Korg CX-3

1.0, it was the store model at a big retailer. I took it home while they ordered me a new one. I fell in love with it playing it at home. I don't normally play keys but just LOVED the sounds and was eagerly anticipating the new one with v2.0. The new one came in, I plugged it in and sounded absolutely HORRIBLE compared with the store model. I ended up taking the floor model, it's serial number is in the 400's so I think it's a pretty early model, the new one they shipped to me was in the 4,000's.

Unless there was a physical defect with the new v2.0 keyboard which I doubt because I compared them side by side at the store with 2 keyboard players. They thought it was the software also. I just can't believe that more people here praise v2.0.

I guess I'm using the OS v2.0, as I bought the unit about six months ago, and I seem to get the drawbar animations etc. Not that I really get into the presets or anything, but that's judging by other reviews down below. The presets are, well, just presets, and I definitely didn't buy a clonewheel for the presets. However, the sheer amount of the parameters sometimes require that you use the presets as a basic sound and build the tone that you want based on that particular sound. It was fairly easy to get used to, and I was editing patches in no time. I use this board live, so I have basically played around with a few presets and set up the tones that I like, mainly based on the amp and reverbs. All other stuff I play around on the fly, and an organ player who doesn't use the drawbars, percussion or C/V knob shouldn't be calling himself an organ player in any case. The manual was quite good, the parameter names are easy to understand, without a lot of unintelligible acronyms that most synth manufacturers love to use. (Actually I have a theory that they are in a secret race amongst themselves so as to develop the most incomprehensible manual.) Having said that, you have to be familiar with leslie miking, amplifying and general Hammond organ concepts to fully understand what the manual is talking about.

The beast has full polyphony, as expected from a clonewheel. Waterfall keyboard makes the palm smears and glissandos feel like the real thing. The built-in effects are quite good, especially the leslie simulator is almost perfect. What one would expect from a clonewheel are all there, the chorus and vibratos, overdrive, reverb and percussion... The thing that I really like was the tone controls, as I hate the sound check stage, so I just tell the engineer to get everything flat, and I play around with my tone when I'm playing. No complaints yet, so I guess I'm doing a good enough job on that front.

One thing that shines on the CX3 is the double drawbar set, and I use it extensively. I usually split the board when I'm not in a solo, and use the lower two octaves for the "pad" with something like 044433333 and the upper three for licks, trills and frills.

Yes, there are MIDI in and outs, and I will possibly use something for the lower manual in near future, but haven't tried it yet. Sequencer? Get outta my face!!!

For what a clonewheel should be doing, Korg has done a very good job. I play the blues, and it does everything expected from an organ. One thing I'm slightly annoyed with (with an emphasis on slightly) is the volume level when the chorus / vibrato setting is changed. It's not that much of a problem, but it requires some manual intervention. Velocity and aftertouch on an organ? Get outta my face!!!

Built like a tank, and I mean it. I hate to lug 100 lbs of keyboards, stands and cables, but I usually have to do that when I'm gigging. This baby is around 40 lbs, but I shouldn't be complaining when I compare this to the real thing. Last week, the organ dropped from the Ultimate Apex keyboard stand from 3 ft to the floor, with my feet as the only damping factor, during a solo! I just took it and lifted it onto the stand and apart from the drawbars dropping to 888888888, there were no problems whatsoever with the sound, cables or anything. Need I say anything more?

As a principle, I try not to gig without backup, but if I had to, I probably would do it with the CX3.

Never used it, I hope I never will.

I'd definitely buy this again if it was lost or stolen, it's made for what I do, playing live blues on a relatively small stage with an 8-piece band. I've been playing the piano for about 35 years, and I've been on synths and keybs for tha last 20 in various bands. My stage rig consists of the CX3 and a Roland Fantom with Keyboards of the 60s and 70s expansion board (SR-JV80-08). I compared it with Hammond XK2 and XK3, and Roland VK8 when I was around shopping, the XK2 sounded a bit thin, XK3 was too pricey and Roland's leslie sim wasn't as good as the CX3. I need to say that this a matter of personal taste, and I definitely don't condone musicians who have opted for other clonewheels.

Using version 2 software, and I never use presets, they are boreing next to the sounds I can create on this machine! I bought used on eBay without manual, and don't even need it. For what little info I need, I can get the info from the KORG website.

The polyphony is unlimited, it is an organ. The effects are incredible, and infinately editable. The keyboard action is just like the old tonewheel organs, easy and snappy fast. It has midi in/out/thru.

This is a completely realistic tonewheel-sounding unit. It looks like a classic instrument, is laid out like an old Hammond, but has all the flexibility of a new digital instrument. You can adjust everything about its sound and operation! This board is good for blues, rock, church, jazz....you name it. It can sound like the sweetest church organ, or the grungiest rock organ. The rotating speaker on this is what puts it over the top when compared with its clone competitors. Korg, Roland, Hammond, Nord, even Viscount make good Hammond clones, but only the KORG CX3 needs no external Leslie. In fact, my experience has been that if you spend some time "tweaking" the leslie parameters in the organ, you can create an even thicker doppler effect than a real Leslie would give you. From the audience, it sounds like a mic'd Leslie screaming at you.

Backup? Are you kidding, this is a KORG....I will always use it with another board anyway for piano and other sounds, but this is THE organ!

Gee, don't know yet, haven't had to call or write.

If it were lost or stolen, I'd have to get another. I've been playing for 30+ years, and used a Hammond A100 and 2 Leslie 147's for a long time. TRULY, it had nothing on this sound. I also have a Roland RD-170 and a Korg Triton Classic 61. I love that this sounds like I remember a tonewheel unit should sound like!

V 1.0. Presets sound great. Much depends on your amp. What little editing I've done has been easy. Had to read through some sections a few times before I got it.

Polyphony is fine for my purposes. Action is very close to a B-3. All the effects are easy to use.

CX-3 is easy to use right out of box. I play jazz and standards and the CX-3 is great for what I'm doing.

I've had it for almost 5 years and have had no problems. I use the CX-3 and a digital piano on most gigs.

N/A

I would buy another one.
I've been playing for about 45 years. I also have:
Roland RD-600 and a Roland RD-150.
The CX-3 has a great sound for jazz purposes. I don't use it on country club gigs though.

First: this is for the old analog CX-3, NOT the new digital one.

Lay-out of the controls is fine, only the overdrive adjustment is too small and too far in the back. I would have preferred the overdrive pot where the keyclick is. The fact that the 3 presets are fixed makes me not use them.

9 drawbars, tune, overdrive, eq (bass/treble) percussion (4', 2 2/3', volume and decay), keyclick, rotary (on/speed) 3 fixed presets of the drawbars.

Analog, so fully polyphonic. No MIDI.

I'm comparing this to my 70-s Cordovox White Elephant organ (CDX-0652), not realy a hammond simulater but a nice organ with flute voices. I used an ELKAtone 700 leslie (no tubes).

The CX-3 is a rocker. Overdrive sounds great. The keyboard has a growl with a sound of it's own; it definately has character. The keys feel fine.

It seems not designed for jazzy, clean sounds. In comparison to my cordovox thye cx-3 sounds a little muffled and the highs sound a little harsher, especially in the highest octave. Chords played on the cordovox sound more open and defined. Even thoug the cordovox only has 6 flute voices the sound is more versitile than the CX-3 with 9 voices. When it comes to (hard) rock sounds and screaming solo's the CX-3 wins, but overall I prefer the cordovox for it's dynamic and open sound.

The rotary effect on the CX-3 is usable, but sounds like a subtle chorus to me. The fast setting is unusable. The CX-3 sounds very good without any leslie effect, where the cordovox will sound too direct (almost irritating) and a bit boring. But this is why they invented the leslie in the first place.

I've only had this keyboard for a few weeks and have not gigged with it yet (but I will). I play Fender Rhodes and use a Roland Juno-60 or the mentioned cordovox (modified).

What I like about this keyboard is that it has character; a sound of it's own. I'm not hearing a classic hammond, but bands like Pink Floyd and Emmerson, Lake and Palmer come to mind. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually used the CX-3.

Also the design, size and weight are very good. (the cdx weighs a ton). Good keyboard for the price I payed. I'm curious how the sound is compared to the new CX-3.

I own and played a few shows with the Korg CX-3 Version 2.
I also own and currently play shows with a hammond Xk-2. I Think the CX-3 Is very easy to use and program. The presets sound good and are labeled nicely. The patch editing is a snap to use, and is very handy. I thought the Manuel was very Specific .

The korg CX-3 Version 2 Has alot of the B-3's charcteristics like leakage tonewheel overtone levels,key clicks right down to noise simulation. The CX-3 has a great Key response and waterfall action.
The actual sound of the organ Is kind of harsh even when played through a real leslie. I also felt that the sound was slightly thin and very compressed. I never had that problem with the Hammond Xk-2 this to being used with the same real leslie. The CX-3 has better feel and characteristics Than the xk-2. The Xk-2 has a fatter smoother drawbar sound and mixes well in live gig situations. Maybee it has to do with the version 2 upgrade!!!!!!!

I feel for the money that the new Korg CX-3 is built rather flimsy and not that strong. You always should carry a backup cause ya never know what might happen.

I have played shows with a real Hammond C-3 and leslie. I also played shows with The Hammond XB-3 and XK-2 running them through a leslie. All those instruments blended very well with the bands that I have played with over the years. When the new CX-3 came out I've
purchased one and gigged with it. It is not really a road worthy combo organ. The Hammond combo organs and Roland Combo Organs are built stronger And Sounds much Fatter and smoother. The korg CX-3 has more B-3 Character and Better Key Response.

I've been clone shopping for a while. I mainly use the Native Instruments B4 in the studio, but I've been looking for something that sounds like a B3 with a Leslie for live use. I've owned two Roland VK-8s, a VK-8M, and a VK-7. In my opinion, the tone, C/V, and leakage coming out of the Rolands is better and more tweakable. However, the VK's Leslie simulation leaves much to be desired (even version 2). Korg gets much closer to the real deal. The VK-8 with a real Leslie (or Motion Sound) would probably be the better choice, but who wants to carry that extra equipment around??? Not me.

I returned all of my Roland purchases, and settled on a B-Stock CX-3 (for the same price as the VK-8). It had a few dings, but worked perfectly out of the box. I had to install OS v2, which took about 15 minutes and went off without a hitch (AMD 2600 running Windows XP Pro w/Steinberg Unitor-8 MIDI interface). Korg provides software which you install and run on your computer to do the update. It's really nice!!! It runs some tests first to see if your system is capable of sustaining transfer rates, etc. The only shortcoming was that I didn't know quite what to do once the program was finished updating the CX-3. It left the CX-3 with a message on its display (I think it was supposed to be the word "received" but it was not spelled correctly). Anyway, I powered the CX-3 off and back on, and got the V2 drawbar animations! V2 adds a number of features that make the upgrade worth it:

- improvements in sound
- improvemed Leslie sim
- new "mellow" drawbar setting which takes some of that digital harshness out of the sound that other reviewers have complained about
- a new reverb type (dark)
- the ability to use a pedal to control the Leslie speed in "momentary" mode as opposed to alternating between fast & slow (and having to press and release it for each speed change).

After owning a VK-8 (which is impossible to edit accurately, and very frustrating to even attempt), the Korg CX-3 is a dream come true!!! It has a nice display that shows you EXACTLY what value each parameter is set to. Another nice thing about the CX-3 is that EACH patch has its own settings for the Leslie sim. With the Roland, you get one global setting.

The CX-3 has full polyphony. The keyboard action is a nice, but takes a little getting used to if you're coming from synths & piano. The keys themselves are a little wider and squatter than any of my other synths. It's something I'll get used to quickly, but they all feel a little looser than any other keyboard I've played.

One area where the CX-3 shines is in its MIDI implementation. All of the drawbars and most of the switches send programmable CC messages. This means that the CX-3 can manipulate most of the B4's controls via MIDI! This is a huge plus over the Roland. Roland transmits & receives drawbar & controller info, but the CC numbers are fixed values.

The CX-3 does a fine job of emulating a Hammond, but it's not exactly the same thing. Would most people notice...no. Is it easier than lugging a 500 pound organ around...yes!

One thing about these clones is that it takes a lot of time & effort to set them up. I write/record progressive rock, and play in a classic rock band (Genesis, Kansas, Yes, Boston, Rush, Triumph, Deep Purple, etc). It takes a lot of experimentation and patience to get things just right.

The onboard effects are pretty good. There's basically reverb, chorus/vibrato, distortion, leakage, and the Leslie sim. Here's a rundown:

-- There are a few types of reverbs, and a couple of parameters you can adjust (such as time and depth). The onboard reverb will get the job done!

-- The chorus/vibrato are not as good as the Roland, but they'll get you by. One thing I don't like about them is the way they increase or decrease the volume of the sound your playing. I think the effect is too drastic, and the chorus (especially) might be a bit too invasive. The Roland VK-8 does this WAY better.

-- The distortion is pretty good. I suspect Korg will introduce a new Organ soon that includes the tube that they've put into the Triton Extreme. It would do wonders for the sound!!! Of course, it'll probably be announced at the 2005 winter NAMM because I JUST WENT OUT AND BOUGHT A CX-3! Such is my luck...

-- Leakage is there, but not as good as Rolands. The CX-3 doesn't quite sound like a vintage Hammond because of this. It's too clean sometimes.

-- The Leslie sim is what sold me on the Korg. It might not be as good as the Nord, but it leaves the VK-8 in the dust. Lots of adjustable parameters that can be saved with each patch...nice feature!!

No problems yet! I hope it holds up. I suspect that it will be fine mechanically and electronically. My big concern is for the crappy case it's built in. Is that wood? I have my doubts. Some advice...be very carefull with that wood-looking layer on the outside of the keyboard. It will actually start peeling off. Mine was a b-stock with light use, but there was already a section peeling up from the bottom in the back. I'm trying to find a way to make sure it doesn't keep peeling.

Never dealt with them, but the website is pretty good. They offer PDF manuals, and the upgrade software for the CX-3 was lightyears beyond what I've seen from other manufacturers.

If lost or stolen, today I'd replace it with another CX-3. If lost or stolen 6 months from now, I'd look at what was available at the time. Right now, this is the best thing for me. I'm glad I tried the b-stock model. It was about $300 cheaper than a new one, comes with the same warranty, and was in really good shape.

I love the flexibility of the MIDI implementation and the detail in the Leslie sim. It becomes less convincing with the C3 setting, but it's still better than average. I hate the "wood" casing...it just doesn't hold up well.

I've been playing about 35 years. Other gear owned: Roland Fantom-S88 & Fantom X6, Yamaha Motif ES6, Korg Karma, Alesis ION, lots of software synths.

pretty darn easy. good performance keyboard (patches to drawbars and back). i'm kinda concerned about breaking the leslie switch, though.

great features overall. too many in fact to sit around and hit buttons all day. i just use the basic patches and modify 'em as need be (often in real-time)

sounds fine to me. i just need to recreate that classic sound in a band for people drinking beer. the audiences doesn't know a tonewheel from a bicycle wheel. they just want to hear a good band. the cx mixes well in a rock context. not sure about jazz or blues but assume it'll work just fine

it's worked so far although one key is stuck at the top of the velocity range when i use a sound module. could be the moisture that built up one cool summer night...

haven't called 'em

probably would buy another one even if it did cost too much. excellent board.

I love this board.

It has the feel and the sound of a Hammond organ and the Leslie sim is 5 stars.

To the guy that gave his opinion (the one below me...Fred?), dude, stop snorting cocaine.

You gave prospective buyers a lot of NONSENSE s*it.No one is interested in your BIASED and UNHELPFUL opinion.I'm also 50 and I give a damn s*hit about what you did or not. WHO CARES?

I found this "Hammond 3 SERIES "clone/simulator/emulator" very easy to use. I powered it up..played it..it sucked..and I shut it off...Easy.

There is the Rolls Royce...There WAS the "Rolls- Wagon" It's not a B3...but will fit in a Volks-wagen. No argument...it's greatest feature is portability. And Balsa wood is light.

Well...by reading my previous reviews..you won't have to be a John Edwards to predict my verdict in this catagory. I rebuild/restore/ customize Hammonds/Leslies in Ct. USA. I'm an old dude...50 years old. I started playing the same week of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I'm so old, that when I was a kid.. Richard Groove Holmes' version of Misty was at the top of the charts in 1965. I watched a black and white tube powered TV..with antennae and a 3 channel capability...and I was the remote. I was dazed by the beautiful Hammond sound that most people took for granted then. And I'm still in a daze today. When I went to the 64' Worlds fair, there was a guy flying around with a rocket pack strapped to his ass..and my father told me I'd be flying to work like that in the future. Well..? Also at the fair there was a little Japanese made robot..coasting around, that scientists said, 40 years in the future.. would be taking out my trash. Where the F--k is he?
I was also told 40 years ago...that in the future.. somebody would invent a small portable organ that would sound like a 400lb. B3....Well the future is here..
I'm still driving to work.. I still have to take out the gargage... And there's still nothing that sounds like a real B3.
Well.. my final conclusion: After 40 years of playing, and 34 years of owning, transporting and working on Hammonds..my opinion is simple. The whole "clone" controversey, all stems from needing serious Healthcare Reform in this country. I know that all you reviewers deep down would rather play a real Hammond, and would risk body parts moving one, but are neither covered by health insurance..or have one of those crappy HMO high deductable plans. So instead of paying the $2000.00 deductable...chose to buy a clone instead. We all drink from the same river...Denial.

It worked fine until I sold it.

In all fairness...I've owned a lot of Korg products over the years..and still do...and never had to deal with them because nothing died to the degree of having to talk to them.

I never owned a new CX-3. But have played one for a few days..on a tryout basis. I know many of you will disagree with my opinions...and I'm not saying I am totally right. But I am bias'd in my opinions because I am around the old Hammonds every day...know their sound. their individual habits and attitudes. They are individuals. And electricity shoots life into them. I own and have re-built 2 of my old Hammonds, and have played numerous others.The new organ clones are not clones at all. A clone is an exactly engineered copy of the original. That would be Dolly the Sheep...not a CX-3 XK-2 VK-7 or VK-8...etc. The new digital organ clones are actually copies of themselves...all the same, no individual identity Which makes them Double Secret Probation clones. To make a B3 clone..a tonewheel would have to be extracted from it's original B3 parent..and implanted into a surrogate host,..you know the rest.