Hammond XK-5 Organ

Description

Shop By Department
New Arrivals
On Sale
Pre-Owned Gear & B-Stock
Hammond XK-5 Organ
Why you need the Hammond XK-5 Organ:
The Hammond XK-5 Organ destined to become the gold standard in organs.
On classic Hammonds, pressing a key closes nine mechanical contacts: one for each drawbar. Your ears usually hear the multiple harmonics as one note. Depress a key slowly, however, and you can hear the harmonics come in at slightly different times. Normal playing created a subtle “slop” between otherwise crisp attacks, and the more drawbars you pull out, the more of an almost subliminal but chewy and soulful character it impacts to the sound. One perhaps feels this more than hears it, but seasoned players certainly notice its absence.
You can’t accomplish this with a single MIDI note-on, which is what most of today’s organ and synth key actions use. The XK-5 has three mechanical contacts at different points in the keys’ travel. Each of these in turn triggers three virtual contacts, giving you separate “note on” connections for every drawbar frequency in the same manner as the original nine-contact electro-mechanical Hammond® organs. The result is a fingers-to-music connection that perfectly duplicates sitting at a vintage B while saving on weight and cost. Plus, the time-spread between these “note ons” is programmable, as is the order in which you hear the harmonics speak. And since the contacts all receive and transmit MIDI note data, you can capture every harmonic nuance of your performance in your DAW program of choice—to which you can directly connect the XK-5 via USB.
The XK-5 was designed to duplicate the heft, bounce, and key dip of a “new old stock” and well-maintained B-3™: No springy synth keys allowed!
The XK-5 employs new proprietary technology to recreate Hammond’s storied tone wheel generator with unprecedented accuracy and flexibility. Tone wheels were spinning discs on shafts, each with its own pickup pointing at the edge. The pattern of “teeth” cut into the edge of the wheel and its rotational speed determined the pitch. Modeling and sampling are combined in an exclusive process to capture the frequencies of all 91 tone wheels found in the original organs, not to mention other important sonic details such as key click, harmonic percussion, vibrato-chorus, and more.
In addition to letting you perfectly duplicate different conditions of Hammonds—from showroom-new to road-abused if that’s what you’re going for—there’s the ability to recreate individual organs right down to the model, year, and serial number! Presets will capture the exact tonal qualities of famous artists’ instruments, from jazz great Dr. Lonnie Smith to Chuck Leavell (The Rolling Stones) to Gregg Rolie (Santana, Journey) and more.An often overlooked subtlety of the Hammond sound was that the tone wheels generated tiny voltages that needed to be stepped up, and you could be “drawing on” some of the same wheels at the same time by playing similar notes with similar drawbar settings on both manuals. All signals from the upper, lower, and pedal manuals passed through a matching transformer that was intended to even things out before the signal moved on to the preamp and vibrato-chorus scanner. The transformer—a piece of iron with a coil wrapped around it—could “remember” some of its saturation based on how hard it had been working previously, thus affecting new notes played. Physicists call this hysteresis. Musically speaking, it affects how much “volume robbing” you hear and adds to what Hammond aficionados think of as the “breathing” quality of the organ. (The phenomenon is similar to why some recording engineers like transformer-equipped microphones and/or preamps for certain sounds.) In the XK-5, the matching transformer and its place in the signal chain is modeled precisely, and the saturation and hysteresis amounts are adjustable from barely-there to over-the-top. Like we said, we’re closing the final few millimeters of the realism gap.
Four full sets of Harmonic Drawbars plus pedal drawbars, just like on original Hammond console organs including the B-3
12 additional virtual tone wheels are devoted to harmonically complex pedal tones (i.e. more than just 16′ and 8′ sine waves), as found on Hammonds beginning in 1945.
Custom tone wheel profiles available via download.
Our best-ever Digital Leslie effect. Anything else is just a “rotary simulator.”
Continuously variable Digital Leslie speed if desired.
Dedicated octave shift / transpose buttons.
Improved DSP-based overdrive complemented by vacuum tube preamp.
Improved vibrato-chorus.
Dedicated on/off buttons and amount knobs for reverb, overdrive, and assignable multi-FX.
Lower B drawbars can alternately control 9 MIDI CC messages for external gear.
Left and right ¼” outs can be used at the same time as Leslie output, for running the XK-5 through a real Leslie in parallel to stationary speakers, a subwoofer, or house P.A.
More key-triggering modes for pedal-to-lower coupler (Manual Bass function).
Firmware updatable via USB flash drive or directly from computer.
Crisp new OLED display is more readable under different lighting conditions.
Shipping Policy
BUYER PAYS SHIPPING-WE SHIP VIA FEDEX OR UPS. WE ACCEPT PAYPAL.
*For an additional charge, overnight or upgraded shipping may be available to buyers in the USA. Email us for more info.
Alto Music will only ship to the address provided by PayPal, and must be a PayPal confirmed address. Any item(s) purchased at a total exceeding 9.99 (prior to shipping charges and or sales tax when applicable) will require a recipient signature upon delivery.
Warranty
New condition items carry manufacturer warranty. Contact us through eBay for more details.
Return Policy
Refunds are issued within 30 days of the date the customer's order is received. Merchandise and packaging MUST be in the same condition as when received. Items may be subject to a restocking fee up to 20%. Alto Music reserves the right to refuse any return if it appears the item has been used. The customer is responsible for return shipping costs. If the customer's order included free shipping, the customer will be refunded order amount, less Alto Music's original shipping cost.
There are absolutely no refunds for the following items:
Software (if unsealed or registered)
Sheet Music
Books
DVDs
Videos
CDs
Harmonicas, Mouthpieces, Earbuds/Earphones/Headphones(if unsealed), or any item that may come in contact with the mouth, ears or nose.
Used merchandise carries a 30-day warranty through Alto Music, unless otherwise specified.
New merchandise carries the original warranty issued by the manufacturer.
There are no warranties for the following items:
Strings
Drumheads
Drum Sticks