Organ Emulation Keyboard
Joey Defrancesco has put his name on a new keyboard by Studiologic: the Numa Organ. (Studiologic is one of the brand names of the keyboard manufacturer Fatar).
All of the controls that the Hammond player would want are there, in the right places, including reverse-color preset keys, which provide a way to make quick changes during performance. This is significant, because until now, only organs with the Hammond name, specifically the XK-3, XK-3c and New B3 include the preset keys. In addition to the functionality they provide, they look really cool.
Now for a rundown of the features of the Numa Organ:
- Pitch and mod wheels – Provide extra functionality to use the Numa as a keyboard controller. The mod wheel doubles as a rotating speaker slow/fast switch, and because of the way it is oriented, switching from slow to fast requires a motion similar to using a traditional half-moon Leslie switch.
- Vibrato control – A rotary knob, just like on a vintage B-3, with switches to turn the vibrato effect on/off for the upper and lower manual.
- Drawbars – A set of nine drawbars are provided plus switches that specify which manual is affected by the current drawbar settings: upper, lower or bass pedals.
- Split and Transpose – The keyboard can be split so that the lower manual or bass pedal sounds are triggered from the left part of the keyboard and the upper manual sounds from the right. Transposition can be done in half steps.
- Percussion – four buttons control the percussion effect, like on a vintage Hammond: on/off, soft/normal, slow/fast, and 2nd/3rd harmonic.
- Effects – Rotary controls provide for adjustment of reverb, drive, key click and tonewheel leakage.
- Equalizer – bass and treble controls.
- Keyboard touch control – allows switching between organ mode and dynamic mode
At just 22 lbs., The Numa Organ is one of the most lightweight organ emulation keyboards on the market. What is missing – which I hope they include on a future model – is a second set of drawbars and a set of pedal drawbars.
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