Donny and Fran, if I had my "druthers", I, too, would opt for drawbars. Most guys (and girls) used to a B3 would. However, I have not found this to be a big problem, and for this reason: I play mostly jazz organ; Jimmy Smith/Jack McDuff/Groove Holmes/Jimmy McGriff/Lonnie Smith/Johhny "Hammond" Smith/Don Patterson/Charlie Earland (a good friend of mine before he died way too young) type jazz organ. Oh yeah, and Tony Monaco and of course, Joey D. BTW, I never was a fan of Barbara Dinerlien; great technician, great left foot, not much soul. In fact (forgive me Rikki), I've never heard a female JAZZ organist that I did like, and that includes pioneers like Shirley Scott and Dee Dee Sharp. Maybe it's just a man's instrument (how sexist is that?).

But the point of all this (the drawbars) is that most jazz organist use a signature solo sound and maybe 3 or four other registrations (forget what some of these non-organist have said in past posts; I know what I'm talking about. That being the case, as many as nine registrations can be acessed with one or two button pushes (a preset covers both manuals and the pedals) giving you 18 custommized voicings between the two manuals plus 9 pedal settings, if needed. Plus, modifying a registration on-the-fly is dead simple once you learn where all the buttons are.

Given all the plusses, the lack of physical drawbars is a minor distraction (which will go away, by the way, once you become thoroughly familiar with the board). A larger problem for those who need it, is that you need to go into a menu to transpose (no dedicated button). Of course, the original offered no transposition at all, you just had to learn to play in every key (or have the singer sing every tune in C, regardless of his or her range ).

Now if only they would make an inexpensive pedalboard. Oh well.


chas

BTW, love that red color; just don't play at any bullfights.