The Numa makes use of the KeyB Duo and KeyB Solo sound engine - its kind of a cut down version of the KeyB in many ways.

I havn't heard the leslie on the Numa, but if its the same as the KeyB...it is just staggering! It is the only true Three Dimensional simulator. When you listen through headphones on any other clone (including Hammond) the simulator sweeps across the stereo pan and makes your eyes roll.

The KeyB sim is a full 3D image and the open end of the horn moves toward you across the pan and the away from you. If you use the Leslie brake the horns stop at whatever position they are in at the time. As well as the top horn the bass rotor is also moving and you can also hear sound reflexion.

I used to maintain that a real Leslie was required for a genuine Hammond sound...not any more. As I say I am not 100% sure the Numa has this sim, but if it does you will be stunned.

Aha! Didn't know that. I loved the KeyB's demos.

Still, at @ $2000, I kinda wished they had gone the Nord route and throw in some other vintage keys, too. I know how picky you are about your B3 sims, TWD, please give us your review as soon as you get to play one.

I think Nord is chasing a market that appreciates the flexibility of making on the fly drawbar adjustments with the added convenience of having the new preset you call up be already at the correct position. If you have a hardware setting and switch presets, then the bars are all in the wrong places ... Nord fixed this and still kept the real time adjustments handy. i know an old school purist may miss the 'feel", but you can't really say that it's a drawback since it works the same and even better in some cases, as I mentioned.

I've used an Electro quite a bit, and yes, you can SORT of get used to the buttons, but there are a lot of things you used to be able to do with the drawbars that are difficult to pull off with the same precision that 'shading' the drawbars can do.

I feel that Nord typically appeal to those that didn't grow up playing with drawbars, if the truth be told...

To be honest, being able to see what the presets are is no biggie. On a B, those reversed keys brought up the presets, and nobody whined about not seeing the results on the drawbars! You HEARD what they were.

Truth is, it is CHEAPER for the button system, not necessarily better...

As I said above, if someone came out with a drawbar controller for $200-300, you'd quickly see how many people disagree with Nord's direction!

Yeah, if someone made a small, well-integrated drawbar unit in the $200.00 range, I'd probably buy one. But I think Uncle Dave has a point, as well. To be honest, I'd rather have an easy way (numeric keypad?) to directly input a program number than the drawbars. Even as is, I can have access to most of my most used registrations with one button push. Sure there are things that you can do with drawbars that you can't (easily) do with the buttons, but in real-life playing it's kind of inconsequential. Jimmy Smith would have happened with or without drawbars (but not without Percussion ).

chas