dual-manual, cheap enough, close enough, good enough

[tmn63]

Hi guys:
I love this forum & I'm certainly glad you're all out there with tons of expertise and a willingness to share.
I recently posted a similar question in another part of this forum, but it struck me that perhaps I should turn it around a little bit & re-post here in the Hammond section.

What I want...
For my own fun & games... no gigging... and I'm no pro... I want to inexpensively assemble a 'dual-manual' type setup. Specifically, it has to be able to:

-- Sound sorta like a vintage Hammond
-- Come close to approximating the Leslie effects
-- Have some great "overdriven" options so as to be able to approximate a 1970s Deep Purple, and also that "gimmie some lovin'" sound...

The reason I specifically want to be able to assemble dual manual is that, frankly, I want the *feel of playing a real organ & am even considering organ lessons. I want to go with modern electronic stuff cuz buying an old spinet is just out of the question for me. I need to keep it light & portable, even tho just for home use. I also need the convenience of modern technology so that I can merge what I'm doing on keyboards with music on my ipod/source, play along, listen through headphones, & that sort of stuff.
In closing, please note I'm using words like "approximate" and "sound sorta like." If $$ was no object of course I could buy a dual XK3-c setup... but I can't justify that. For me, close enough is going to have to be good enough.
Thanks!

 

[delaware dave]

You don't mention what inexpensive is so we don't know your budget. If you have two cheap keyboards you can try a Voce V5+ through a Neo Ventilator. This combo will cost about $800-850 'used' and will sound sweet. The Voce supports all three manuals, i.e. top, bottom and pedals with full polyphony. The Voce was the sound engine used in the original Diversi DV-100. Here is what the Diversi sounds like (therefore this is what the Voce sounds like):

Here is what the Neo Ventilator sounds like:

Other options would be to buy a used Korg CX-3 (year 2000 version) and a cheap keyboard as the 2nd keyboard controller for the bottom manual.

Here is some info on the Voce V5+: http://voceinc.com/v5p.html