Re: All I Want For Christmas

[Ben Ninmann <BenWaB3@cpcnet.com>]

Daniel Samons wrote:
>In the past several years we have seen the arrival of a number of 
>products that do a good job creating hammond sounds (XM-1, V3,
>XB-2, etc.)  What we need now is a really nice midi controller
>made especially this purpose.  I could really make some use of a
>controller with the following features:
>
>        -61 note upper and lower manuals, with the capability to
>                program the first octave or so as presets.
>        -upper keyboard with typical hammond style "waterfall keys"
>                (although I could live with synth keys)
>        -At least one set of drawbars on-board, perhaps expandable to 
>                as many as four.
>        -lower keyboard could be a good semi-weighted, synth-action
>                keyboard feel, (not an actual weighted feel but with
>                enough of that to be able to use it for piano playing,
>                perhaps along the line of one of the nicer Roland synths.)
>        -Old style leslie switch on board with three positions:  chorale, 
>                brake, tremolo.  
>        -Several assigable continuous controllers for controlling any number
>                of hammond features.
>        -Several assigable switches, to controll V1/V2/V3/C1/C2/C3 and other
>                functions like key click. <snip>

Mostof these features & more will be available in the future when Dave Amels
rolls out his VOCE keyboard model. It probably won't have the semi-weighted
lower keyboard. It will however have the "waterfall" keys. On a conversation
w/ Mr. A. a few months ago I recieved his kind permission to reveal one
factor when the subject of keyboard action (in relation to the feel of  the
keys on an actual Hammond) came up for discussion again on the list. It
never came up again, so I'll just forge ahead w/ it now. I was up at Dave's
factory in June. He had the actual key assembly there. He took it out of the
box, sat it on the counter & let me "play" it. I don't know where he found
it but he's come up w/ a keyboard w/ the feel of the Hammond. It will also
have four sets of drawbars. The price point will be higher that the $1,000
you mentioned, but it will have a V3 internal, at least one tube in the
signal chain, & from what Dave says, pretty much the dimensions (w/o the
weight) of a B-3. As soon as I heard all this I started a small fund to
eventually get one of these units. At the rate I can afford to add to the
fund they'll probably have operating system #15.0 in place before I can
actually get the organ, but it's still a goal on the horizon. It sounds like
a great addition for those who prefer taking a clone to the job (and we're
not going to open up that can of worms right now).

Dave Chesavage added:
>As the trend towards more oscillators continues, I thought, hmm, with a 128
>osc synth, you could solve this problem the right way. I don't think anybody
>has tried this before. <snip>

Actually Dave addressed this problem in the V3. It has 91 oscillators, to
correspond to the 91 tonewheels. It also fixed the problem that the XB-2 &
synths had of the notes beating against each other. The XM-1 may have also
addressed that problem (help from any XM-1 owners?). The 91 oscillator
approach may also be the reason the V3 doesn't have the problem that synths
& many clones do of sounding too "swishy" when you run them through a Leslie
or PRO-3 w/ thier chorus settings on. For any more developments we'll need
to sic some pesky news reporters on Dave, allthough I heard rumors that he
punched out the last paparozzi that tried to snap pictures of him w/ Elle
McPherson.

Ben Ninmann