HX

Page up dated 15/3/MMII

(this page has been taken from old index page)

About the HX and it's history

The HX 1 was introduced by Yamaha in 1986 and was the flagship Electone (Electronic Tone) Organ until it was replaced by the EL series in 1989. The HX brought the first "sampled" sounds to the organ player and featured hundreds of fantastic sounds. The HX followed on from the highly successful GX 1 and FX 1 Electones. The GX 1 was used by Keith Emerson on the "works" album by Emerson, Lake and Palmer; you can hear it on "Fanfare for the common man".

The Futuristic HX system 1 remains one of the most amazing organs ever produced, the HX series consists of various different modules which are inter-change-able. You can for example lift off the pedalboard and slot in a different one within seconds. There are three pedalboard units ranging from the full size 25 note classical unit (above), a 20 note unit through to the basic 13 note model. There are three types of tone generator (HX-1, HX-3, HX-5) and two types of keyboard unit.

As well as pioneering the use of AWM advanced wave memory sounds the HX is filled with hundreds of factory preset fm frequency modulation sounds, on the HX 1 these use 16 operators, which mean the sounds are of a better quality than even the newest EL 900 Electone. Drawbar sounds are provided by WM wave memory sound generation and on the HX 1 & 3 these sounds are editable from the main console. The fm sounds can be edited using an external computer before being loaded into the user voice slots.

Even now HX organs are producing some of the finest sounds around. Although the instrument was abandoned by Yamaha and shunned by most British organists for it's bold styling and notoriously complex control panel there is still a dedicated army of fans using this amazing machine.

The futuristic HX can be seen in the film "Running man"