I just posted this in the Digital Piano forum area, but I wanted to post in here too, just incase anyone had anything to add:

I own a Yamaha MM8 that I take on the road with me.

Just bought it a few months ago. Piano sounds are great, but I'm not satisfied with the organ sounds. Thinking about trading it in for a (slightly more expensive) DP. Or if there was a smaller, more basic 61-key DP that can handle the sweet Hammond sound, I would invest in that instead and keep the MM8.

The "Rock Organ" and other similar sounds on my Yamaha are ok, but not good enough. Still tweaking the knobs to see if other sounds would work, but haven't come across anything yet.

Current Yamaha MM8 value: $1,000.

Any suggestions on my Hammond dilemma?

Looking for the hammond sound?

Why not just get a hammond?? The hammond XK system that is. Great lil keyboard. That or a nord set up. Doesn't get much more authentic than that!

The Casio CTK-900 ($200 or less?) has a decent emulator of one Hammond manual, with the 9 drawbars freely configurable in software (and some 15 preset combinations, and some configurable presets) and more choice of DSP effects than previous versions, including some Leslie-like. A great techno-tinkering-toy.

You may want to check the key feel; my previous CTK-800 (which also has many Hammond-like presets -more than Yamahas-, but no drawbar configuration) has too 'unamortized' keys and they hit&plastic-click loud enough... and unpleasant on fingers too. One CTK-900 I briefly tested was somewhat better, but the thin damping material may deteriorate(harden) with use, I don't know.