Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Hammond Pro XK3 System



I am excited to announce that I will soon be receiving the rest of the Hammond XK3 Pro system, pictured to the left.

What you are looking at is a modular system. What appears to be single two manual keyboard is actually two separate keyboards, the top of which you can see here:

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The bottom is a separate keyboard on which the XK3 sits on. Also included are the full size pedals, which I opted for over the smaller spinet style pedals, as they are virtually identical to regular Hammond pedals. Both the bottom manual and the pedal work like MIDI controllers, and they MIDI into inputs that are built into the top manual, the XK3. The XK3 serves as the brains of the operation.

Unlike a vintage Hammond organ, this is a completely portable system that will require minimal labor to cart around town.

I have been playing on Josiah Hoskin’s XK3 system which installed in his studio. Josiah is my editor, boss and friend at b3player.com. He has it hooked up to a vintage Leslie 145 and if you close your eyes it sounds just as funky as any real B3.

I still prefer the real thing, but after a year of carting around a Hammond C3 with a Leslie 710 speaker, my body said no more and so now we’e going portable, and this system sounds good and looks great.