Kronos CX-3 vs Hammond Clone

[Derek Cook]

I'm using a combination of GSI VB3 II with the IK Leslie (standalone) and it is awesome. Better than the CX-3 which is still no slouch, and I am not in a hurry to swap it out of existing songs, but new songs are built with the combo I mntioned.

I have pulled the trigger on the complete B3-X but have not done much with it yet (due to lack of time), but the demos were enough to convince me. And it is the first company I have ever seen that have actually (to my knowledge) done a prog rock demo! They deserve paying just for that!

[kronoSphere]

Though the B2 is not the B3, in comparaison : the sounds of the old N.I. B2 are more imaginative and sound, even today, much better than those of the new I.K. Just my opinion in testing the sounds of each. But yes, I still have to try all the functions of the IK.

[Hector Space]

I’m also an old Hammond player who has arrived at the Kronos 2 CX3 via an M102 - L122 (as the original use in whiter shade of pale), Nord Electro 3, Kurzweil KB3+ Neo Vent 2.
I’d say that out the box the Kronos 2 CX3 is disappointing, but after a huge amount of development work, largely driven by the fact I didn’t want to gig with 3 keyboards in my stage rig! - I’ve pretty much cracked the Kronos Hammond issues. I’ve done this by using ifx inserts to replace the CX3 vibrato / chorus (which is plain wrong! And it is shocking that something so central to the Hammond sound could be reproduced so poorly) The second and third ifx I’ve needed are the 76 rotary simulator (needed to keep the signal chain in the correct order - and in my opinion as good as the Vent¡'s rotary sim) and finally a compressor needed to product that Hammond characteristic where one note can sound as loud as several -( there’s a sort of built in level balancing on a real Hammond caused by the nature of the circuitry used to pickup the tone wheels)
Probably the most difficult thing to get right has been the scanner, vibrato/chorus simulator. It has a very distinctive sound that is all Hammond. A Hammond without it would be only half the instrument. I had to go back to basics, read up on the real spec of the original(S) 6.9Hz, .8ms delay and most important the bass roll off. I’ve gone through 4 different ifx solutions to get there - (using a second rotary, chorus/flange in parallel with phaser, chorus/flange in series with phaser and finally eq in parallel with chorus/flanger. A -B comparison is critical here. Otherwise you can go wildly wrong!! Interestingly listening to my Electro 3, The Garage band B3, Gallilao (iOS b3) and my old M102 they’re all different, but similar. And all much better than the CX3 as it’s factory set. It was when I went to see the James Taylor quintet that I finally nailed it. He’s got one hell of a Hammond sound!!
Finally and significantly the Kronos CX3 has way too many nodes where you can completely screw up the sound. Like amp sim, speaker sim, overtone etc. Doing careful a-b comparison most of these ‘add on effects’ are plain wrong. And in a live situation ( where you’ve got loud drums, guitar and Bass) they destroy the tone balance of the organ so it doesn’t sound right any more. Most of them need switching off or turning down!!

[Scott]

Interesting approach! Any chance you can post one of your CX3 programs here (e.g. in the downloads section, or a link to a dropbox file, whatever) so we could try it out?

[drama1]

Yes, Hector. That would be cool if you'd share, but of course, up to you.

[Hector Space]

I will think about it. I spent nearly 6 months working on my Kronos Hammond sounds going back and forth from live recordings of my gigs to studio time and endless a-b comparison.
I tried the same a few years back with my Kurzweil Forte, coz everyone raves about the KB3, basically after a ton of ear aching work I’ve found the Kurzweil rotary effects box is not good enough. Does matter what you do with the available parameters you can’t get the tremolo/fast setting to sound right. And double rotary effects boxes just sound like double the crap! Really. So I ended up buying a Vent 2. Which pretty much solved the problem for the Forte.

An important part of the Hammond sound is overdrive. The Vent does a very realistic valve overdrive simulation. But I still found I needed to add the KB3 built it overdrive to really get some of those rock tones.

Overdrive on the Kronos is much easier. But again you need to pare back to excess bits. First you need a swell pedal, and unfortunately it has to be set to cc#4 footpedal. Without this or similar you loose the vital expression and overdrive control that a real spiced C3 has. In conjunction with this you need to use the expression control and the overdrive control to provide a range of expression to suit the piece of music.

For some Hammond sounds I also add a valve preamp sim ifx in the chain right after the vibrato chorus ifx. This gives access to the dirtiest Hammond sounds you could ever need.

So basically the Kronos can provide a very good range of Hammond sounds without use of samples or external effects. Using ifx boxes with careful setup of the CX3 engine (turn off the vibrato chorus and the rotary!! And cut out the speaker sims and overtone) Saying you just have to use your ears is a VAST over simplification. But it’s actually really true.

A couple of years ago a published a series of improved (actually stage usable!! Lol) German Grand piano programs for the Kurzweil Forte that I’d spent over a year working on. For me they turned a great set of unusable piano samples into a living breathing instrument. But it became clear that there are many people who play keyboards who just go plink plink .. I suggest that all these people should go and buy Nords. And that’s why I returned my Nord Stage 2 Ha88 after a painful 30days lolololol

[Scott]

I will think about it. I spent nearly 6 months working on my Kronos Hammond sounds going back and forth from live recordings of my gigs to studio time and endless a-b comparison.

So alternatively, you could put together a youtube demo and offer your sounds for sale.

I tried the same a few years back with my Kurzweil Forte, coz everyone raves about the KB3, basically after a ton of ear aching work I’ve found the Kurzweil rotary effects box is not good enough. Does matter what you do with the available parameters you can’t get the tremolo/fast setting to sound right.

I likewise found the KB3 rotary disappointing, too much pitch warble on fast.

An important part of the Hammond sound is overdrive. The Vent does a very realistic valve overdrive simulation. But I still found I needed to add the KB3 built it overdrive to really get some of those rock tones.

I found the same when I put the Vent on a Numa Organ (original version). I liked the Vent rotary effect better than the one on the Numa Organ, but both have good overdrive, and the very best overdrive I got was a combination of the two! BTW, I also tried the Numa Organ 2... I thought it had a much better rotary sim than the original (no need for a Vent there) BUT the overdrive was not nearly as good as on the original! I wish Numa made a model with the rotary effect of the Numa Organ 2 but the overdrive and leakage of the original Numa Organ.

[janrhansen]

I've never tried a Ventilator hooked up to the Cx3, but I WILL point out, as an organist that the Leslie makes WAY more difference in the sound/realism than the organ model/sample. I've heard some objectively lacking old PCM organ boards played through old tube Leslies that I'd neve know--and I'm there in the room AND an organist. So, YMMV.

That is very true. A real tube leslie, or even the popular 760 solid state one will always be the best choice, and it can get even a rompler board with just a few well sampled clean organ sounds to sound very good.

The problem as I see it, is that most of us really don't want to drag a 70kg leslie around today when all the rest just goes straight into the mixer and no matter if you play jazz or more rock/blues/pop style you almost always need to saturate the amp in the leslie to get the best out of it, so for most users its actually more about getting a leslie sim that is as good as possible that adds both the right EQ, a good tube drive and the actual physical movement simulation of the horn/bass rotor. Wether you use a sample based organ sim or a physical modelled one, most of the new ones is so close to the original, that if you run them thru a real 122, only a true organ player will be able to pick out if your using a clone or a real B3. Normal audience wont be able to hear the difference at all.

So if people are already using a PC or Mac on stage, the best solution is to just buy IK's leslie sim. it may have some areas that could be improved, like like maybe some more leslie and amp models, different mic selections and a switch for making the leslie always stop in the center position, but for a sim that is propably as good as you get it today, plus you could stack it with some other vst effects if you want a special sound, and it would make most boards with a decent basic organ sound, sound its best as long as you arent willing to drag 1 or 2 122 leslies around. I aint currently using a PC on gigs, but after trying hearing the IK sim, I am really starting to think about dragging one around just for running my Mojo61 thru that sim.

[janrhansen]

My main complaint functionally with the new IK is that you can't make the Leslie Speed latch for CC1. I'm so used to that in the other two (and maybe the CX3?) --I just flip the joystick up.down and it changes speed, which is basically where the half moon switch IS on an organ, so...they require a "normal" CC1 for the speed, so I have to use the fader I have assigned to CC1 on the Kronos--above the keyboard...ergonomically less than ideal.

I will also give a shout out that the new IK is the most flexible to create "any" organ tone from records--due to having a whole Marshall guitar amp and various pedal effects in between-so, if someone wants say what people call "rock organ" --which means super saturated, that's not going to happen with the Acoustic Samples leslie...or frankly ANY Leslie model ALAONE...those are mods. There' a tube screamer and ability to EQ the organ IN BETWEEN the organ and Leslie that allow you to dial in those "heavy rock organ" tones.

And lookie here :

Hammond B-3X 1.1 Update

[Bitflipper]

I've just spent some deep time with the IKM Hammond in preparation for a review (not yet published, will be online in another week or so).

I've had my differences with IKM over the years and am generally not a fan of the company. Consequently, I was ready to hate this B3/Leslie emu. I took the writing assignment only because I'm kind of the default go-to organ guy for the online magazine (soundbytesmag.net) I write for.

To my great surprise, it's frickin' fantastic. The best Hammond/Leslie sim you can buy today. My only complaint is the Leslie doesn't really growl right. But for clean and clean-ish tones, it can't be beat. Not even by a Ventilator.

I'm seriously considering taking the laptop back onstage again, just for this. I'd most likely drive it from my Crumar Mojo, which has the desired key action but not the sound.

That said, the CX-3/Kronos with the Organimation library is pretty decent. I set up a generic drawbar organ that bypasses the internal Leslie and goes straight to output 3 (yes, mono is best), and from there to a Ventilator. The Vent is a better Leslie sim than the Kronos'. The IKM Leslie easily beats the Ventilator for cleaner sounds, but not when it comes to grit.

My biggest issue with the Kronos isn't the organ sound, which is fine in the context of a live band. Rather, it's the heavy key action, which makes the instrument damn near impossible to actually play like a Hammond. Smooth palm glissandos aren't smooth, and if you use your knuckles it's downright painful.

[Scott]

The best Hammond/Leslie sim you can buy today.

Have you tried GG's Blue3 and Acoustic Samples' B5? (They can be used with their own rotary sims, or IK's which is available as its own product as well).

My biggest issue with the Kronos isn't the organ sound, which is fine in the context of a live band. Rather, it's the heavy key action, which makes the instrument damn near impossible to actually play like a Hammond. Smooth palm glissandos aren't smooth, and if you use your knuckles it's downright painful.

It sounds like you've got a Kronos with the wrong action for organ. The 61 and the LS are the ones with organ-playable actions, though worse for piano. No action is ideal for both. If you've got a hammer action Kronos 73/88, and you're doing organ work that requires real organ techniques like palming and such, you should plug a non-hammer board/controller into the back of the Kronos and use that to trigger your CX3 sounds. Right tool for the job...

[jeremykeys]

I've got an old K73/ I, just for fun, built a Hammondish sound starting with a ksounds Organimation sound. I basically built a combi using 8 different patches. I have it assigned so that it somewhat follows the same drawbar settings as you would find on a stock B3 when you use the black pre-set keys at the left of the Hammond keyboard.
The trick is that I have to hit 2 buttons simultaneously, One to turn on the pre-set that I want and one to turn off the pre-set that I'm on.
I'm not so fussy nor that good of an organ player but since I figure that soundwise, I'm going for a miked Leslie emulation, it works for me.

[drama1]

I've got an old K73/ I, just for fun, built a Hammondish sound starting with a ksounds Organimation sound. I basically built a combi using 8 different patches. I have it assigned so that it somewhat follows the same drawbar settings as you would find on a stock B3 when you use the black pre-set keys at the left of the Hammond keyboard.
The trick is that I have to hit 2 buttons simultaneously, One to turn on the pre-set that I want and one to turn off the pre-set that I'm on.
I'm not so fussy nor that good of an organ player but since I figure that soundwise, I'm going for a miked Leslie emulation, it works for me.

You could solve your two button problem by using Karma Scene buttons.

[jeremykeys]

I've got an old K73/ I, just for fun, built a Hammondish sound starting with a ksounds Organimation sound. I basically built a combi using 8 different patches. I have it assigned so that it somewhat follows the same drawbar settings as you would find on a stock B3 when you use the black pre-set keys at the left of the Hammond keyboard.
The trick is that I have to hit 2 buttons simultaneously, One to turn on the pre-set that I want and one to turn off the pre-set that I'm on.
I'm not so fussy nor that good of an organ player but since I figure that soundwise, I'm going for a miked Leslie emulation, it works for me.

You could solve your two button problem by using Karma Scene buttons.

Cool! I never thought of that!
Thanks!

[Bitflipper]

The best Hammond/Leslie sim you can buy today.

Have you tried GG's Blue3 and Acoustic Samples' B5? (They can be used with their own rotary sims, or IK's which is available as its own product as well).

My biggest issue with the Kronos isn't the organ sound, which is fine in the context of a live band. Rather, it's the heavy key action, which makes the instrument damn near impossible to actually play like a Hammond. Smooth palm glissandos aren't smooth, and if you use your knuckles it's downright painful.

It sounds like you've got a Kronos with the wrong action for organ. The 61 and the LS are the ones with organ-playable actions, though worse for piano. No action is ideal for both. If you've got a hammer action Kronos 73/88, and you're doing organ work that requires real organ techniques like palming and such, you should plug a non-hammer board/controller into the back of the Kronos and use that to trigger your CX3 sounds. Right tool for the job...

Yes, I think I must have tried every Hammond emulation ever made. I do like GG Audio's product quite a lot, but the IKM Leslie edges out Spin for the win.

And you're right, I am using a 73-key Kronos. I have used a synth-action MIDI controller with it and that was a decent solution. I also have a Crumar Mojo. However, there are many times I don't want to pack more than a single instrument to, say, a jam session or a 30-minute festival set with a 10-minute turnaround. Or to squeeze onto a small stage with six other people. That's why I have a Kronos to begin with. It does it all.