Another XB-2 V2.0 upgrade review

[denny@cd.com (Dennis Cronin)]

Fellow XB-2-ites,

Got my upgrade to day and popped it in tonite.  Here's my
reactions (yet another V2.0 review).

Well first, it's a "must have".  The key click level control and
percussion key tracking changes are very cool and vital.

Considering that the upgrade mostly just improves the quality of
the imitation, I could whine a bit about the price of the upgrade,
but oh well, it _is_ a niche instrument we're all into here and I'm
just happy someone is producing something like this.

The EPROM swap was a breeze.  I think only an utter klutz could
bobble it.  It comes with a redone manual that describes the
current features pretty clearly.

I agree with Mark "Max Keyclick" Longo-- full keyclick ahead!  Adds
some nice gutty attack, especially effective on the low notes.  And
being of modest technique, I also like the trigger-on-every-key
option.  This affects both percussion and keyclick, allowing you to
not have to cleanly finger every key to get a nice attack on the
note.  And while I dig the max keyclick I wish they had a little
more resolution on the key click levels.  The "max" setting is
balls-to-the-wall, while "normal" is kinda wimpy.  There might be a
time when I'd go for something in between.  The old Korg CX-3 had a
little knob as I recall.

The guy I talked to at Pro Sound in San Diego (where I ordered the
upgrade) said that the new firmware sends drawbar changes out via
MIDI.  This is nice for sequencer use since you can record those
nice smooth sound mutations instead of just thud-new-patch changes.
I haven't checked that out yet tho.  I barely sequence these days--
I like to keep my computing pretty separate from music stuff :)

I've got a line on a Leslie, so maybe pretty soon I'll get to
hear this pup through its soulmate speaker system...

See ya,

Denny

------------------------------------+------------------------------------
       Denny Cronin                 |   The Wild, Wild West:
 Central Data Corporation           |     Where men were men,
  Champaign, IL   217-359-8010      |      and sheep were
      dennyc@cd.com                 |         nervous.