Korg CX-3 and clonewheel organs thread

[DocAtlas]

Yeah, I can't play split organ. I need both manuals. I always feel like I'm getting ripped off when I see guys playing their Nords with single manuals.

I can play split organ, but I don't like to. I bought a Korg BX3 a few years back, and while it's a little heavy compared to a lot of other equipment, the two manuals and the layout of the controls make it worth it. It feels like I'm playing my C3, which is just as important as the sound. And it's still a LOT lighter than the Hammond.

[AdmiralQuality]

But there are still a handful of parameters for percussion only, decay this and delay that etc for when osft is on or off. The buttons are ok to fiddle with - soft on/off, 3rd on/off etc for each program you edit.

Keyclick, percussion and leslie is pretty much the same I want for any program. That is what my patch utility will put there for all 128 programs.

That will be a good timesaver.

...

And I haven't even started looking at what the Ex-stuff offer in coolness- if anything.

Yeah, all that stuff I only want set one way. You couldn't tweak the percussion levels and decay times on a real Hammond (at least not without opening it up and soldering in new resistors and capacitors).

As for the "Ex" mode, I have absolutely no interest in that. Just my purist perspective. Basically if I could afford and carry a real Hammond I'd never be bothering with this fake stuff at all.

[lfm]

Did you have direct contact with Neo people about this?

I detailed this issue online a year and half ago, but never follow up by contacting Neo Instruments. The thing that turned me off was the fact that their English contacts page on their website is entirely in German. To me, that signaled that they weren't too serious about having a conversation with users. But I'll make a point of at least pointing them to my web article about the issue.

Had a similar experience trying to contact FATAR keyboards, everything in Italian.

Same with another passion of mine - icecream - I tried getting a real italian icecream maker - all italian site.

Weird...

Really, it would the slightest of effort from them to at at least support a spst switch/relay. Sure, built-in MIDI switching would be best (and cheapest), but the annoying part is the need for two switches to just flip fast/slow.

I'll have a word with them if it occured to them.
Some kind if DIY kit is really enough. Maybe drill hole for a midi cable out or something.

Thanks for sharing your work on the subject.

Hey, might as well give an idea of past history and the kind of sound I'm after, since what sounds good to me isn't everyone's idea of authentic...my first organ was a Farfisa—never took it out...replaced by an M3—took it out jamming a few times, no Leslie...replaced by a Univox Organizer, through a flanger pedal briefly till I got a Leslie 122 enhanced with a Dynaco tube amp and JBL woofer. This was my setup in my progrock-band days ("Chakra"). The Organizer had a useless key-click emulation and no chorus, so I couldn't get the Keith Emerson sound I coveted, but I could get a nice grind and it was a big sound—probably more like the better organ sounds of Tony Banks than Emerson.

The addition of the Ventilator with the CX-3 definitely gets me into the KE sound domain without further work, just tweaking the CX-3 parameters. So much so that I'm enjoying a throw-back period where I'm collaborating with my old bandmate and co-writer, and concentrating on the old instruments sounds I grew up with—"Hammond", piano, strings (and melotron sim, but curse gforce for not have a 64-bit version out yet—I've moved on without them, and no 'tron till I need it badly enough to go elsewhere, or they catch up), and mono-synth (leads, maybe bass, but no synth pads other than strings so far).

For me anything with Hammond and heavy guitars really gets me going. Thinking Black Crows, Colosseum, early Deep Purple etc.

[lfm]

Yeah, I can't play split organ. I need both manuals. I always feel like I'm getting ripped off when I see guys playing their Nords with single manuals.

I can play split organ, but I don't like to. I bought a Korg BX3 a few years back, and while it's a little heavy compared to a lot of other equipment, the two manuals and the layout of the controls make it worth it. It feels like I'm playing my C3, which is just as important as the sound. And it's still a LOT lighter than the Hammond.

One thing that strikes me is balance between upper and lower manual.
You fiddle with drawbars and get the sound on lower manual you want - but when playing both manuals you find lower is too loud.

How is it on Hammonds - is it only through moving all drawbars you can get the same sound, but lower volume?

I miss that in clones - I would like to see a simple balance control to level upper against lower manual?

When using B4, I didn't find any balance there either.

Or am I missing something obvious?

Directed to anybody playing real Hammonds out there.

[AdmiralQuality]

Yeah, I can't play split organ. I need both manuals. I always feel like I'm getting ripped off when I see guys playing their Nords with single manuals.

I can play split organ, but I don't like to. I bought a Korg BX3 a few years back, and while it's a little heavy compared to a lot of other equipment, the two manuals and the layout of the controls make it worth it. It feels like I'm playing my C3, which is just as important as the sound. And it's still a LOT lighter than the Hammond.

One thing that strikes me is balance between upper and lower manual.
You fiddle with drawbars and get the sound on lower manual you want - but when playing both manuals you find lower is too loud.

How is it on Hammonds - is it only through moving all drawbars you can get the same sound, but lower volume?

I miss that in clones - I would like to see a simple balance control to level upper against lower manual?

When using B4, I didn't find any balance there either.

Or am I missing something obvious?

Directed to anybody playing real Hammonds out there.

On the real thing, balance between manuals is controlled by the drawbars.

That's another thing that p's me off. All the clonewheels out there that think we only need one set of drawbars. (Roland VK-8, Nord, Hammond SK-1/SK-2, etc...) It's bad enough that there aren't 4 sets of drawbars on ANY clonewheel!

I'd love a BX-3 but they're just SOOO expensive and I also think it's a shame they don't split in half, though yes, it would probably still fit in the back seat of the car or maybe in one with a large trunk. (I remember I used to have to put the front passenger seat down to fit a stage piano in the car, diagonally. That's another thing I don't know why we don't see. Digital pianos that either hinge or split apart in the middle into two 44 note keyboards.)

[lfm]

Thanks. One would have wanted at least a master volume on each manual, or a simple balance.

If running preamp out - one could have one manual on each channel out - would be nice for some recording situations.

But cx-3 v2 has three drawbar sets at least - preset, set 1 and set 2 - if needing one manual.

Otherwise preset and one set - if using both - this without changing program.

And you can have footpedal moving presets on the fly - still playing two hands. If I remember correct you could use midi pedals two, doing things on the fly as well.

I think that's pretty cool as is.

I tried using adjusting amp gain on the fly through midi - but that did not work at all good. You get a wobbling sound having incoming midi change on amp. But internally sound it works real well with a expression pedal doing that - but with local off - not so good from midi.

[AdmiralQuality]

Thanks. One would have wanted at least a master volume on each manual, or a simple balance.

Well jump in a time machine, go back to 1931, and tell Laurens Hammond about it.

If running preamp out - one could have one manual on each channel out - would be nice for some recording situations.

Again, we're stepping out of Hammond emulation here.

But cx-3 v2 has three drawbar sets at least - preset, set 1 and set 2 - if needing one manual.

More properly one drawbar set (of two groups) that has to be shared between the two manuals (granted, that's a slight improvement over the real Hammond where each half of each set is dedicated to its particlar manual), and ONE preset (as opposed to the Hammond which has 10, though they're hard-wired and usually sounded awful). But it's enough to get by. Like I said, I usually set the preset to all-stops-out so I never have to manually dial that setting in, then I've got the drawbars for whatever other setting I'm using. That I can swap each of the two drawbar groupings between manuals is of little value to me as only the top one works correctly with percussion and percussion goes away if I pick "bottom on top". A bug to be sure, but what can we do? Also I can't imagine many cases where I suddenly need to swap the top and bottom sounds.

Otherwise preset and one set - if using both - this without changing program.

And you can have footpedal moving presets on the fly - still playing two hands. If I remember correct you could use midi pedals two, doing things on the fly as well.

In the 30 years I've been playing keyboards I've never once used my feet for patch select. Just my personal preference, but I don't want it there.

I think that's pretty cool as is.

I tried using adjusting amp gain on the fly through midi - but that did not work at all good. You get a wobbling sound having incoming midi change on amp. But internally sound it works real well with a expression pedal doing that - but with local off - not so good from midi.

You mean the CX-3's feature of having two amp gains in the patch with MIDI control? I just discovered that last night actually, seems like it could be useful for my "Chest Fever" scenario I described above. Really that's the only thing I ever want to change that's not on a Hammond front panel. (And I can't change it live if I'm playing a real Hammond through a real tube Leslie. Growl is a fact of life. A beautiful fact! )

[lfm]

You mean the CX-3's feature of having two amp gains in the patch with MIDI control? I just discovered that last night actually, seems like it could be useful for my "Chest Fever" scenario I described above. Really that's the only thing I ever want to change that's not on a Hammond front panel. (And I can't change it live if I'm playing a real Hammond through a real tube Leslie. Growl is a fact of life. A beautiful fact! )

You could run it all with expression pedal - any value between min max. I put a 2nd expression pedal for that purpose.

Internally it works flawlessly - local on. Normal situation for you I guess.

But through midi it chokes somehow if doing it a full pedal move - each received value occupies engine a little bit. It's not 127 different gain levels on amp - which the pedal is sending.

Just holding playing it's ok - but if sounding it will be small stuttering.

But the min/max controller knob on the top left is really good, to adjust amount of gain according to expression volume. If happy with internal amp gain.

Yes, the right growl put you in a elevated state of mind.

[AdmiralQuality]

You mean the CX-3's feature of having two amp gains in the patch with MIDI control? I just discovered that last night actually, seems like it could be useful for my "Chest Fever" scenario I described above. Really that's the only thing I ever want to change that's not on a Hammond front panel. (And I can't change it live if I'm playing a real Hammond through a real tube Leslie. Growl is a fact of life. A beautiful fact! )

You could run it all with expression pedal - any value between min max. I put a 2nd expression pedal for that purpose.

Internally it works flawlessly - local on. Normal situation for you I guess.

But through midi it chokes somehow if doing it a full pedal move - each received value occupies engine a little bit. It's not 127 different gain levels on amp - which the pedal is sending.

Just holding playing it's ok - but if sounding it will be small stuttering.

But the min/max controller knob on the top left is really good, to adjust amount of gain according to expression volume. If happy with internal amp gain.

Yes, the right growl put you in a elevated state of mind.

Oh really? I'll have to check that out. From looking at the CX-3's parameters I assumed it just switched between two amp gain levels.

I only have one expression pedal at the moment. The one that came with the Korg. (Which seems to be a Yamaha FC-7 rebranded as Korg. I had no idea the CX-3 came with such a nice pedal! My original one was the store's rental/demo unit and I got no pedal when I bought it, but got myself an FC-7 as it was the nicest expression pedal I could find. Great to see that's what Korg chose as well!)

Is your Korg's firmware 2.01? (You can tell by when it powers on there's a little drawbar animation. You can also hold 1 and 8 while powering on and it'll report its firmware version.)

If not I'd highly recommend the update. You can get it from Korg here. http://korg.com/uploads/Download/PC_Upd ... 020000.zip (And even though it says it needs Windows 2000, it ran fine for me on Win XP 32). You want to really be confident in the computer you run this on though. If it messes up you'll "brick" the CX-3 and will need to order new ROM chips from Korg as well as have the soldering skill to replace them.

[lfm]

Thanks, the 2.01 was on it when I bought it. Seller informed me.

Gain through pedal is continuous between two values. This for reverb as well if using that.

About pedals.

Mine expression was exchanged to Roland EV-5 which works fine. I have a couple of those otherwise too.

But EV-5 does not work as expression in input 1 or 2 on the back. I had to get Korg EXP-2 since the shift tip and ring on the autosense of inputs. Just a remark if getting one. Also switching polarity can make expression work or not - so test that too.

Check if your expression works if used at the other input 1 or 2 then you know if another one of those is ok, or if Korg is the one to get. Exp-2 is not expensive.

And that it goes two ways up and down in effekt/value. I got EV-5 to work downwards only, and goggled up a spec for Korgs own pedal - and it's wired differently.

[AdmiralQuality]

Weird! I assumed those were purely switch pedal inputs. Thanks for the tip.

[earlevel]

The thing that turned me off was the fact that their English contacts page on their website is entirely in German.

Oh yeah, and the fact that the only contact link is "info@neo-instruments.de"...seemed it would be a waste of time typing something up, but since I wrote and article I just point them to it...OK, done, sent them a note.

[AdmiralQuality]

The thing that turned me off was the fact that their English contacts page on their website is entirely in German.

Oh yeah, and the fact that the only contact link is "info@neo-instruments.de"...seemed it would be a waste of time typing something up, but since I wrote and article I just point them to it...OK, done, sent them a note.

If you email info@admiralquality.com you'll get a reply from me, often within just a few minutes (assuming I'm awake).

Customer support (including potential customers) is Job #1.

[earlevel]

If you email info@admiralquality.com you'll get a reply from me, often within just a few minutes (assuming I'm awake).

In German? J/K...it was the combination of not bothering to translate the German text for the English version of the page (then what's the point?), and an "info" address—I really wanted to have a little better sense that if I took the time to write something up—technical, not sales-ralated—that it would find its way to the right people AND they might attempt to have a dialog with me in English. But since I wrote the article anyway, it wasn't so much work to give it a shot this time...

[AdmiralQuality]

If you email info@admiralquality.com you'll get a reply from me, often within just a few minutes (assuming I'm awake).

In German? J/K...

Mechanically translated, sure!

(Thankfully, most Germans seem to speak pretty good English. As a monoglot I certainly have no right to complain.)