NS3 Organ - not so good (but I'm making it better i think)
Posted: 15 Nov 2018, 21:02
Well - I've been dreading this post - or rather - the testing reality that leads to this post. I'm an old "Hammond Guy" - started with an M3 in the seventies, and since have had 2 B3s, C3, A100 currently, and multiple Leslie's including 145, 147, 122, and 251. I've also had many clones over the years including ones from Univox, Roland, Oberheim, and Korg, and suffered through the laughable attempts many of my generic synths made at Hammond. I play in a little blues/classic rock band and am an old fart. I also own/run a pro recording studio.http://www.soundworksrp.com . I know my Hammonds and Hammond "sounds".
The one clone organ that has made me pretty happy was/is my Korg CX3 - this one is part of the second wave of them made in the mid 2000s. It does a dang good Hammond, reasonable Leslie effect, and weighs a lot less than my A100! The problem is that it is ONLY an organ, so I still have to take out something else for piano and synth. I recently (< 2 months) bought an NS3 Compact. My goals were to get down to one, lightweight keyboard that "did everything well" - meaning piano, organ,and synth - and was performance oriented vs workstation oriented. NS3 seemed to fit the bill, so I splurged on it. The physical drawbars and waterfall keys tickled my Hammond fancy too.
When I first got it. I felt a little underwhelmed at the organ, which is one of the main things that I was hoping would be "killer" on it, but it just didn't sound "right" to me. I didn't have the CX3 around to compare too, and the A100 is sickly at the moment, but from what I felt and could remember in my head - the NS3 just wasn't impressing me. Anyway - i adjusted the settings and figured it was just a matter of getting things set right and getting used to it. I happily went my way for multiple gigs over the next month and a half, and the NS3 did OK - covering what i wanted in having piano/organ/synth, split keyboards, layers, etc. That part - real-time controls, etc. and frankly, most of the piano and synth sounds are great.
So today - for the first time, I had the NS3 and the CX3 both in the studio, both set-up, right on top of each other, at the same time ... and .... to my horror - but not really to my surprise given the above, my $500, 10-12 year old CX3 (if it's even worth that any more) just blows my $3500, brand new NS3 away on Hammond,
Maybe if i get some time, I'll record and post some audio samples, but the Korg is so much clearer - sharper - as far as cutting through at every frequency. The NS3 sounds - I dunno - muffled? in comparison. My first impression was that the CX3 was just a lot brighter, but honestly - it's across the board - for example - the low end of the CX3 also blows the NS3 out and makes it sound like a Casio bought from Walmart. I keep hoping maybe I've got some sort of setting wrong or something, but can't find anything. The NS3 has this low-mid presence that is really annoying, and the upper drawbars just don't "cut". Also - the leakage/cross talk in the Korg is much more pronounced than the NS3 - and yes I do have it set to Vintage 2. I am running OS 1.52 by the way.
Not sure what I "want" here except for maybe someone else to tell me I'm not (or I am) crazy? Hopefully this is something that can be addressed somewhere down the line via update, but for now, I'm quite depressed with my $3500 purchase.
KenM
The one clone organ that has made me pretty happy was/is my Korg CX3 - this one is part of the second wave of them made in the mid 2000s. It does a dang good Hammond, reasonable Leslie effect, and weighs a lot less than my A100! The problem is that it is ONLY an organ, so I still have to take out something else for piano and synth. I recently (< 2 months) bought an NS3 Compact. My goals were to get down to one, lightweight keyboard that "did everything well" - meaning piano, organ,and synth - and was performance oriented vs workstation oriented. NS3 seemed to fit the bill, so I splurged on it. The physical drawbars and waterfall keys tickled my Hammond fancy too.
When I first got it. I felt a little underwhelmed at the organ, which is one of the main things that I was hoping would be "killer" on it, but it just didn't sound "right" to me. I didn't have the CX3 around to compare too, and the A100 is sickly at the moment, but from what I felt and could remember in my head - the NS3 just wasn't impressing me. Anyway - i adjusted the settings and figured it was just a matter of getting things set right and getting used to it. I happily went my way for multiple gigs over the next month and a half, and the NS3 did OK - covering what i wanted in having piano/organ/synth, split keyboards, layers, etc. That part - real-time controls, etc. and frankly, most of the piano and synth sounds are great.
So today - for the first time, I had the NS3 and the CX3 both in the studio, both set-up, right on top of each other, at the same time ... and .... to my horror - but not really to my surprise given the above, my $500, 10-12 year old CX3 (if it's even worth that any more) just blows my $3500, brand new NS3 away on Hammond,

Maybe if i get some time, I'll record and post some audio samples, but the Korg is so much clearer - sharper - as far as cutting through at every frequency. The NS3 sounds - I dunno - muffled? in comparison. My first impression was that the CX3 was just a lot brighter, but honestly - it's across the board - for example - the low end of the CX3 also blows the NS3 out and makes it sound like a Casio bought from Walmart. I keep hoping maybe I've got some sort of setting wrong or something, but can't find anything. The NS3 has this low-mid presence that is really annoying, and the upper drawbars just don't "cut". Also - the leakage/cross talk in the Korg is much more pronounced than the NS3 - and yes I do have it set to Vintage 2. I am running OS 1.52 by the way.
Not sure what I "want" here except for maybe someone else to tell me I'm not (or I am) crazy? Hopefully this is something that can be addressed somewhere down the line via update, but for now, I'm quite depressed with my $3500 purchase.
KenM