Roland VK-8M

Slim, but to the point. Better than most of Roland's manuals

Could use some better examples of hooking up the VK in various setups. (I had to figure out on my own how to trigger the leslie with the FC pedal on my keyboard).

Hands down best B3 clone out there. I Use this MIDI'd to a Roland XV-88. It has all the controls you need right there on the unit!

I wish the at least had put a 3 digit led for editing though.

I love the audio inputs for your controller keybaord, (no mixer required!)

Some people talk about not being able to foot trigger the leslie, YOU CAN!!! On you control keyboard, setup you foot control, (not sustain) to control the modulation cc (i think, been so long since I programmed it). Now I can step on a pedal for fast leslie, and release to slow down. Awsome for big two hand chord playing with leslie!!!

I plug my expression pedal into the VK8m directly so I can control the volume of both the VK8m and my XV88 at once!

I wish there was a way to octave split the upper lower manuals so that you could use the bottom half of an 88 key synth for lower manual and the top half for upper manual. (The XV88 will transmit on different channels across the keyboard, but you can't transpose the MIDI out up or down, just the XV88 sounds).

Amazing, I play with jazz, blues, jam bands all the time and they love the sound.

Overdrive kicks but.

I found at first the organ was not very loud, so I edited the global output to max the signal strength.

When I'm not wanting to use the organ and let my XV88 play only, I simply made a "muted" organ patch saved as #6 that basically is the VK8m with all bars in and nothing else active.

It's tough!

I've dropped it. It's been rained on. Has put up with me grabbing at the bars for 2 years now and still operates like the day I bought it.

Have not had to use customer support yet

Here is what I would change.....

Add a 3 digit LED for paramiter editing.

Add a second and 3rd MIDI input to hook up an extra manual and pedal board without needing a MIDI mixer or a monster control keyboard.

Add a FC input to hook up a pedal to trigger the lesie, (so you don't have to do the programming I had to on my XV88).

Have an option to run the keyboard input signal through the COSM amp sim, (I'd love to hear the SRX Classic EP Rhodes with the overdrive!).

Make an optional drawbar controller to hook up to give you upper/lower manuals at once!

Very easy to use. The presets are not very useful - a bit too much distortion for my taste, but I guess you buy drawbars because you know how to use them, so it's not really a problem. Saving your own is very easy. You don't really need a manual to operate this thing unless you want to tweak some advanced settings. For me it works just perfect out of the box.

The D-beam is useless and there's no rotary speed switch pedal input. Oh, and the ac adapter is a mistake. They should have used a standard three-pin plug that we know from 95% of other keyboard instruments.
Other than that this baby shines. The distortion and reverb feel very warm and ... real. The percussion gets a bit too bright in the higher registers.

I naturally did a lot of research before going for the VK-8M. I think it sounds much closer to the real thing than the nord. The mp3 demos available on the internet don't really sound that well imho, so go to your music store and test it by yourself to get a better feeling.

All I can say is that my bands love it. I play blues, jazz, fusion, rock and pop in 4 bands and all the musicians I have played with are really impressed by the sound of this baby. Oh, I play it connected to my Fantom X6, which isn't perfect, but is good enough and saves me a lot of space compared to having to buy and put another keyboard on top of my X6 and Yamaha S90.

Don't let anyone fool you that synths can get any close to a good hammond sound. If you want to a good, fat B3 sound without investing in a separate keyboard, this is probably the best choice.

Looks very solid, although you obviously need to be careful with the drawbars. I've owned 2 Roland workstations and they've always been very reliable.

Never used them so far.

I got this one from the US and managed to save 45% compared to the European prices, so I guess it was a good deal. I would definitely get a new one if this one got stolen, unless Roland releases a newer model without the stupid D-Beam, with a rotary foot switch and a decent AC plug.

I love the sound. It is warm and organic. So far as close as it gets to the real thing.

Before purchasing I compared it to Nord Elektro and NI B4. B4 is great for the studio, but I hate bringing laptops to the stage and I like having some real physical controllers. Nord is nice too, but it doesn't have a reverb and I already have some decent grands, rhodes and wurlies on my yamaha S90 and fantom X6, so I didn't really need the other features. In my opinion VK-8M's hammond sound is simply better than that of Nord's, but that's a matter of taste.

I use it on stage and sometimes for recording. I fits ideally in my rig and makes me smile every time I got those "wow" looks from my band members :-) After all, it's got all that warm organic real B3 sound and weights only 2kg.

Easy as hell! Lovely sounding little clone!! Easy to operate, easy to programme if you understand manuals, great tweakability!!

It has got all the features you need in a hammond clone plus the D-beam which I don't use. Just switch it off and forget about it.

I actually sold my Nord C1 for this little thing. I think the feeling you get sitting down behind a B3 is closer with this module than anything I've tried. I have own a Hammond M3, Nord Electro and the Nord C1 and of course played a lot of B3:s. This is the closest I've come to the real thing. It's hard to explain what's better in the Vk8m but it feels like the organ actually passes through a tube preamp before the leslie, I can feel it in the keyclick and percussion, sounding a bit woody!

I love the real drawbars, much better than the Nord discolights... I mean you can even adjust the percussion recharge time!!! Perfect if you play a keyboard that doesn't have waterfall keys.

This is relatively easy to use and to program. One big drawback is that it does not come stock with the leslie simulator bypassed. But it can be done if you know how.... and once you get there.... this thing blows away Hammond Suzuki, Nord Electro and a lot of stock Hammonds!

The reverb is pretty good.The overdrive is VERY good.... one of the things that sets it apart from other Hammond simulators.

The chorus vibrato on this is OUTSTANDING and that very thing blows away ALL competition. If you want the classic chorus vibrato sound, no other Hammond emulator comes close. I have tried them ALL. This one just about nails it. It really can fool you on recordings and in live situations.

Amp 4 gives you a lot of grit and grind - the authenticity of the overdrive is very convincing . The leslie simulation is very good too.... just about the best available.

I wish for a leslie footswitch, a bit more control over percussion volume ( it is global and cannot change on presets )

It seems pretty reliable. I have had no problems with it.

The people at Roland helped me interface this with a Roland A 33 controller. I called them and they were right there for me.

If it were lost or stolen I would get another ASAP. This thing is a real sleeper - not many people have ever heard one and fewer still have with the leslie simulator bypassed , and then played through a real leslie.

I own several good Hammond setups.... a B-3 / 122 combination and an A 100 at home. There are things that the VK8m does better than the real deal! For one, the upper harmonics are all clear and free from flutter. I can adjust percussion volume.... a bit of a pain on this but it sonds great craked up a bit on second harmonic. Getting this thing to "grind" is a breeze.... just add overdrive with the knob.

Most folks will use probably us this as a plug and play module and as that it really shines. All of the main controls are easily accessed and well labeled. You really don't need a manual to start using this box and making some organ music. If you are familiar with a B3 and it's controls you will find this easy to use. The D-Beam might be TOO easy to use. I find myself triggering it by accident too often. More on this under Features.

While I love the sound and ease of use of this unit I have to give Roland a low score on Features. They missed the boat here. The biggest problem? No footswitch input for rotor speed! If you are a two-handed player a footswitch is a must. The speed can be switched via MIDI but Roland hard-wired the function to CC #80. That means you MUST have a controller keyboard that has a programmable footswitch input that can be assigned to CC #80. It was a huge mistake to leave this feature off. They should have 2 footswitch inputs, one for rotor speed and one for the brake. Or at least allow the user to set the CC# that controls these functions. Every keyboard transmits sustain on CC #64, why not let me set the speed control to that if I want. The next big omission is the lack of multiple MIDI inputs. If you want to set up a dual manual keyboard rig with an upper and lower keyboard (like a real B3) you will need some way to merge the MIDI outs of the keys into the single MIDI in of this module. And if you want to add MIDI bass foot pedals too, fehgedaboutit. And this brings up a related problem. Let's say you want to play this from a single keyboard and have the upper and lower manuals split on the keyboard. The only way you can do this is if the keyboard supports splits. Roland should have allowed the user to program such a set up on the VK-8M so any keyboard could be used a s a controller. Why did Roland leave off the Vibrato Swell buttons found on real B3s? Instead they gave us the D-Beam, in my opinion a useless gimmick that gets in the way. You reach up to change the chorus/vibrato knob and you trigger the D-Beam. They should have left this useless thing off and used the space for athe vibrato swell buttons and an LCD screen so users could do the programming I suggested above. Oh yeah, it has a stereo input but you can't send the input through the leslie effect. Come on Roland, what are you thinking? That would have been a great feature. On the plus side the drawbars are great and the rest of the features are what I expected.

The sound quality is great! I have a vintage B3 with a Leslie and I know what they sound like and how they react when played. The VK-8M is the best B3/Leslie emulation I have yet played. I had a VK7 keyboard and sold it because the sound was not right. It was close but the VK-8M is closer yet to the real B3 sound and good enough for any live gig.

I have owned many Roland keyboards and they have always been very reliable. I expect this model will be too.

I usually do not try to deal with Roland directly unless necessary, but they are available and reliable though a little slow. They do have large network of authorized repair centers and that's where I go for service. Find a good service guy near you and take him to lunch.

While I love the sound and the compact footprint I can't give it a high score overall because of the lack of features I described above. I am still trying decide if it's a keeper or if I need to trade up to a VK keyboard (with a foot switchable rotor speed).

I got my VK8M new in November of 2006 so whatever version they are currently shipping is the OS I have. I think that there are too many distortion patches.

Editing the sounds are as easy as playing the real deal. Just move some drawbars, push some buttons, twist some knobs and save your new creation. A 3 digit LED display would have been nice for showing parameter values instead of the xmas tree lighting scheme.

The one thing I wish you could do is edit the sounding octaves of each manual as trying to use this rig with a keyboard that allows splitting, but no tranposition sucks!

I find myself using three patches that I created. One that is a good "Jimmy Smith" jazz organ sound 888000000 with 3rd perc and C3 turned off initially. My other two are a very mellow 840000000 with no perc and a blown-out "ELP" distortion laden patch with the ring-mod on d-beam for some funky stuff to help peak out a hard-core blues solo.

The manual is pretty consise, easy to read and clear on instructions.

Not sure what the polyphony is, but I was rocking this thing holding the sustain pedal down the other Saturday night at a club and I didn't notice any note cancelations.

Nice reverb, but I usually have it turned off. The V and C Hammond emulations are awsome!

No expansion which is not an issue since this thing should be MIDI'd to your main axe!

I have not tried tracking all the possibilities of MIDI transmition and reception of this unit. I did run it through SONAR long enough to track what controller the "slow/fast" button transmitted. (I think it was 80 or 81), so that I could control that function with a foot pedal hooked up to my control keyboard (XV-88).

There is no sequencer, but this is a module.

I'm not a B3 expert, but it sounds like a B3 at home, on live gigs and sounds like one during a recording session so I would have to say that this is just like a B3 only weighing 8.8 lbs!

As far as what music this is good for, anything that needs a B3!

Again onboard effects sound great!

The sounds react very naturally to my performance style. I am using a weighted action 88-note keyboard to play this, but I still get the response I need to play some killer solos.

I'm glad this has a seperate power supply which means I can have a spare one in case the original one goes belly up during a last minute set up for a gig.

It is very solid. I put some heavy duty velcro strips on the bottom of it and slap it on top of my XV-88 and it works great.

It would be nice if they made a more universal stand mount for it that would let you attach it to any keyboard, mic, or percussion stand.

Have never had to use Roland's customer support. I have yet to see any third party support groups on the internet.

If this thing broke I would either get it fixed or get another one.

As mentioned above, I would replace this bad boy.

I've been playing professionaly for 30 years. My main gear I use is a Roland XV-88, MIDI'd to a VK8M. I also love my Yamaha S80 for it has the best Rhodes patch ever that the dropped from the S90 and MOTIF series, (Herb Rhodes).

Again, I wish it had a display or at least a software editor/librarian.

It definately helps me make music.

I'm using Roland's v1.06 OS on my VK8m. Wokrs fine... can't tell much from the original OS except maybe the percussion works more predictably.

The VK8m is straight-forward on the surface and has a few hidden options that go pretty deep. Like everyone I dislike the ease of which you can accidently trigger the D-Beam and I wish there was a switch input for leslie fast/slow. I'll go one further: I wish it was compatible with any expression pedal - my old Yamaha expression pedal doesn't work with it so I gotta order a Roland. I agree with people who think there's too many presets with high amounts of distortion.

But I wouldn't own this if I didn't like the layout overall. Everything you need is readily at hand, and all the most-used functions are intuitively placed. Both experienced organists and newcomers will be able to rock right away with this baby.

Well the bad first: having "spring shock" as an available sound is just stupid... tell me who on Earth needs the sound of banging on a spring reverb? But I love having decent reverb on the VK8m, which older clones like the Korg CX-3 much less the real Hammond B3 did not have.

The main things you want from an organ clone are all there with the VK8m: drawbars, leslie control, percussion, COSM amp simulation... you can design a lot of different organs with this toolkit. The Active Expression is cool too, allowing you to mix external sounds in several ways. The bright color-changing button for the D-Beam is a little distracting, and I'm not sure if I like the D-Beam itself or not... I guess it has it's uses but mostly I use it just to wave my hand over to switch the leslie speed. Overall, the features of the VK8m are fine.

This is why you buy the VK8m - it sounds great. Really. And you have a lot of control over the sounds between the regular organ features like the drawbars and percussion and Roland's own COSM amp simulations. I think they nailed what Hammond purists would demand. You can get some pretty cheezy Vox Continental or Farfisa kinda sounds out of too if you want, but the "B3" is there and that's what most people want to know. This thing growls all too well.

Seems well built for as light as it is. Weird power adapter/cable though that is definitely a liability. Not something that would be easy to replace. Otherwise, the VK8m seems solid enough.

At one time I swore off Roland because of their lousy customer support on even lousier products (first, the VS-880, and then later the much worse "Roland Studio Pack"). So I still won't buy any of their recording products. Their website is so-so and I wouldn't buy any of their products that might need a lot of customer support hence the low rating here. But I haven't needed support on the VK8m yet and I did download and install the v1.06 OS with no problems.

Well let's answer this: what is comparable to the Roland VK8m? Nothing. Really... a light one-piece Hammond tonewheel clone module with this much control and capability? Nothing else like it, period. If you want a pocket B3 or C3, you'll not come closer.

I've owned and played real Hammonds B3's with Leslies since 1977, owned two Korg CX-3's, a Hammond XB-2... the Roland VK8m is as good as any clone there is and I'd use it anywhere with pride. Makes a good companion to a digital piano but works even better with a good unweighted controller (I'm using a Novation X-Station 49).

The Roland VK8m is destined to be a classic and may even becone collectable if and when it ever goes out of production. Can be found used on eBay fairly often too, though I won't be parting with mine anytime soon. Highly recommended.

I am using the standard OS that the VK-8m came with. The presets are OK, but since I played a B-3 for many years, I prefer to use the drawbars and set the tones by hand. It adjusts the sound just like a B-3. If you want to make your own presets, it isrelatively easy, but I only did a few and hardly use them

The effects are very good, reverb, percussion, key click, they are all there and highly variable. The midi works great. The D-beam , I find,is a bit of a nuisance, since I find myself triggering it accidently when trying to adjust other settings. Most of the time I turn it off. It would be nice to have a foot switch to turn the Leslie effect on and off.

The sounds are excellent and are fairly close to a real B-3. The percussion is a bit too bright, but other than that, it sounds close to a real B-3.

Since it is a Roland, I do not anticipate any problems with the unit.

Roland has always been good for customer support.

Yes, I would get it again. After lugging around a 350 pound B-3 for years, taking this 6 pound module out of it's case and hooking up a midi cable still makes me smile. The other musicians that I work with are always commenting about how realistic this B-3 Module Sounds.......

I pump B3 type sounds and also function as a bass player in my band.. This presents certain challenges (I feel) for the clones.. First and foremost.. I need multiple outputs (one for bass sound) one for organ). The Vk8m does have split points for high/low and pedal manuals. But no multiple outputs. Its very easy to use other than that. The knobs are handy, amp modeling is cool. The Leslie simulation pretty good. The D-beam is in the way half the time.. I've had bass players standing over my rig with their ax trigger the damn thing. Suddenly I'm tone wheel braking in the middle of Brown Eyed Girl. Not too cool. The manual is pretty good.

Lots of features.. if you like organ.. Thats all it does. Active Expression is nice if you want to bring in other sounds. The Expression pedal is great.. I use Roland's pedal and it makes it sound MUCH more real and expressive. Leslie Braking while glissing gets pretty close to the real sound. I have always maintained that you might be able to tell its not a B3 by itself.. but not buried in a mix. Like a real B3.. I'm not always sure what the damn thing is going to do.. how loud it will be. It doesnt cut through real well with standard comping draw bar settings.. you need to get the highs sometimes to cut through.. and other times its insanely loud. THe pedal really helps.. Splitting for bass is easy.. although I gave up using the bass organ split because of NO multiple outputs. Instead.. I'm using a sine and a low drawbar mix together blended on my triton LE.. that works pretty well. Multiple amps and over-drive is pretty good. Wheel leackage is good too. The reverb is pretty warm also

Sounds killer. GLiss up to a high C and run your hand across the D-beam to turn on the Leslie simulation.. you'll get instant Applause. I've heard leslie simulations that were better... I've heard many that were worse. Over-all its fine. Its easier than hauling a leslie.

I've had it a year and half.. a few scratches.. it works great. I beat the stuffing out of my gear too.

Roland is pretty good.

Its really pretty good. Anyone doing organ trio, or solo organ type work might want to consider the Cx-3.. Bass sound on the organ is really important in that situation and I feel the VK8m's bass doesnt cut through enough.. and no multiple outputs. But if you're just gonna play some organ lines in a band, and play organ once in a while.. or every so often.. This is a no brainer.

Currently using the latest OS version 2.00 with the SoundSide upgrade. The presets are okay but nothing I'd ever use mostly because some have too much overdrive applied or uses percussion. I prefer to use my own settings. Simply press the H-Bar Manual button and the drawbar positions will apply to the sound, then change them to fit your taste. Now doing extensive editing is somewhat difficult because there is no LCD so you have to press a combination of certain buttons. If you have the SoundDiver software, this will be a ton easier to do. The manual was easy to follow in my opinion.

This unit has full polyphony which I find rather cool, but since this is an organ, what are the chances you'd run out of notes anyway. There is 4 reverbs (Room, Hall, Church, and Spring) with a knob to decrease/increase how much reverb you want. 3 tonewheel sets (Vintage 1, 2, and Clean) which has adjustable Leakage. I find that rather cool how they emulated that so well. 4 different amp types with adjustable Tone and Overdrive levels. I don't see where the tone knob would come in handy but the overdrive is right on. I don't like alot of overdrive but a little sounds nice. Also has vibrato/chorus and percussion. D-beam controller is cool but I haven't been able to make much use out of it. 9 drawbars which are just like the original, 8 different positions. The feel of them is very realistic too. They are a little sitffer however, but still easy to use and the click noise when you move them has been instituted. The rotary speaker is awesome which I'll go into more detail below. All parameters can be edited, but is much easier if you have SoundDiver. An expression pedal can be used, there is a port in the back. One thing I was disappointed about was the fact that is doesn't have a rotary switch pedal input so you pretty much have to use the button unless your controller can transmit CC80. I forget what CC the rotary brake button uses but I was actually able to program my mod wheel to transmit that message. Both input and output ports are included. Input can be programmed to work with the expression pedal.

Everything about this instrument is outstanding and so real. You seriously cannot get any closer without having the real thing. I know there have been negative comments have been posted in past reviews but take it from someone who uses a C3 and a leslie 122 every week. You can't get any closer without having the real thing. That's not to say that the Hammond XK-3, Korg CX-3, or nord electro 2 aren't just as good, but if you don't have room or can't afford another keyboard, the VK-8M is the way to go. It weighs about 5 pounds, its not that big at all. Perfect setup for me. The rotary/leslie speaker is as real as can be. Has both slow/fast and brake buttons. The vibrato/chorus scanner was reproduced to the very best. The percussion sounded good to me. Everything about this instrument is so real, you can't go wrong with it.

Very solid and well built. Has some kind of wood finish for side panels, I guess to give it a B3 feel. All the buttons are easy to press and the drawbars work just like the originals. I mean you'd have to really try to break something on this thing. Now I'm not about to throw mine off a balcony just to see if it bounces or breaks but all in all, it doesn't look cheaply built. If I ever needed it for a gig or something like that, I would definately use this baby.

Haven't dealt with Roland so I don't know how they handle things.

Definately would get this replaced if it ever broke or got lost/stolen. Although if I had enough money when that happened I may just get a VK-8 which is the keyboard versino of this model. The sound overal is 5 star all the way. As I've already stated you can't get any closer without having the real thing. Only disappointments are you can't hook up a footswitch to change leslie speed and for some odd reason they used CC80 instead of CC1 so if you can't change CC#'s on your controller, you're just out of luck. The leslie speed buttons were made a little stiff so sometimes I won't actually press it hard enough to switch the speed. But it was made the best it could be made and I'm happy with it.

There's no display.
Therefore you have to setup your "finetuning" in a very difficult way.
The most presets sound very bad, even there are no more ways to get good settings...

I miss a Rotary-Switch-Connector, so I had to built up my own midiController for switching the rotary actions during a live performance.
And the worst thing is, you can't store the volume in a preset!!! So you have to keep in mind the volume for every preset! Otherwise the mixer get a big problem. This is very important concerning Overdrive/Drawbars, which makes a wide dynamic range in volume.

The only good thing: it most sound great!

Hmm, I think I better go for a Clavia Nord Electro Rack 2 or Triton Rack

I grabbed a VK-8M from Sound Control in London 2 weeks ago to replace
my laptop/b4 set-up. B4 sounds fantastic, but having my laptop on stage between sets in dodgy North London pubs, and/or disconnecting it each set was too stressful. The VK-8M seemed like a perfect replacement, and much less likely to attract an oppurtunistic thief...Ease of use, for anyone that's had at least an hour or so on a B/C 3 is 10 out of 10....it's a close model ....a little tricky accessing the (very) few parameters that can be edited. The only thing I did was add some key click right away, but previous posts have indicated that other players have changed Leslie speeds etc.

The VK-8M is of course a module, so keyboard action is determined by your master board. Personally I find many modern keyboards to be a bit delicate feeling, compared to the short and sturdy C3 keys. I use a Yammi CS-6X, works fine. Hey, any organ players out there still have their old DX-7's? because they had a very smooth, fast and responsive keyboard, and would make a great manual for the VK.

Built in effects are ok...for live it's nice to have a bit of reverb right there at hand, and the Vibrato and Chorus are Hammond models and are not what some younger players might expect but they are spot on for me....Like my Hammond, I use either C3 V1 or none. Although, trivia....there is a 50 year old easter egg in older Hammond C3...if you rotate the Chorus knob slowly, while holding a chord, from C3 to V1 there is a "halfway" setting that is a combination of both, I kid you not, Hammond players! Thanks to an interview with Jon Lord for that one. Anyway blah blah
As to Midi....now here there be monsters! Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't seem to get this thing to work as a Midi drawbar controller for Native Instruments' B4 !? Is this a spat between companies, given that NI has it's own controller out know? Or am I missing something here....Let me know....
So if that's the case, then my concept of having the VK-8M for live and both it and B4 for studio is shot to hell....blah
One more gripe...the percussion has no on off toggle....instead you cycle through 3 options....a drag.

Oops one more....as previosly noted, it is a nuisance to have the D-beam controller come on for each patch....as you reach for other knobs you inadvertently trigger this damn thing. In fact, the first gig I did with it, I kept triggering TW brake from my master board when I adjusted overdrive on my piano...then the organ would be "dead" and I'd have to restart it....blah
hint, place the module high up, or off to the side of your rig, so your arms don't trigger the D-beam....although, I've found a place on my lower tier where I can change rotor speed with my head.
Last gripe..there's no footswitch for rotor (leslie RIP) speed...Que Pasa?

these gripes lose points for Mister Roland, but may not affect most players.

You know what?
All these posts about "does it sound like a B3?" yadda yadda blahhh
yeah it sounds like a Hammond. In fact it sounds like a Hammond more that my Hammond, so there. Just like you kids that think the best ever synth is a Jupiter 8, or a behemoth CS-80 etc etc...then when you play one it's like, ?!? whoa, that's all it does? where's the freaky/arppegiator/RPS thingy?
You get out what you put in.
I've had my Hammond C3 since I bought it from a church in Sault Ste. Marie (I'm Canadian, sorry) in 1988. And it's ton's of fun to play, but in the studio, listen carefully here, it takes a good deal of work to get a good, fat, noise free, buzz free sound. The Vk-8M is close enough, and better, based on it's variety of amp sims.
Just like buying an old Wurlitzer 200A, what you get from plugging that into a PA, is not what you hear on the Logical Song.
You can't cut out the studio engineer folks...
So for sounds, it gets a 10

except one thing...a guy previously posted about the way Hammond keys trigger8 or 9 tones, one at a time, as the key moves down...absolutley! And I don't know why this has been ignored
either....This is why a Hammond chord sounds different if played very lightly and rapidly....Only H players will know what we mean.

Seems built well. Yessir, I like-it!
I don't know...in 20 years playing pro I've managed to break every one of my playthings, even the ones I stole....
In fact my C3 has a graveyard of broken keys, to the left of the lower manual, where I've epoxied them and swapped them out for the upper right where I play most. Although now that the 80-90's are over and I've turned 40, I spend less time standing on my Hammond at the end of the night, that helps...;

Every Roland I've ever had has broken at some point.
The Only key I had that NEVER broke was my poor ol' DX-7, which I sold 12 years ago to buy a fp-8 that breaks down more often than a British car....
Being from Vancouver, I was always able to get good service...here in the UK I've been sent to a dodgy warehouse in Warrington by Sound Control, with my broken MC-505, which broke again 2 weeks later while I was playing in Central America....the lcd went, but I could still dial up patterns and guess....hilarious, I did better like that than I did the tour before haha
Basically, when you warrenty runs out on a 5-900 pound product, you're on your own...so low marks for the good folks from Roland ( sorry Dave)

It's good fun....for uses of the ring mod on Hammond, please refer to
Deep Purple In Rock...Hard Lovin' man
Deep Purple Made in Japan....Lazy

very entertaining.
Just like my Hammond, I have to use a bit of extra gain to get it to really howl.
PS I've got a pre 1960 C3 but have not been able to pin the date....any Hammond players out there, can I plug this site?
http://www.prevailingwinds.net/agelist/agelist.php

and of course my own, Cheesy yea yea bogoff ;-)
www.soundclick.com/badmrfrosty