Hammond XK-3 (c.2005)
The XK-3 was Hammond-Suzuki's single-manual digital tonewheel organ. It came out a couple of years after the New B3. The New B3 had set a new standard for digital emulation of the electromechanical Hammond sound, but it carried a price tag north of £15,000. The XK-3 was the cheaper, more portable answer. It used the same modelling engine in a compact performance keyboard.
Sound-on-Sound-UK (July 2005, p.105) gave it a thorough test and called it "the best-sounding single-manual Hammond yet." The review noted that the XK-3 could emulate a range of tonewheel voicings - the bright, punchy early console organs, the mellow last-generation types, and even the transistorised X5 sound. Key click, leakage noise and distortion artefacts were adjustable, with individual control over levels and resonances (p.108). Inside, the organ used DSP-based Leslie simulation. Hammond also offered the companion 2101 rotary speaker cabinet, which housed a treble horn, two five-inch woofers, and a two-inch tweeter (p.110, 111).
The New B3 only had MIDI Out. The XK-3 added a pair of MIDI In sockets alongside MIDI Out, and its multi-contact keyboard supported note velocity for driving external sound modules (p.105). There was also a quarter-inch line input with 50kΩ impedance, meant for running a guitar or vocal mic through the organ's effects and rotary simulation (p.108).
Surviving documentation on the XK-3 is thin beyond this review era.
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