Tips on the Hammond Organ

Video Transcript

In this clip we're going to be talking about what actually constitutes a rock and roll organ. In reality it can be just about anything. But to most people a rock and roll organ is a Hammond. And not just any Hammond. It's a Hammond B-3 or C-3 or A-100. Everybody has heard about B-3's but there's really three organs that are pretty much the same organ. There's the B-3, there's the C-3 and there's the A-100. Now they're all the same exact internal component organ as far as all the controls that you see, the way that you play them and everything is exactly the same. The difference between B-3 and the C-3 is that the B-3 has spinet legs, just like four posts. Kind of like a piece of furniture, like a cabinet, or like a table I guess. And a C-3 has big long solid legs, like this. This is a C-3. So it's, I think the C designation was for "church" so it was more considered the church version of it. So it just has a few more, like it has the cloverleaf inlays right here and everything. But functionally it's the exact same organ. Now, the B-3 and the C-3 are considered console organs. Which meant that they had to have a separate speaker that came out of the organs. Like this organ itself doesn't have anything that generates sound. I mean it generates sound through the organ but there's no output, it just has a plug for...What they sold with them they called Hammond Tone Cabinets. Which is just a speaker cabinet with an amp in it. Just like a guitar amp basically but it was built for these and it was pretty simple. Now the A-100 is just like this from a controls perspective. But it is what they called a "spinet organ". Which meant that it had a speaker. Like a lot of organs you've seen that have a speaker underneath the keyboard. So everything was self contained with that. Now everybody knows of the Hammond sound as being a Hammond plus a Leslie speaker. Which, if you look over here the big wooden box with the spinning things in it is a Leslie speaker. This is a 147 model. The most famous models are the 147 and the 122. Which, basically do the same thing. There's some slight variations between the two of them. But we'll be talking more about those later. You can't fake the sound of a Hammond. A lot of people have tried and a lot of people do a pretty good job of it, but you know, a Hammond is a Hammond and it's the most classic sounding organ at least for rock and roll.

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