Take a look at my big organ!!!

[Cybrvanr]

As requested, I shot some more pic's of the big Hammond, and some of it's little offspring. One of the neighborhood churches gave me this organ, and they were the origonal owner. Hammond organs were labeled as the "Hammond Clock Company" up until 1937, when they found out they were doing better making organs than clocks. The church this organ came from built their first chapel in 1935, so this instrument was probably purchased at the time of construction. It is labeled as being built by the "Hammond Clock Company"

It is a model BC. The B meaning it was using the larger cabinet. The "A" series organs have a narrower cabinet. The "C" meant chorus. The organ originally had a chorus tone generator installed. At some point in the past though, the chorus generator was removed and a newer chorus & vibrator generator was installed, like what the B3 is equipped with.

The B3 is the most famous of Hammond organs, and it came out in the early 50's, and combined the features of the earlier BC, and BV models into one instrument.

 

[Cybrvanr]

This is the back of the organ, and you can see the tone generator inside. This is the heart of the instrument. Basically, it works like the hall-effect module in an automobile electronic distributor...only there's 96 of'em. Basically, there are 96 individual tone wheels, which are wheels with little notches in them. The wheels rotate next to magnetic pickups and induce a small AC voltage in them. The more cogs that go by the magnetic pickup, the higher frequency tone it generates. The organs use a synchronous clock motor to spin the tonewheels, hence the origins of the company originally building clocks.

Hammond organs were the first electronic musical instrument to be produced.

The small tube amplifier in the picture is boosts the signal up to a few volts before it's sent to the power amp. The bundle of wires you see on the right side of the cabinet is the preset wiring patchboard. This is where you can wire the presets to make the sounds of different instruments. The presets or stops are selected using the black keys at the left end of the keyboards, or you can use the drawbars at the top to design your own sound

 

[Cybrvanr]

picture of the speaker cabinet.

This is an actual Hammond tone cabinet. Most of the Hammond organs you hear in popular music are actually used with a Leslie speaker cabinet. Leslie speaker cabinets actually have rotating horns in them to create the vibrato effect that sounds similar to a Wurlitzer theater organ. The speakers in this cabinet though are stationary

 

[compwhiz128]

Ewwwww

ewww dude i dont need to se, ohhhhh kool organ looks like on e i saw at vfv and the back oh oh oh oh oh oh! thats how it works!

 

[Cybrvanr]

The main amp. This is what you were seeing in the other thread I made. Made by Webster Electric, and using 4 2A3 tubes, it is quite powerful!!!

 

[Cybrvanr]

The Jensen speakers

 

[Cybrvanr]

It's little offspring, the L series...a handy "take home" edition of the big "B" series, fully self contained with speakers within the organ. This instrument is significantly newer, built in the early sixties

 

[Cybrvanr]

The inside of the L series organ. Looks almost just like it's 1936 Father, except that it's a little smaller, and uses some of the newer "compactatron" type tubes

 

[joeekaitis]

cybrvanr: I hope you don't mind. . .

. . .but I ran the amplifier photo through PaintShopPro injected some digital light into the shadows.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

Beautiful instrument!

Thanks for the photos.
Ken D.

 

[westytoploader]

Wow Steven, very neat! Looks really good for being 60+ years old...bet it sounds great too!

From the pictures, the tone cabinets seem to serve as good tables/nightstands...LOL

 

[jasonl]

Leslie speaker

I grew up in a church where they had the rotating leslie speaker. The organ player would either make it run slow for a nice mellow worshipful song and as the intensity of the song increases, he spun it up to get the tremolo/vibrato effect.

Before synths were widespread, this is what the churches used.

 

[parunner58]

Wow That looks very nice and I bet it would saound great. I have always loved organs. I had a Lowery but sold it years ago. Now I wish I never would have. It the early 70's my moms friend bought a new Hammond, she would never let anyone touch it. My best friend had a Thomas color-glo organ, where ther were lights under all the keys to help you learn to play it.

What nice about living here in the Lehigh Valley PA is I am close to CF Martin guitar and Allen Organ. Allen Organ make most of the nice Electronic organ for most churches. I have been looking to seek emplyoment in either of these companies

 

[maytagbear]

Thank you for sharing!

I love the Hammond and Hammond/Leslie sound.

One of my favourite musicians, Kate Bush uses a Hammond to great effect on "You're The One," on her cd "The Red Shoes." The sound is hauntingly beautiful.

Hammond also made another electronic instrument called the Novachord, and British singer Vera Lynn was well accompanied by one during the War years. The Novachord was harder to maintain and harder to play, however.

Thanks again.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[neptune2000]

Hammond Organs.

Well,

I had a C-3, purchased in 1958 and sold in 1993 with the Hammond Speaker. My recollection is that my father paid $2100.00 for it ( with what Hammond called " Percussion " )
This instrument was played daily - for hours and hours - and while I never thought of myself as a " professional " musician - I have earned many a dollar doing the Bar, Restruant,skating rink, and occasionally church thingies, so dear to the heart's of so many. ( Well hell - it was a source of income - why be picky.)
It eventually followed me to South Carolina - where I simply had no room for it - and sold it for substantially more than was paid for it ! It's in weekly use in a church somewhere nearby.
Those old Hammonds were real war-horses - you could do just about anything and they just never quit running - somewhat like the energizer bunny. Mine finally did " lock up " IE: the starting motor woulden't spin etc.... but a healthy dose of WD40 solved that PDQ.
I have heard from a couple of sources, that it is possible to have the old tube amplifiers replaced with more modern tubeless ones.... I expect that might be a good thing as the tubes don't last forever... ( Last time I looked in the back at the " Guts " 2 of the tubes were glowing Blue - I have no idea if this was normal or not. It was sold soon thereafter.
The great thing about Hammonds was that they NEVER went out of tune ( actually - impossible due to the way they work )and that once you could play one - you could play them all.
I have many fond memories of the old C-3 - and the sound was/is certainly unique ( especially if you have a leslie speaker ) Those things will probably be still going strong when most of us are long gone.

Thanks for the memory trip...
Neptune2000

Oh - did anyone else ever learn to cut the power for a second or two and change the pitch of the whole organ - - it was kind of hit or miss - didn't always work - and was different for every instrument. AND - if there was a voltage drop - even momentary - after one pulled off this stunt - the organ " died " a slow death losing tone - SOmewhat like a rolling object coming to an eventual stop...

Those WERE the days !
Neptune2000.

 

[rickr]

Hammond organ

Wow thanks for the great pictures and the detailed descriptions. Very interesting! I had an electronic 1962 Gulbranson theatre organ for many years. I donated it to a church a couple years ago,as I just never had the time to play it anymore. Friends talked me into playing at their church weddings a few times. It always made me very nervous to play a pipe organ in public. The delay effect they give is really something if you are not used to it.I always felt like my fingers were in molasses,such was the delay from pressing the key,until the sound came out of the pipes. One church in Ohio the delay was so long I joked about it after the wedding. I said if I had hit the wrong key,I could have ran around the block before I heard it! LOL!

 

[Cybrvanr]

Yes! Hammond organs definitely stay in-tune very well...that is unless you live in my area. I dunno if any of you all remember when I posted about the line frequency problem I had here. During the summer, I found that many of my clocks were running a little slow. Well, I decided to attempt to confirm if the frequency was in fact off. It was off the ever so slightest bit. Middle "C" is supposed to be 440 Hz...Measuring it on a frequency counter from work indicated that I was getting a 436 Hz middle C out of the BC organ. I then checked the same note on the little organs, and got the same thing!

That ever so subtle frequency shift was barely noticable...but then again, I have the same problem the inventor of these wonderful instruments have...I'm a bit tone-deaf myself!

The other instance that I found that Hammonds won't keep tune is when they are run off of gasoline powered generators. I carried the L111 organ with me to a vanning and RV club rally. One of the other club members was having his band there, and he wanted to try out my Hammond for their performance. The only problem was that where we were camping didn't have electricity. Another vanner brought his generator, and we hooked the band up to the generator. The guitars and mic'ed drums did great, but the Hammond didn't like it so much....sounded like an injured cat! The worst of it was when the bassist (who was using a HUGE Peavy stack) would play, the organ would go flat! Apparently, the big amp was putting a big load on the generator, and was making it slow down. We solved the problem with an inverter. The generator has a 12 volt terminal on it, so we plugged in a 300 watt inverter into it, and ran the Hammond off of that. The inverter has a crystal controlled oscillator that kept the little organ perfectly in tune!

 

[kenmore1978]

tubes vs Solid State

" I have heard from a couple of sources, that it is possible to have the old tube amplifiers replaced with more modern tubeless ones.... I expect that might be a good thing as the tubes don't last forever"

Tube amps are FAR superior to solid state amps. Nothing worse than an overdriven solid state amp that "clips". Things like tuners are better solid state, but amps where you need POWER that won't blow up in an instant, tubes are teh way to go.

One company actually had a CD player where the analog output was done by tubes because they elt it was a better system.

 

[drmitch]

The Hammond B3 was the organ of chioce in the sixties. Lot of players used them including the great jazz player Jimmy Smith. And youre right Juan a musican knows the value of tubepowered amps.Warm mellow sounds at low volume and screamin tube influenced distortion at the high end! I used to play bass, and liked the smooth sound of my Ampeg tube amp but liked the pumch that Peavey solid state had. But if I were playing lead it would only be tube! If you listen to Steve Ray Vaugn`s, The Sky is Cryin`, and Texas Flood, you`ll see why.