Hammond-Suzuki XE-1

Soft ver. 2.01 But it is final edit...no more up-dating...
Most of all.... This Heavy emul got many scroll
Leslie speed adjust...and EQ....You better save your favorite set
Real time control??? Ha! Just draw bar ...other thing just bother your finger

XE got two different sound engine...PCM voice and Tonewheel...
PCM editing got no control slider or knob...you wanna edit??
and you gotta scroll up and down....ah so tired
Sequencer is so easy to use.....

The Organ sound is very very real and fantastic
You can get every aspect of B3 sound
Mic set angle...Leslie parament...chorus Vib effect...key click
so perpect....EQ and other delay reveb is good (not extreme sensitive)
Preset Draw-bar is very useful (Jazz, rock ,R&B it doesn't matter)
but PCM voice is not perfect Charming as tonewheel sound
....You gotta know that...
and Coming soon XK-3 sound is better than XE
I'm sure...I guess so many XE user (specially recently)got regretful
coz XE series not for gig or portable....just in the house fate...
You wanna more real crazy B3 howl......then buy leslie 21
XE-Leslie 21 super duo can catch up New B3 (or XK-3)

Perfect After sales service
Suzuki Japan.....is GREAT !!!!!!!

I'm not sure Other office

Lost or stolen????
Yeah REPLACE it as coming soon XK-3

Roland VK line up....Its leslie fuckin' terrible
KORG......no foot manual, no leslie pin, got no other voice....most of all the price not charming....but tonewheel sound is great
Nord Electro Yeah so good light weight real sound(incl piano EP)
but Drawbar is not....mmm.......Most of B3 Maniac like real physical draw like you !!

In Fact XE series price so very high and home using product
Not for band member

You wanna real B3 sound ....No consider other maker
JUST BUY SUZUKI LINE UP....no matter XE... new B3 or up coming XK-3
All product inner own leslie simul so correct and beautiful strong
charming sound

ABSOLUTELY PERFECT !!!!

It's true

Software Version 2.0. The drawbars have a very authentic sound, and you can select from mellow (like an A100), B-3 type, or bright (like an X66 or X77). All the standard percussion, vibratos and chorus are available and sound very authentic. The additional sounds are really excellent, like the breathy Sax, flute, trumpet, etc. Decent piano and electric piano and synth sounds as well. The "auto-band" and rhythms are really excellent, it's like playing along with Band-in-a-Box style accompaniments, and it analyzes the chords you are playing on the fly. There are quite a few ways to edit sounds and produce your own rhythms and accompaniments as well. The manual is ok, you really have to dive in and experiment to create rhythms etc, since the manual doesn't really do a good job of explaining how do do that.

If you're used to playing a Hammond, it's very intuitive to use.

Polyphony is excellent, you can play two full handfuls of keys, with drawbars and other voices selected simultaneously, while playing along with the auto rhythm and auto accompaniment voices too. Also, you can play along with SMF's from a floppy. A really great feature is the Compact flash card which is much faster than the floppy, and stores hundreds of songs.

Keyboard action is great, and the spring-leaf keys are the same as my old Hammond spinet model from way back when. Built in effects include equalization and reverb, and they sound good. Also you can plug in a microphone into the back panel, and your voice will be added to the mix. You can also control a MIDI module and input it's sound into the back panel to be added to the mix.

I use an additional MIDI keyboard and an additional MIDI pedalboard with it, so I can play bass (drawbar or other bass voices) with my feet, and have an extra keyboard so I don't have to use the keyboard split function.

The Leslie simulator is ok, but dissapointing...it sounds similar to a miked leslie sound, but it comes with an 11-pin socket built in, and that's what I use to power a Leslie 2101, and the resulting sound is extremely exciting and authentic. The Leslie 21 responds to MIDI commands from the XE-1 adjusting rise time, fall time, brake time, slow speed, fast speed etc.

It has an "easy record" feature for a sequencer that makes recording and playing MIDI sequences very easy. Although for live shows, I think the auto-band accompaniment is more versatile than playing with a sequence.

My favorite feature: I've been waiting for a long time for someone to think of this: The auto-accompaniment has a 4-bar intro button, two discreet fill buttons, and a 4 bar ending button. So you can play as many verses of a dance song as you want, and hit "fill" when transitioning from verse to chorus, and when the dancers have had enough, just hit "ending". It's incredibly useful, and you're no longer restricted to playing only as many verses as you had pre-recorded on your sequence.

Also, it has stereo, dual 50-watt amps and speakers built in, so you don't have to bring sound reinforcement for small restaurants and coffee shop gigs. (The leslie simulator for the drawbar sounds also plays through these built in speakers).

The drawbars sound almost exactly like an old Hammond tonewheel organ. The extra voices are some of the best I've ever heard, and very useful. My favorites are the sax, flute, trumpet, electric piano, and strings.

I mostly play dinner music, and standards, but I also play sequences for pop dance music as well. The auto rhythms and accompaniment truly allow playing almost any conceivable style from Broadway to traditional Waltzes, to Jazz and Swing, to Rock and Ballads and many Latin styles.

The keyboard does not use velocity for the drawbars of course, but you can select and use velocity sensitivity for the extra voices. And there are the usual pitch bend and modulation sliders as well for added expressiveness.

I also bought the optional expression pedal, which is very heavy and stable, and has a built in side-kick switch which can be programmed to control Leslie Fast/Slow, damper pedal, auto accompaniment start/stop, or many other functions.

There is no aftertouch.

I've used it for solo gigs...and it's a dream come true for that. It's small and only weighs 70 lbs. Sure beats dragging around a B-3!! I've also used it playing in my band "Surf's Up", and it's been perfectly reliable so far.

I've emailed in one suggestion to Hammond-Suzuki, and the acknowledged receipt of my email, but I never heard anything else. My only gripe is that when storing songfiles on floppy or the Compact flash card, they are not alphabetized, and appear in the order you add them, which makes finding a saved sequence difficult. I resorted to creating 24 files (one for each letter of the alphabet) to contain the sequences and make finding them easier and faster. Hopefully, they'll update the software to fix this flaw sometime soon.

I'd definitely buy another one if it were lost or stolen. It's an exceptional value for what I paid. BUT, the USA dealers wanted over $5000.00 for it, and I ended up getting it from a European supplier instead, which saved me about $2000.00!! I did have to buy a 220V converter (for $25) , but hey, it was worth it for the savings!

I've been playing about 35 years, and am a church organist and member of the American Guild of Organists. I also have a Roland XP-80, which I sometimes use for gigs, but the Hammond XE-1 has definitely been my favorite keyboard ever. I love it's versatility, and the fact that someone actually added all the features that I need and use to play a dinner, reception and dance.