Syntronik software has every analog synth sampled meticulously. I actually prefer it to the Arturia stuff in most cases; it sounds more ‘alive’ and ‘organic’ even though they are samples. Not sure how they do it. 

 

I think the answer to how they do it might be Erik Norlander. I've got the iOS version, and I agree, it sounds great. I just can't keep track of their versions! Syntronik, Syntronik CS, Syntronik Full, Syntronik Deluxe, Syntronik Extra Crispy... 

 

23 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

I’ve mentioned this to Hammond hundreds of times but Hammond-Suzuki in Japan does things their way and that’s that. 

 

Also a stereotypically Japanese corporate trait that appears to have some basis in truth. I know people who work for some other Japanese keyboard companies, and even as employees, they've said it is not easy to be heard.

 

23 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

On one gig I had the opportunity to use my Kurzweil Forte with the SK Pro and the difference in pianos and clavs was like night and day. I was actually inspired by the piano sound in the Kurzweil (no surprise) and even my bandmates noticed it. They commented “You were playing some SHIT on that tune last night!” Yeah, because the piano was inspiring, rather than ‘just good enough’.

 

Yup! This has come up a bunch in the past... Someone says it's pointless chasing after better sounds that virtually no one in the audience will ever notice, but the better sound can indeed inspire a better performance from you, which people WILL notice. 

 

Jim, I don't know if you saw the other thread where some of this Hammond stuff was recently discussed, so maybe take a look at the posts starting at https://forums.musicplayer.com/topic/181577-the-most-useless-disappointing-keyboard-you-ever-bought/page/5/#comment-2895791 and continuing up until the ones from May 1.

 

 

23 hours ago, allan_evett said:

So that means choosing among a few other brands in my stable to cover single-board gigs. 

 

Heck, even two-board gigs are hard to do without compromise somewhere! And that adds to the SK Pro frustration for me. It's my favorite organ, but it's not quite good enough for my other main needs to even make it into my two-board rigs, it will end up only coming out for my rare 3+ board gigs. Admittedly, the equation might be different if my typical gigs were organ-heavy, but since they're not, taking a board whose biggest value is in its organ is usually a luxury I can't afford. Your solution of using B-3X is a good one, but it's still not the same, because part of the joy of the SK Pro is in the whole organ package... the waterfall simulated multi-contact keys, the properly sized/shaped/spaced drawbars. 

 

21 hours ago, GotKeys said:

Seems like hammond is trying to lose customers... even Viscount has an effects loop on their clones, and they are a small Italian outift, not the name in tonewheel organs.

 

In small defense here, I'll mention that I see the effects loop more as a great Viscount feature rather than as a disappointing absence on a model that doesn't have it, simply because the vast majority of clonewheels don't have it. But they should. ;-) And its absence is more notable on the XK5 than on the SK series, just because it IS the top of the series, AND its predecessor XK3c had it. My guess is that they did enough research to determine that the proportion of XK3c purchasers who used it (or for whom it was part of the buying decision) was not worth worrying about. :-( But at least the XK5's missing pitch/mod wheels resurfaced on the SK Pro...

 

 

 

[Delaware Dave]

2 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

".. I think the biggest frustration for me is Hammond Suzuki ignoring musicians like myself during the development phase. By the time I see the product, the physical form and feature set is already in place. .." 

 

"..I told Scott May (who was with me in the room at Hammond USA HQ) that those two items were going to cause a lot of complaints and asked whether they could be added. He informed me that the physical form was set in stone .."

 

" .. I’ve mentioned this to Hammond hundreds of times but Hammond-Suzuki in Japan does things their way and that’s that ..
 

And there you have it in a nut shell.  

 

I see similar things from GSI/Crumar.  Not sure where they get their market input from but they come out with products that sometimes make you scratch your head.  When they came out with the dual manual MOJO I remember someone asking if there was going to be a single manual offering and I distinctly remember Guido's answer being "Single manual Mojo,  NOJO..". 

 

I think he's done quite well since introducing the Mojo 61, the keyboard many wanted.  Never underestimate the power of understanding the markets wishes.

[AnotherScott]

14 minutes ago, Delaware Dave said:

And there you have it in a nut shell.  

 

I see similar things from GSI/Crumar.  Not sure where they get their market input from but they come out with products that sometimes make you scratch your head.  When they came out with the dual manual MOJO I remember someone asking if there was going to be a single manual offering and I distinctly remember Guido's answer being "Single manual Mojo,  NOJO..". 

 

I think he's done quite well since introducing the Mojo 61, the keyboard many wanted.  Never underestimate the power of understanding the markets wishes.

Though at least he ultimately WAS sufficiently persuaded to come out with it.

 

But also, I don't think he's come out with any head-scratchers... I think they've all been well implemented and well received, without things that don't appear to work the way someone would expect them to. It's more like you're scratching your head, not about the products he's come out with, but about the products he hasn't! 

[drawback]

28 minutes ago, Delaware Dave said:

And there you have it in a nut shell.  

 

I see similar things from GSI/Crumar.  Not sure where they get their market input from but they come out with products that sometimes make you scratch your head.  When they came out with the dual manual MOJO I remember someone asking if there was going to be a single manual offering and I distinctly remember Guido's answer being "Single manual Mojo,  NOJO..". 

 

I think he's done quite well since introducing the Mojo 61, the keyboard many wanted.  Never underestimate the power of understanding the markets wishes.

How long did it take for Yamaha to come down off their high Electone horse to finally fully apply their immense resources to replicate a Hammond? Some companies eventually reexamine themselves honestly and bow to the market. I have new respect for Yamaha after their recent reimagining.

[HammondDave]

On 4/23/2022 at 6:06 PM, niacin said:

If you want modelled rather than sampled Rhodes Wurli and clav in hardware with a pretty fine Hammond emulation thrown in check out a Crumar Mojo 61. Definitely my favourite Rhodes emulation.

 

 

I have to agree with you on that!