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<p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 36.0px Times New Roman">TECHNICS EA5</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">By</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Lloyd Parsons</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px">
</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Much of what I'll say about the operation and selection on this organ applies equally to many other of the Technics organs, so those that are contemplating a Technics can get a basic feel for what to expect. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Basic Specs : </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">44 Keys on upper and lower keyboards </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">13 pedals </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">32 note polyphony on each keyboard for 'sounds' plus 32 notes for 'organ'. I'll try to explain the difference between sounds and organ as I go along. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">100 sounds in 10 groups </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">6 Organ types (emulations) with 27 presets for organ within those types </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">100 Rhythms </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">41 Pedal tones </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Digital Reverb - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Digital Effect - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sustain - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Tempo and Transpose </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Volume controls - overall organ, Balance for the rhythms and Bass, also each sound group has an individual volume control. Quite extensive, with reasonable defaults for all. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Stereo output, both to internal speakers and external connections for an amp. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Stereo inputs </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">midi in/out/through </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">That is basically the specs, but there is so much more to it than what the specs as I've written here, or even what the actual spec sheet looks like. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Technics approach to sound is a bit different from what I've seen before. They break down the sounds into two broad groups -- Organ and Sounds. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ - This is basically what older organs had. Flutes and other basic instruments, some percussion and modifiers. The Technics emulates other organs in this respect. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The flutes can either be tabbed flutes or drawbars, depending on which Organ Type you select. Your choices are in 3 groups. Electronic Tabs, Drawbars and Pipe Organ. Under these are other settings that can be changed at will or just slightly modified, depending on which way you approach it. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The buttons for the Flutes either act as an On/Off tab or as a Drawbar depending on which organ type you select. With Drawbar organ settings, when you use the buttons, the LCD panel shows a depiction of the drawbars and shows the movement. The settings are from 0-8, just like a Hammond drawbar. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First lets talk about Presets. The Technics EA5 has presets all over the place. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First you have the 8 Piston Presets on the panel between the upper and lower keyboard. They have a default load, and you can change that at will quite easily. Not only that, you can tell the organ which way you want to save your presets. Either Basic, which is just the sounds, or Expanded, which also save accompaniments, intros, breaks and endings. You can also program the 'Glide' switch to step through the piston presets or just go to a particular preset. Quite powerful. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">With this and some work on your part, you could set preset 1 to be the intro to the song with all the stuff you want there, then have #2 be the body of the song and #3 be the ending or whatever. Each of those could have as many things set in it as you want in the way of voicings, rhythms, tremolo or vibrato, reverb and a few other things. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Or if you were playing a medley of tunes, you could program each button for each tune. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Upper/Lower Organ Preset : This is where the emulation desired is set up. Remember I said there were 3 groups, tabs, drawbars and pipe. Well, each group has defined presets in them also. In Tabs and Drawbars, there are 12 settings and in Pipe, there is 8 settings. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">But wait, there's more! One of the things you can do with these presets is copy them to 'manual' memory. Once there, you can change things to your hearts content, then either play them or save them in one of the piston presets if you so choose. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Also when you are using the Pipe organ settings, the percussion tabs for Flutes become Chiff controls. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Other Presets -- although Technics doesn't call them that. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Touch Organ - this is a preset button that is used in conjunction with the LCD panel to set up various pre-programmed presets in the Organ sound groups. There are 5 groups inside this preset, each group has 16 selections for a total of 80 organ presets. This group of presets uses other sounds too, but the emphasis is on what is considered an Organ Sound. These selection can be copied to the Piston Presets. If you want the 1st 8 into the PP, there is a selection to do that, for the other 8, you have to manually set each one in.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Some examples are : </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Drawbars : Elegant Sound, Delicate Bars, Vintage Organ, Grand "H" Sound and many others. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Theater Electric : Organ Vibra Harp, Contemporary Theater (3 of these), Sizzling Reeds and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">European : Organ Pops 1&2, Pop Jazz 1&2, German Click 1&2, and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Rock : Background set, Hot Tubes, Space Organ, Air Vox, Telstar and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Classical : Soft Basic Pipes, Traditional Diapason, Standard Hymn, Tremulant Pipes and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Touch Registration : This is another preset that is used in conjunction with the LCD panel. This is designed for getting sounds that are not necessarily associated with older organs, although organ sounds are used as well. This also has the copy to Preset Pistons the same as the One Touch Organ.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">It has 6 selections with 16 presets in each. One of the ones I like the best is the Big Band and its descriptors. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The Count's Solo, Lionel's Band, Miller Mood, Woody's Solo, the Duke's Way are just a few. When you select these, they really do remind you of the style and sound of those artists. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Music Style Select : This is the last of this group of presets, and it is very different. In the others, only the sounds were changing, with this one the rhythms and accompaniments come into play. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">This is 'One Button Play' but more buttons and a whole lot more selections than I normally expect. It is used in one of two ways. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First, you can select a rhythm pattern and then push and hold the button and it will set up the organ to give a preselected setup for that pattern. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Second, you can press the Music Style Select button and then pick the rhythm and it will do the same thing. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">At this point, I don't know if doing it either way actually is different except in method. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">------------ --------- </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Ok, up to this point, we've been talking about the specs and the presets, including the rhythms and such. But what if you want something different? Well, the EA5 has you covered. And that is with the manual setups that you can do and save. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Technics approach to manual settings is quite intense, and at first glance, seems overly complicated. It isn't. But it does take some fiddling to get a feel for the flow of things when you are doing it this way. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Orchestral Conductor - This is a central control that is made up of 4 selections for each keyboard. The selections are Organ, Sound 1, Sound 2, and last, Solo. All of these can be used individually or in combination as you choose. What they do is dependent on what you've selected for voicings for each of these. The Orchestral Conductor makes it quite easy to add or subtract a sound or group of sounds quickly and easily. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ type - If you are going to use the organ stops, either as drawbars or tabs, you have to select which kind you want. OTOH, if you aren't going to use those, it doesn't matter at all. The setting you do here will play when you pick the Organ button in Orchestral Conductor. You can use either the Preset organ settings for the Type you have selected, or you can 'copy to manual' and then make changes that you want. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sound 1 & 2 : These are controls for other sounds that are available for your use. There is a group of these for both the upper and lower keyboards and they are independent. Whatever you set in these is what plays when you select Sound 1 or Sound 2 in the Orchestral Conductor. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">But you can also use them during play a bit differently also. For instance, you could have Sound 1 set to a Trumpet and want to change that to one of the reeds later in the song. You push Sound 1, Brass, select Trumpet in the LCD. Then push Reed, and select which Reed you want. Then select Brass again. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">If you have selected Sound 1 in the Orchestral Conductor, you'll get the Trumpet until you push the Reed button for Sound 1 in the voice selector. It will still have the Reed you picked selected. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ, Sound 1, and Sound 2 are poly voices so you can play multiple keys and all will play. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Solo : Solo is a single tone non-poly, only the highest note will play. Otherwise it is used the same as Sound 1 & 2. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sound 1 & 2, Solo and Bass also have memory locations available for voicings you make or get from others. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Automatics </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Auto-Play Chording - There are a few selections in here. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Finger - this allows the root chord to be played with one finger. You can also play Minor, 7th and Minor 7th by adding either a pedal or two or a key below or two. For 7th you play either a big pedal or white key below the key of the chord, for minor, you play either a small pedal or black key below the key of the chord. For minor 7th, you play either a big and a small pedal, or a black and a white key below the key of the chord. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Fingered - If you want to play the chords yourself, or if you want more than what the 1 finger approach gives you, this is it. And as it implies, you finger the chord yourself. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Pianist - This is like fingered, except that you can play different pedals and more chord types (like 9th or 11th) if you want. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Memory - on/off, this either makes the chord hold when you let go of the keys or stop depending on setting. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Techni-Chord : This is Technics name for the right hand chording that can be used. It has many settings that can be changed by you and has defaults depending on which other settings are in place. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">------------ --------- </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">OK, now you know how to do some things on this organ with the stuff built in to it. But what do you do if you want a voicing that isn't there? Well, Technics has you covered there too. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">With over 200 tones to select and combine into voicings of your choice, there seems to be no limit to what you could produce. Same for rhythms, you can set up a rhythm and accompaniment to your liking, either by creating it all new, or by modifying one of the existing ones. It is all there. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">It also has a complete 16-channel sequencer so you can record your music to the organ and later save it to floppy disk if you like. You could also save it as a midi and pass that to friends that have midi-friendly instruments, but not Technics. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">If you are looking for a powerful organ with a very good sound, many of the Technics would fit the bill. And since they are no longer produced nor supported by the manufacturer, the selling prices tend to be very low. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">I'm sure I missed something and probably didn't describe some things exactly right, but I hope you enjoyed this description and review. If you are like me and want a more upscale organ, but can't afford a new one, the Technics SX-EA5 as well as the Technics SX-GA3, FA1, and F100 which are a bit more upscale from the EA5, might very well fit the bill.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">I would compare these to the Rolands of today, although the Rolands are more powerful and flexible. It is a shame that Technics bowed out of the market.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"> </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">
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</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Much of what I'll say about the operation and selection on this organ applies equally to many other of the Technics organs, so those that are contemplating a Technics can get a basic feel for what to expect. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Basic Specs : </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">44 Keys on upper and lower keyboards </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">13 pedals </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">32 note polyphony on each keyboard for 'sounds' plus 32 notes for 'organ'. I'll try to explain the difference between sounds and organ as I go along. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">100 sounds in 10 groups </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">6 Organ types (emulations) with 27 presets for organ within those types </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">100 Rhythms </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">41 Pedal tones </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Digital Reverb - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Digital Effect - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sustain - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Tempo and Transpose </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Volume controls - overall organ, Balance for the rhythms and Bass, also each sound group has an individual volume control. Quite extensive, with reasonable defaults for all. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Stereo output, both to internal speakers and external connections for an amp. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Stereo inputs </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">midi in/out/through </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">That is basically the specs, but there is so much more to it than what the specs as I've written here, or even what the actual spec sheet looks like. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Technics approach to sound is a bit different from what I've seen before. They break down the sounds into two broad groups -- Organ and Sounds. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ - This is basically what older organs had. Flutes and other basic instruments, some percussion and modifiers. The Technics emulates other organs in this respect. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The flutes can either be tabbed flutes or drawbars, depending on which Organ Type you select. Your choices are in 3 groups. Electronic Tabs, Drawbars and Pipe Organ. Under these are other settings that can be changed at will or just slightly modified, depending on which way you approach it. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The buttons for the Flutes either act as an On/Off tab or as a Drawbar depending on which organ type you select. With Drawbar organ settings, when you use the buttons, the LCD panel shows a depiction of the drawbars and shows the movement. The settings are from 0-8, just like a Hammond drawbar. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First lets talk about Presets. The Technics EA5 has presets all over the place. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First you have the 8 Piston Presets on the panel between the upper and lower keyboard. They have a default load, and you can change that at will quite easily. Not only that, you can tell the organ which way you want to save your presets. Either Basic, which is just the sounds, or Expanded, which also save accompaniments, intros, breaks and endings. You can also program the 'Glide' switch to step through the piston presets or just go to a particular preset. Quite powerful. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">With this and some work on your part, you could set preset 1 to be the intro to the song with all the stuff you want there, then have #2 be the body of the song and #3 be the ending or whatever. Each of those could have as many things set in it as you want in the way of voicings, rhythms, tremolo or vibrato, reverb and a few other things. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Or if you were playing a medley of tunes, you could program each button for each tune. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Upper/Lower Organ Preset : This is where the emulation desired is set up. Remember I said there were 3 groups, tabs, drawbars and pipe. Well, each group has defined presets in them also. In Tabs and Drawbars, there are 12 settings and in Pipe, there is 8 settings. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">But wait, there's more! One of the things you can do with these presets is copy them to 'manual' memory. Once there, you can change things to your hearts content, then either play them or save them in one of the piston presets if you so choose. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Also when you are using the Pipe organ settings, the percussion tabs for Flutes become Chiff controls. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Other Presets -- although Technics doesn't call them that. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Touch Organ - this is a preset button that is used in conjunction with the LCD panel to set up various pre-programmed presets in the Organ sound groups. There are 5 groups inside this preset, each group has 16 selections for a total of 80 organ presets. This group of presets uses other sounds too, but the emphasis is on what is considered an Organ Sound. These selection can be copied to the Piston Presets. If you want the 1st 8 into the PP, there is a selection to do that, for the other 8, you have to manually set each one in.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Some examples are : </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Drawbars : Elegant Sound, Delicate Bars, Vintage Organ, Grand "H" Sound and many others. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Theater Electric : Organ Vibra Harp, Contemporary Theater (3 of these), Sizzling Reeds and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">European : Organ Pops 1&2, Pop Jazz 1&2, German Click 1&2, and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Rock : Background set, Hot Tubes, Space Organ, Air Vox, Telstar and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Classical : Soft Basic Pipes, Traditional Diapason, Standard Hymn, Tremulant Pipes and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Touch Registration : This is another preset that is used in conjunction with the LCD panel. This is designed for getting sounds that are not necessarily associated with older organs, although organ sounds are used as well. This also has the copy to Preset Pistons the same as the One Touch Organ.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">It has 6 selections with 16 presets in each. One of the ones I like the best is the Big Band and its descriptors. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The Count's Solo, Lionel's Band, Miller Mood, Woody's Solo, the Duke's Way are just a few. When you select these, they really do remind you of the style and sound of those artists. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Music Style Select : This is the last of this group of presets, and it is very different. In the others, only the sounds were changing, with this one the rhythms and accompaniments come into play. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">This is 'One Button Play' but more buttons and a whole lot more selections than I normally expect. It is used in one of two ways. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First, you can select a rhythm pattern and then push and hold the button and it will set up the organ to give a preselected setup for that pattern. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Second, you can press the Music Style Select button and then pick the rhythm and it will do the same thing. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">At this point, I don't know if doing it either way actually is different except in method. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">------------ --------- </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Ok, up to this point, we've been talking about the specs and the presets, including the rhythms and such. But what if you want something different? Well, the EA5 has you covered. And that is with the manual setups that you can do and save. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Technics approach to manual settings is quite intense, and at first glance, seems overly complicated. It isn't. But it does take some fiddling to get a feel for the flow of things when you are doing it this way. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Orchestral Conductor - This is a central control that is made up of 4 selections for each keyboard. The selections are Organ, Sound 1, Sound 2, and last, Solo. All of these can be used individually or in combination as you choose. What they do is dependent on what you've selected for voicings for each of these. The Orchestral Conductor makes it quite easy to add or subtract a sound or group of sounds quickly and easily. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ type - If you are going to use the organ stops, either as drawbars or tabs, you have to select which kind you want. OTOH, if you aren't going to use those, it doesn't matter at all. The setting you do here will play when you pick the Organ button in Orchestral Conductor. You can use either the Preset organ settings for the Type you have selected, or you can 'copy to manual' and then make changes that you want. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sound 1 & 2 : These are controls for other sounds that are available for your use. There is a group of these for both the upper and lower keyboards and they are independent. Whatever you set in these is what plays when you select Sound 1 or Sound 2 in the Orchestral Conductor. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">But you can also use them during play a bit differently also. For instance, you could have Sound 1 set to a Trumpet and want to change that to one of the reeds later in the song. You push Sound 1, Brass, select Trumpet in the LCD. Then push Reed, and select which Reed you want. Then select Brass again. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">If you have selected Sound 1 in the Orchestral Conductor, you'll get the Trumpet until you push the Reed button for Sound 1 in the voice selector. It will still have the Reed you picked selected. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ, Sound 1, and Sound 2 are poly voices so you can play multiple keys and all will play. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Solo : Solo is a single tone non-poly, only the highest note will play. Otherwise it is used the same as Sound 1 & 2. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sound 1 & 2, Solo and Bass also have memory locations available for voicings you make or get from others. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Automatics </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Auto-Play Chording - There are a few selections in here. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Finger - this allows the root chord to be played with one finger. You can also play Minor, 7th and Minor 7th by adding either a pedal or two or a key below or two. For 7th you play either a big pedal or white key below the key of the chord, for minor, you play either a small pedal or black key below the key of the chord. For minor 7th, you play either a big and a small pedal, or a black and a white key below the key of the chord. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Fingered - If you want to play the chords yourself, or if you want more than what the 1 finger approach gives you, this is it. And as it implies, you finger the chord yourself. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Pianist - This is like fingered, except that you can play different pedals and more chord types (like 9th or 11th) if you want. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Memory - on/off, this either makes the chord hold when you let go of the keys or stop depending on setting. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Techni-Chord : This is Technics name for the right hand chording that can be used. It has many settings that can be changed by you and has defaults depending on which other settings are in place. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">------------ --------- </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">OK, now you know how to do some things on this organ with the stuff built in to it. But what do you do if you want a voicing that isn't there? Well, Technics has you covered there too. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">With over 200 tones to select and combine into voicings of your choice, there seems to be no limit to what you could produce. Same for rhythms, you can set up a rhythm and accompaniment to your liking, either by creating it all new, or by modifying one of the existing ones. It is all there. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">It also has a complete 16-channel sequencer so you can record your music to the organ and later save it to floppy disk if you like. You could also save it as a midi and pass that to friends that have midi-friendly instruments, but not Technics. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">If you are looking for a powerful organ with a very good sound, many of the Technics would fit the bill. And since they are no longer produced nor supported by the manufacturer, the selling prices tend to be very low. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">I'm sure I missed something and probably didn't describe some things exactly right, but I hope you enjoyed this description and review. If you are like me and want a more upscale organ, but can't afford a new one, the Technics SX-EA5 as well as the Technics SX-GA3, FA1, and F100 which are a bit more upscale from the EA5, might very well fit the bill.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">I would compare these to the Rolands of today, although the Rolands are more powerful and flexible. It is a shame that Technics bowed out of the market.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"> </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">
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