So, I have had the chance to play with a few newer Hammonds over the last couple of years and I am always impressed with what I get my hands on every time. That is why when I went to give the SK1-88 a quick fing this month I was not surprised in the quality of what the Godfathers of Organs have delivered. For pianists who have been wanting an organ sounding keyboard, you can look into all those ‘Hammond’ style patches in your digital piano, or you can get it right and go for the real thing, the Hammond SK1-88.
ON A LARGER SCALE
When I think of an 88-note digital piano, I think of just that, piano sounds. Usually, I would expect this to be ac- companied by a hammer action to the key bed and generally a limited range of preset sound to work with. This is where the new Hammond SK1-88 caught me by surprise. In fact, I wasn’t expect- ing to get an 88-note keyboard form Hammond this month, so I knew I was in for a treat when I hit the frst chord. The semi- weighted key bed action by Fatar has a really natural feel that organ players are going to love, but it will also appeal to pianists who are used to heavier hammer actions. This does not feel like a springy keyboard, every strike of every key has a defned feel, and with five different sensitivity settings, you can set the keys to respond just how you want them to. This is the bigger organ that the pianist will love.
JUST LISTEN
I have to admit, there were quite a few chords simply played over and over as I went through the range of sounds and settings. It is easy to lose yourself when you get stuck into the drawbars on this keyboard, so making good use of the ten ‘Favourites’ buttons to recall the sounds you will most use is a good idea. Add in some Leslie cabinet emula- tion, vibrato and chorus and you get great results. You can even split the drawbars settings to the lower and upper ranges of the keyboard, with the settings for each zone stored before the drawbars are moved to set the next zone. A very handy addition is the ability to stream audio directly from a USB stick, so backing tracks can be called up in a fash. The browsing and recall of fles is fairly simple and pretty much instant, so you can get your tracks playing at any time in a set if needs be. The only real downside to the USB option is that when importing new sounds, you can very easily expend the limits of the unit’s memory and may need to remove some sounds in order to load new ones in. But, if you can’t be kept happy with the sounds already on this keyboard, you haven’t listened hard enough. On-board memory doesn’t allow multiple large patches to be uploaded.
Hits And Misses
Hits:
So lightweight it is ridiculous
Classic Hammond sound and feel
Easy playback of audio from USB
Fatar key bed offers a very familiar touch
Misses:
None!
Rob Gee. Source: http://www.mixdownmag.com.au/hammond-sk1-88-digital-organ-0