Finally! a clonewheel I can call an "instrument" 
by Jay from Urbandale, IA, May 2008
Music Background:  Studio musician, Funk, Rock, Blues, Dub and Reggae

Since there are reviews here coming from the Korg and Roland users, I thought I would give my comparison coming to the XK-3c from the Nord Electro 2 (which has been my clonewheel for the last few years). I've never owned the CX-3 or VK-7 so I can't compare it to those, but at first, like the other reviews, I also thought that the Hammond lacked the 'scream' that my electro has. Once I got some tweeking done, mainly eq and tube distortion, I realized that the electro doesn't actually have a high end 'scream' like I had thought all these years. The Hammond has so much more body and warmth and makes the electro sound annoyingly shrill...too bright and so brittle. The XK-3c has that Hammond scream that isn't thin and brittle but thick and meaty and still 'screamy' enough to CUT! Another thing that immediately impressed me with the Hammond is how deep you can get into editing your patches. Pretty much ANY parameter of a patch can be tweeked unitl the cows come home. plenty of Leslie cabs to choose from, overdrive hitting only the AX7 or AU7, or using both tubes with a frequency crossover, lots of usable reverbs (but no spring? wtf?), Chorus and Vibrato and percussion all infinitely tweekable, it just goes on and on. The different tonewheel sets are great foundations for building the type of sounds you want too.
The only reasons I gave 4.5 instead of 5 are little things that start getting into personal preference and opinion over objectiveness.
1. The leslie sim. I think it is actually darn good. From what I've read, much better than the original XK-3. But I do think that this is the only area where the Electro STILL has Hammonds beat. But...we should be playing this board through a real leslie anyways, right? Which brings me to #2.
2. Tried using my Motion Sound Pro 3-T with it and the tone became very harsh. No ammount of gainstaging would change it either. hmm? the pro 3-t Always seemed to warm up my electro real nice, so can't figure out why it made the 'warmer' Hammond so harsh. went back to leslie sim and my carvin KB1010 and there was all the body and warmth that the motion sound had sucked out of it. But gosh, sure would like to use my real rotory speaker and swirl some AIR. I've read not to use the XK-3 or 3c with motion sound. I don't know why, but now I agree. 4.5 out of 5 for not being able to use my motion sound and now needing another large expensive piece of furniture (real LESLIE) to complete the puzzle.
3. no spring reverb. Hall, room, church all there but no spring? what gives?

Overall, like the title says, this is defintely the forst clonewheel I've owned (Nord electro, Hammond XB-2, NI B4) that I consider a truly musical instrument. If this was a review based on the sound alone it gets a 5. I'm just being picky. Great Product, finally Hammond backs up their name with something that sounds like a HAMMOND!!

  XK-3c review 
by Chas Carlson from Minneapolis, MN, April 2008
Music Background:  keyboardist, recording engineer

I was looking to update my old Roland VK7 clonewheel organ and was intrigued by ads of the new Hammond XK-3c. I read the other review posted here and thought, well maybe I should make the plunge. I used the XK-3c at various gigs over 2 weeks and came to the same conclusions as Jeff did. Nice, but missing the “scream” of my VK7….did I make a big mistake? That’s when I plunged into the manual to see if maybe I could fix this. Wow, was I surprised! There are a plethora of settings for this model. I had been using the default, Preset Key B, which is very bland. I started bumping the EQ and immediately noticed I had my “scream”, but in a much more pleasing way. I also scaled down the chorus/vibrato and percussion settings to what I was used to and discovered this was also an improvement from my Roland. I also flipped through the cabinets, but quickly came back to the default 122 cabinet which seemed to have the most body.
There are shortcuts to most parameters and I did all of my “improvements” quickly right before my gig. Our sound man was definitely happy! Wow, the XK-3c is more than I had expected and I just started my tweaking. This organ, I know, will be part of my rig for a long, long time!!!

  Best yet, but not perfect 
by Jeff from Naperville, IL, December 2007

I still have my CX-3 I've been using the last several years, but I've now used the new XK-3c at church a few times. What I noticed immediately is the lack of "scream" on the high end, compared to the CX-3. Also, the chorus/vibrato is much better but is actually too loud and overwhelms the Leslie sim, which is less effective than the CX-3. But the sound definition in the mid range is far superior on the Hammond. I haven't had time to look into it much at all, but right out of the box, I like it better than the CX-3 and think it's a closer match to the real deal. Now, if I could just get the church to spring for a Leslie or two...

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