Tone-wheel modeling technology powers the sounds of Korg's redesigned and reissued CX-3 ($2,600). The 61-note combo organ offers 128 programs covering a wide range of organ sounds for pop, rock, jazz, and other applications. The CX-3 offers vintage and clean tone-wheel sounds, with the specialty of the house being modeled Hammond organ. The organ even gives you control over many of the modeled mechanical artifacts of analog organs. For example, you can add leakage and key click (up and down) and adjust tone-wheel overtone levels.
The new CX-3's drawbars (unlike the original's) send and respond to MIDI Control Change messages, and you can use CC messages to operate every switch, including those for percussion and vibrato. You can also control the CX-3 with an expression pedal or the two assignable pedal/footswitch inputs. The drawbars and the vibrato/chorus and percussion switches are in the same location as on the Hammond C-series organs.
The two sets of nine drawbars emulate foldback settings and individual harmonic distortion. In EX mode, you can link all 18 drawbars for 13 tonal harmonics and as many as 5 percussion harmonics at once. Percussion is fully programmable, with control over volume, decay, and second- and third-harmonic settings.
Korg's REMS modeling technology provides rotary speaker and spatial effects. You get two types of amp simulators: a traditional Leslie speaker and a Leslie/guitar amp combination. These can be bypassed, which is useful for connecting the CX-3 to an external rotary speaker and amplifier. Each simulation features a dynamic overdrive effect; as the volume increases, the sound gets dirtier. You can control the rotor-adjustment time when switching rotor or horn speeds, or you can stop the rotation. You can also adjust the placement of virtual microphones, add vibrato and chorus settings, and choose one of three types of reverb.
In Split mode, each set of drawbars can be assigned to upper or lower sounds. If connected to another MIDI keyboard, the CX-3 can serve as a dual-manual organ, with 61-note polyphony available for the two keyboards.