Hlaalu wrote:Regarding the topic of a hypothetical successor of the C2D, I think the area in which Clavia should improve the most to be competitive again in this portion of the market is not so much the core sound of the (Hammond) organ nor how many other EP/AP sounds it will have, but rather the organ engine tweakability, and also not-so-subtle subtleties like the multicontact feeling of the keybed, which are pretty radical changes as compared to the present C2D.
Hammond Suzuki did this with the XK-5 and more recently even with their lower priced SK Pro which among other things has piano sounds and a basic synth in it. Whatever Clavia will come up with, at this point they can't pretend it didn't happen. Yet, I am not sure that implementing any form of multicontact emulation, or redesigning the interface so that such tweakability is easy accessible in the main panel, is something they can come up with in just a few months from now.
Like so many, I too would like to see some basic EPs in the C2d successor, but let's not forget that the Hammond SK-series are Electro rivals not dedicated organs, so in essence replacing the C2d with a dual manual Electro would be my preference, but I'd want at least two sets of drawbars and I hope that the appearance of the SKx would trigger that anyway. But the C2d as it is - like the Legend series and the new 'Classic' Mojo, neither of which have piano sounds either - remains very much an organ not an all-in-one like SK/Electro products, so no AP/EPs.
Clavia could clean up here as the EPs in the Suzuki SK series are pee-your-pants-laughing quality, and Crumar still haven't upgraded the dual manual Mojo to the same architecture as the infinitely superior Mojo-61. That said, given the poor quality SK pianos and EPs, at the moment the most credible way to get a dual manual with some extra voices
is still the old Mojo, but that has some weird stuff happening (eg, if you want a Wurly on one manual, you have to have a Farfisa organ on the other!).
I can't say I ever get excited about multi-contact keypads or partial emulations of it. In all the years I played tone wheel Hammonds (I still own an A100) all I ever found a use for that function for was to demonstrate what happens if you press a key down slowly. Like the way that key click ends up being more tweak-able on many clones than far more significant things like the chorus/vibrato, I think the keybed thing could easily become over-obsessed about. Frankly, there is more variance in action, sound and almost any measurable 'thing' from one tone wheel console to another than there is between one clone wheel and the next, or between any clonewheel and an original. I'd vote for a standard Fatar keybed and keep the cost down.
The XK5 is great but it is very bulky, very expensive and I'm not a fan of that Hammond 'modular' format - for the effort of lugging about two separate manuals and a stand, I'd stick with my current rig of a C2d and a dedicated stage piano.
Twickenham's wayward son.