The New Hammond XK-4 Portable Organ
Traditional and cutting-edge technology bridged to create a sought after B-3 experience.
18 April 2023
The XK-4 is equipped with the new sound ‘Modelled Tone Wheel 2’ (MTW2) engine precisely reproducing the 91 tone wheels at the heart of all vintage Hammond organs. This new technology allows the expression of imperfections giving vintage Hammonds their distinction, such as pitch fluctuations due to tone wheel backlash, and volume fluctuations due to de-centring. The freedom to customise your tone has never been greater.
Hammond’s proprietary ‘Chorus/Vibrato’ and ‘Touch-Response Percussion’ are included, with the ability to choose between three generations of the virtual Chorus/Vibrato scanner; and the characteristics of the Percussion. You may also apply authentic vibrato for the transistor organ models and authentic tremulants for the pipe organs models.
In keeping with the company’s iconic design, the XK-4 uses real Beechwood for the side panels, in a warm nod to the fine cabinetry heritage of Hammond Organs.
Digital Leslie
The XK-4 is equipped with eight discrete Leslie speaker models such as 122, 145, and 147 with variations of each. You can program the volume, “fast and slow” rotation speeds, “ramp” up and down speeds, and microphone position for each horn and drum element.
Overdrive & Effects
Four distinct overdrive profiles: Tube, Solid, Clip, EP amp
Multi Effects 1: Tremolo, Wah, Ring Modulator, Compressor
Multi Effects 2: Phaser, Flanger, Chorus, Delay, Auto Pan
Connections
The XK-4 features a versatile array of output jacks, including L&R Line Out, Rotary Out and Organ Pedal Out, allowing easy connection to external amplifiers or sound reinforcement inputs determined by your needs. A Headphone jack allows silent operation. An AUX IN jack with discrete volume control allows connection of external sound sources such as a music player, drum machine or cellular phone/tablet
There’s also an exclusive jack for the optional CU-1 Leslie switch. This jack is pre-wired/programmed for the traditional ‘Half Moon’ switch, and requires no additional programming.
An exclusive 11-pin Leslie speaker cable (sold separately) can be used to connect a Leslie speaker cabinet. Such connection automatically removes the Drawbar and Transistor voices from the Line Out Jacks, and disables the on-board Digital Leslie. When connected as such, the ‘bypass’ switch returns the voices to the Line Out jacks without the Digital Leslie applied. The Pipe Organ Voices remain exclusively output at the Line Out jacks
Setups, patches, custom tone wheels, etc. can be saved to USB memory or PC/Mac. MIDI can also be directly connected to a PC/Mac with a single USB cable.
A standard AC cable (IEC C14) is used for power connection. It will automatically adapt to the power supply voltage of each country.
In addition to hyper-accurate drawbar tones, the XK-4 also features Italian, British, and Japanese transistor combo organ models, with the ability to register these instruments in the authentic manner. Multiple ranks of Classical and Theatre Pipe Organ tones, which can be registered in the traditional manner. These sounds may be custom tailored to your liking. The XK-4 has all the Hammond Essentials, ‘Chorus/Vibrato’ and ‘Touch Response Percussion’.
Features:
- Traditional drawbar organ tone reproduced in detail by the new ‘modelled tone wheel 2’ sound engine, ‘MTW2’
- Intuitive and easy-to-understand user interface for easy access to all functions
- A colour display enables highly visible and intuitive operation, in both performance and programming situations
- Pitch bend and programmable modulation wheels
- User-assignable knobs and switches which can be used to control internal functions and external devices
- A Master Equaliser providing tonal control of any performance environment
- Our exclusive virtual multi-contact system expresses the distinctive feel of a vintage Hammond’s multi-contact keyboards. Additionally, multi-contact feel on the pedals will be present if you connect any of the optional XPK-130G/XPK-200GL/SK25 MIDI pedalboards
- The onboard Digital Leslie adopts a new-generation algorithm modelling the airflow of Leslie rotors, faithfully reproducing their unique tone and three-dimensional effect
- A new tube modelling system reproducing ‘vacuum tube warmth’ — highly desired by all Hammond players
- An exclusive system emulating the ‘matching transformer’ of vintage Hammond organs adds fullness to the sound
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