XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs

[Guest]

Has anyone played the XK3 or 3-c and noted the sound comparisons between the new technology and the vintage technology? I am considering buying a XK3 system with the double manual setup, and wanted to get some opinions on this. How is the sound, performance etc., on the new Hammonds vs. the classic Hammonds? How close does the sound get to an old B-3?
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In the future, I want to get a more lightweight double manual setup to replace my heavy T-300 spinet for live gigs, until I can afford roadies or a motorized lift. Which is preferable, a chopped vintage or a new XK system? Also, can you hook up a stand-alone/chopped vintage reverb to an XK3-c for reverb "crashes"? Gotta have that crash. Do the new ones have an emulation for that?
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[JJMcS]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs

I started out with the XK-3, added the System and then added the '3c when it came out. I've recently acquired an M2 and an M3 with a built in reverb with extension speaker. I run the M2 through a DI box and mixer into the effects return of the XK-3 and from there into a 3300 Leslie and a 21System Leslie. I use the System expression pedal to control the volume and can play the M2 with my right hand along with the rest of the System. I have the M3 set up so I can play it by itself. The output is split through 2 L Pads and a DI box. One L pad controls the volume to the built in speaker, the other controls the volume to theinput ofthe reverb unit so I can dial them in to the level I want or dial them out. The third branch goes through the DI box and a small mixer and into the 3300 etc. While they all sound a little different, you couldn't tell which one I would be playing if you couldn't see them. The M2 and M3 might be a little mellower because they are missing the foldbackbut I can EQ some brightness in if I want. Also, if I wanted to I could go through each tonewheel in the M2 and M3 and adjust a set of "tonewheels" in the XK-3 &amp; '3c to match. In addition, the XK-3 and '3c have capabilities the M2 &amp; M3 don't have. Both the XK-3 and '3c have a reverb crash built in that can be triggered by a footswitch. You can put a stand alone reverb unit in the effects loops of the XK-3/'3c. I found after tryinga Soldano Space Box and a Vermona RetroVerbthat the built in reverb works better.

[CEB]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



I would take the XK-3c over a real organ any day. A chop is still heavier than hell and IMO the action on the new clones is a a lot better than on your spinet and ..... the XK-3c isn't a spinet it is like full playing manuals. But that is just me. I'm too old too be carrying organs at 2:00 AM in the morning.</P>

[Brendon Wright]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



Moondragon, I know the Roland clonewheel has reverb crashes on its light sensor effects thingy, but the only clonewheel I've played that I give a cuss for is the Nord C1, cos it has dual manuals ofr the same price! </P>


I don't really like the roland or the hammond clones for sound or feel.</P>


The Nord still has SYNTH keys, not real hammond keys (Not one of the clones feel right!) and the Nord doesn't have foldback... and they all have simultaneous triggering, as in all 9 contacts trigger at once, which doesn't happen on a vintage organ if you don't press the keys all the way down.</P>


The T is better than the Nord OR the Roland Or the Hammond clones for smears, and shaking the console for that crash is better than putting your hand over a little light!</P>


Here's a sample of my modified T500 through a DIY leslie made from its internal leslie and one from a later electronic organ....</P>


http://cid-0d7741cc63af1adc.skydrive...r%20change.mp3</P>


When you get to the page on the link, click on the music icon and it'll download.</P>


The T series organs have enough spare contacts to do the foldback, which I've done and found okay to do(from the lower manual rhythm contacts)</P>


and I've done the manual tapering which no other spinet has, to my knowledge, giving it a real scream in the top octave!</P>


The action is easily adjusted too, if you want to know how I can show you all that too. I still feel the C3 feels much nicer, but the T is closer than the clones for smearing and playing, and especially now I've adjusted the action for a quicker response and shortened the key travel.</P>


In the heat of a performance you won't notice the nuances apart from the feel of the keys, but there are personality quirks which are more random than the clones which follow a predictable pattern. Things like spit from dirty bussbars can be reproduced but it's less organic than the real thing.</P>


If you have a good time modding and chopping your T (and like me learn a bit of electronics in the process!) you'll think of it more as a living thing than a soulless music tool. (However, I don't own a clone. Maybe they have a soul too. I know my synth doesn't... It just copies what its programmed to)</P>


If you decide to chop, good heavyweight handles to get her out of the car, and good sized castersnear one end so you can trundleover the carpark and into the venue. No help required. make the stand from the bottom half of the organ, with hinges and braces added so it can fold awayand hold its shape when its under the organ. Then it still looks like the real dealorgan when its set up.</P>


IT LOOKS way cooler than a synth shaped object on an X stand, especially with a synth sitting on top of it. (think Jon Lord! Think Keith Emerson!!) or even with a ring modulator taped to the top a la Deep Purple's California Jam! </P>


I'm even toying with the idea of adding the two bottom drawbars to the lower soyou can get foldback in the bottom octave.</P>


If you stick with this route, I can guarantee a heckuva good time! The T won't get enough, if you sold it, to buy a clonewheel anyhow.</P>


What do you think??</P>

[CEB]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



I think after you have humped those old organs as long as I have you will lose the romanticism of gigging with an old Hammond. I used to play a place called Bauers Opera House thatwas ahopping joint in the 70s. Three flights of stairs! Long stairs! But they were very wide stairs. [:D] That sucked.</P>


A lot of stage systems I playcan be a pain withflimsy steep portable aluminum stairs. </P>


Even the B-3000 which I used to use out, cause it looked decent and is very light weight (but doesn't sound that hot)was a pain to because with the organ inside it case it was too wide to fit through a lot a club doors so you had to often unload the organ. Take it out of the case and then HOPE it will fit through the front door. Playing Hammond organs will make you very attuned to building design and a<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">rchitectures. [:D]</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></SPAN>The new Suzuki organs are God send. [:D] </P>


But you have to have a leslie. You can't simulate air. ... IMO.</P>


If the gig is just right and IKNOWthe load in and load out is going to be an easy one I might bring an organ.</P>

[Philip the organist]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs

Which is preferable, a chopped vintage or a new XK system?

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New XK. You stimulate the economy, plus you don't waste a good ORGAN.</p>

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The Nord still has SYNTH keys, not real hammond keys (Not one of the
clones feel right!) and the Nord doesn't have foldback... and they all
have simultaneous triggering, as in all 9 contacts trigger at once,
which doesn't happen on a vintage organ if you don't press the keys all
the way down.The T is better than the Nord OR the Roland Or the Hammond clones
for smears, and shaking the console for that crash is better than
putting your hand over a little light!

</p>

I don't think the drunks that make up most of the audience at rock concerts even notice, much less care, if you have 9 contacts on each note. They just want music to listen to while they're being bad. And shaking the console--I doubt J.S.B., Virgil Fox, E. Power Biggs, Fred Swann, or any other organist worth their salt would do a thing like that. [:(]
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[gientke]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



Comparing tonewheel organs with new synthesized ones is very tough.</p>

You have to choose between portability, reliability and "the sound"</p>

I would take my Hammond everywhere with me. And even if there is only one person amongst the drunks to notice that I play real Hammond - that's more than enough. I'm very sentimental I know :-)
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[Brendon Wright]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



Wahoo! I love a good multiway conversational thread going!</P>


At the gig I did the other Day, it WAS true that not one punter(well, these were church punters, so there weren't very many drunks) came up to the organ... they all came up and poked their hands insode the leslie and said! Oh! Is that how they make that sound?? I've NEVER seen one of these before!!And of course my leslie is a DIY monstrosity with two swirling foam rotors, so no, it's not really how thay make that sound, but it's close enough for them!</P>


CEBs points are of course very true, the venue can make it hell to get an organ in. </P>


TheT series are significantly lighter than the consoles and probably the other spinets too. I can drag the unchopped T over the carpet and up onto my DIY dolly platform without assistance without hurting myself, the C3 can cause pings in the back, on the other hand. The T is okay to get up a stair by myself, but not 10 stairs, and I'd need help getting it into a van if I don't want the towbar to poke through the back board of the organ. If there's no towbar,no problem!</P>


If it was chopped, with handles and rugged corners, and decent casters at one end, it'd be even easier. I don't like the idea of chopping a perfectly good cabinet either, but I can't get it in thecar otherwise! I'm going to chop mine so it can be reassembledto resemble its original form.</P>


Philip has some very valid points too: Stimulating the economy does depend on having money to stimulate it with however. As for the 9 contacts etc, no one in the audience will notice that, it's true.</P>


As for wasting a good organ, it depends who you talk to, we are T series owners, and I hope we all agree that the T is a particularly fine and underrated instrument, though the Hammond Purists think its a hunka junk, so they don't really care what we do with our T's!</P>


As for organists worth their salt, we're not at all in dispute with that...... we speakof rock and roll which is a differentballgame. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised what J.S might get up to if he was born in the mid 1950's andplayed through the rest of the century with gusto though he wasn't ever a secular player, I understand.... though the "money" was all in the church in those days, I wonder where he would have worked today? Would he be composing soundtracks for Peter Jackson on the fairlight synthesiser?? I, of course, have no idea!</P>


And I will never chop my C3!</P>
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[Philip the organist]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs

[quote user="Brendon Wright"]

Wahoo! I love a good multiway conversational thread going!</p>

As for organists worth their salt, we're not at all in dispute with that...... we speakof rock and roll which is a differentballgame. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised what J.S might get up to if he was born in the mid 1950's andplayed through the rest of the century with gusto though he wasn't ever a secular player, I understand.... though the "money" was all in the church in those days, I wonder where he would have worked today? Would he be composing soundtracks for Peter Jackson on the fairlight synthesiser?? I, of course, have no idea!</p>


And I will never chop my C3![/quote]</p>

BW, thanks for not hurting your C3! AFA JSB and organists worth their salt: IMHO Bach wouldn't have been a rocker. He was a devout Lutheran who loved his church and his position as an ecclesiastical musician. When he died he had 2 complete sets of Luther's writings (plus some extra copies), a Bible full of notes that he wrote, and many religious books. Look through the Orgelbüchlein with all its chorale preludes. He wouldn't base so many compositions off hymns if he didn't believe deeply in Godly music. </p>

People who think that distorting, breaking, or otherwise doing damage and making cacophony are musical expressions, are not really artists. God is not a distorter, breaker, or damager of things, and if our art is reflecting attributes of God and God's design (as all art should, even if it is not depicting a religious subject) it will be orderly and beautiful. Rock music is not orderly and beautiful. It is not an expression of God's design and the virtues of Scripture. Instead it is the music of constant agony, searching, raunchy passion, and rebellion. Nowhere in the world of rock music is there music to express the joy of true love, the sweetness of welcoming a new member of the human family, the sadness as one departs this world for the next.</p>

So much for that diversion...I retreat to my side of the forum.</p>

[redoctoberff]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



Philip, I disagree completely. </p>

</p>

That is all.
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[Brendon Wright]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



Hi Philip!</P>


I actually agree with you about Bach, but I was just wondering what would happen if he was alive today? The Church no longer employs full time composers, so he would need a day job. I don't think for an instant he would be a rocker, but I think he would certainly take up the use of the other enormous butnow vintage keyboard intruments because they would be available, for example the BBC's famous fairlight synthesiser.</P>


While I was classically trained and grew up playing organ in the Baptist church, (which of course is far from highbrow! I was jolly well upset at hearing they replaced the lovely old console with a digital piano!!!!!!!!!!) I do like to... </P>


A) improvise (yes, including baroque styles and toccattas and fugues on themes of my own making, they're not so different from the Emerson Lake and Palmer or YES styles I play as well... really andtruly descended from classical music, but using instruments that have been invented in the last cupla hundred years instead of the more ancient ones used in.... morehighbrow forms of composed music)</P>


B) play with as much passion as I can muster</P>


I do like the exhilaration of reproducing the physical experiences of a dayaway from town... the crashing of waves, of running with all my might alonga riverbed or breathing the clear air at the top of the Southern Alps (New Zealand is great for that, I wish I lived out in the country!)</P>


I hate dancing, I never play anything outside of amajor or minor scale, except a blues scale which is a form of minor, anyhow. I don't break things (I will intelligently redesign things to suit my situation, as do most New Zealanders... we're fronteir folk!)and while the music I play is far more orderly than nature, I can't say that God did a bad design on the landscape. </P>


Even in the bible there's scriptures about soaring on wings of eagles, and Jesus died so that we might be able to have the wisdom of God rather than relying on the law, he did it to give us true freedom, though we often enough mash that up, and have to start over again! While you can compose this in an orchestral suite, being able to play something spontaneously is more to my personality.</P>


However, I suspect you and I are describing different sides of Rock music! I don't particularly like heavy metal, but Isee what Iplay as rock, though it's about composition as well asimprovisation, about form and all of the things I learned in classical, just a bit more... fun! I like to share joy with folk. The hymn writers even used popular tunes of the time. Today they do the same.</P>


Philip! Please don't retreat to your side of the forum, you're a jolly good stick! You can say anything you like, we won't take offense. It's nice to express wherewe stand on things, I enjoy the company of traditional folk, they put a lot of emphasis on thought and reason which is lacking a lot in the more contemporary church scene.</P>


Carry on, and have a very grand weekend!</P>


Much respect, </P>


-Brendon</P>
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[bossbandbob]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs

[quote user="Philip the organist"][quote user="Brendon Wright"]

Wahoo! I love a good multiway conversational thread going!</p>

As for organists worth their salt, we're not at all in dispute with that...... we speakof rock and roll which is a differentballgame. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised what J.S might get up to if he was born in the mid 1950's andplayed through the rest of the century with gusto though he wasn't ever a secular player, I understand.... though the "money" was all in the church in those days, I wonder where he would have worked today? Would he be composing soundtracks for Peter Jackson on the fairlight synthesiser?? I, of course, have no idea!</p>


And I will never chop my C3![/quote]</p>


Nowhere in the world of rock music is there music to express the joy of true love, the sweetness of welcoming a new member of the human family, the sadness as one departs this world for the next.</p>

[/quote]</p>

</p>

Hi Phillip,</p>

You are most welcome here.... and to your own tastes and opinion but I have to disagree with this comment. The above sentence is what the music and writing of Bruce Springsteen (and many other rockers) is all about. Many have written touching songs about losses in their families (Eric Clapton for one) and the joy of their children and the loves of their lives. Yes there is often anger in the music about the unfairness and injustices of the world and empathy with those who suffer but this is not a bad thing. There have also been several songs written about that "Spirit in the Sky" and "Jesus is just Alright" with the Doobie brothers as well!</p>

Bob</p>

[Brendon Wright]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



Hee hee! </P>


I shouldn't have said anything, we're going off topic now!</P>


Sorry Moondragon, old bean!</P>


However Bob, I don't think Phillip will take those last two songs as irrefutable proof of the existence of the Spirit of God in Rock Music...</P>


I reckon though, there's always contention and differing understandings on genre... some people call all orchestral music "Classical" when in fact it never was all classical! </P>


I say I don't like Country music, but then its a sweeping statement which doesn't cover all of the countryish stuff I DO like...it only covers the worst kind I can imagine... I prefer to call the rest by some other name!However, a lot of what I consider 50sRnR is considered country by others.... and then there's musicals... if you try and lump in the debauched lifestyles of some theatrical musical actors (which are far worse than your average married with kids rockers) with classical and then by connection to sacred music... hmm. No, let's ignore the "deforming arts" for a moment!</P>


(My experience as a music student, the rockers were insecure, sincere, depressiveand smoked a lot, but the performing arts folks were swapping beds every night... gave me a bad view of actors and the theatre!)</P>


Amy Grant and Michael W Smith and Michael Card were beloved by folks in my church when I was a teen,who with the same breath condemned the sin of listening to rock music... not for a moment realising their contemporary christian music was light rock. </P>


Larry Norman was more my cuppa tea, if I had to listen to anything contemporary Christian!</P>


There's a lot in the label, though the heart of the person and the actual piece of music has a lot more to say than a label which covers farmore than just the object of distaste.</P>


I might say I dislike martians because of their nasty three legged walking machines that sprayed black smoke and their horrible scorching death ray, but then, what of the martians that stayed at home and never wanted to go and bug HG Wells?</P>


I betthere were some who liked the Jaques Loussier Trio, even!</P>


Sorry,</P>


Sorry,</P>


This was about XK3 and whether to spoil, or not to spoil a T series Hammondso that itcan be taken out and playedoutside of the home!</P>


I've modded my T til the keys feel just right to me, and I'm always dissappointed if I have to take my synth along to a practice instead.</P>


It's what I feel happy with.</P>


I think you need to go into the shop several times and try out an ole XK3 a great deal, and get a feel for the instrument. Then you'll know if you could be happy with it or if it won't suit you.</P>


Brendon of the Gastric Stream of Verbosity</P>

[Brendon Wright]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



Incidentally, I was wrong about Bach:</P>


Like most full time musicians through history he would have earned a fair portion of his income from teaching organ students, not just full time composing for a salary!</P>


So I do know what he'd be doing today if he was alive....</P>

[gientke]

Re: XK3/3-c vs. Vintage Organs



Rock and Roll was invented to give freedom, to push music in different direction, to express values that could not be expressed before. Rock music is designed to be free. You can praise the Lord or you can sing to his
enemy. If you cannot hear love, joy and youth in early Beatles' songs
then you must be deaf.</p>

Destroying is as much important as creating. If we couldn't destroy things the world would not exist today. God created and destroyed. Electron cannot exist without his brother proton. This is the Order - the good and the bad in perfect balance.
</p>

Hammond organ is rock instrument whether one likes it or not. Church music is for Wurlitzer or Johannus organ. Hammond is very aggressive beast. It's dangerous carnivore. It can cut the air with single note, it can fill the atmosphere with fear and uncertainty. It can play church music if you want it to but it's still THE beast. You can do with your Hammond whatever you like - chopped or not, dirty or clean - it sounds always the same. </p>

This is just a few nonsense thoughts of mine to spice up the discussion :-)</p>

Regards</p>

Kris
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