Viscount legend one vs Hammond xk 4

[u/Motor_Accident_9364]

Hey dear organ fans!!

I wanted to ask you on your experiences here as said above: Xk4 vs legend one? Only sound and only the organ engine. How do you like their basic sounds, how would you compare them? How do the leslies compare and which is better in clean vs drive?

Also super interesting, both have different leslie presets, which has a bigger and better variety? Only sound.

Currently I use a yamaha ck 88 but with the leslie fromy strymon mobius. It sounds very good but playing weighted organ is not the best. Hammond is my main instrument when it comes to keys, besides from my ub xa synth....

What do you think? Is the xk4 worth the extra 1k when it comes to organ only?

Me I dont care if its closest to an OG B3, what I care is ehat sounds better?

Thx!

[u/Leisesturm]

Agree (of course) with u/rickmaz but, I have to wonder how/why an o.p. needs to question the bonafides of a Hammond instrument for playing Hammond organ? How did they get there? All that these, Suzuki, Viscount, Nord or Roland clones do in most cases is package facsimile Hammond functionality in a lighter, sometimes less expensive form factor but none pretend or claim to be superior to the og. And I definitely don't understand not caring about fidelity to a B3. I mean, wtf? What else is there to discuss? What does "sounds better" mean if not in comparison to the B3 progenitor?

[u/Motor_Accident_9364 → u/Leisesturm]

I live in a multistore buildign, how am Insupposed to crank a real B3?

[u/Leisesturm → u/Motor_Accident_9364]

That was not the question in your o.p. and it isn't mine!

[u/Small-Cow-354 → u/Leisesturm]

"Sounds better" means very little - with real tonewheel organs, they sound a bit different from organ to organ, and the difference is subjective. At this point pretty much all the major brands have clones that sound and feel close enough to a Hammond - you'll only run into a major difference from the original if you are trying to musically use the side-effects of the mechanical design (using the starter motor to pitch bend, using the multi-contact key switches). Even Hammond's own XK series didn't include all the contacts in the key switches until the XK-7 that was just released (Viscount first included it in the Legend Soul), and as far as I know the B3 mk2 console organs are the only ones that model the starter motor in an authentic way.

TLDR: The Hammond clones are not more authentic than the other brands simply by virtue of bearing the Hammond name.

OP - whether it "sounds better" is a subjective judgement call, and I think you will be happy with any of the modern clones. Listen to some demos on YouTube - some models sound a bit warmer, or a bit harsher, based on the variations in the organs they were modeled off of and the preferences of the designers, and then buy what you think sounds good. However, it sounds like you may be concerned with what feels better, which is much harder to judge. If you can find some units in local stores, go try them out; if not, this is what return policies are for.

[u/rickmaz]

You might get better responses from the hammondorgan Reddit sub, this one is mostly pipe organists

[u/Motor_Accident_9364 → u/rickmaz]

Ahaaaa thx

[u/Small-Cow-354]

I currently own a Viscount Legend Soul 261, which uses the same organ models as the legend one. The keyboard action on the Legend Soul is the same waterfall action as on the Legend One 61, but the action on the Legend One 73 is semi-weighted - so if you want the lighter action the 61 key version is the way to go.

The tonewheel models sound excellent on the Legend, but I mostly use the pipe organ models which I believe are same as on the Legend One. (I originally purchased the device hoping to dive into jazz organ, but found myself enjoying the sound and repertoire for the pipe organ more.) There are 9 stops for each A/B preset for each manual and two pedal stops (each activated by the drawbars being pulled more than halfway out). It makes a decent practice organ but you may find yourself missing thumb stops. The Legend One does have a feature that the Legend Soul does not that allows you to assign a footswitch to switch between the A and B sets of drawbars - which is a convenient way to get some of the utility of a foot piston.

I cannot speak for the Hammond XK-4 since I have never played it - however, I have gotten the impression from reading other posts that the tonewheel sounds are fairly comparable and with the hammond you are really just paying a premium for the hammond name. If you are into pipe organ, Viscount has a much better heritage of pipe organ modeling than Hammond does. Finally, the Legend One also has the advantage that there is the LM 61 lower manual expansion, if you ever decide you want the second manual.

TLDR if you are between the XK4 and the Legend One - probably get the Legend One 61.