When the Hammond organ was designed and built. Legendary electric keys. Hammond Organ. Hammond organ patent and trademark

The Hammond organ was created in 1935. Its distinctive feature is that it is not only a mechanical musical instrument, and not a wind instrument like other organs, but an electromechanical one. The instrument got its name from the name of its creator and designer - L. Hammond.

The original purpose of the Hammond organ

It was not as expensive an instrument as an ordinary wind organ. Therefore, churches bought it as an alternative. But it turned out that Hammond's organ is suitable for playing blues and other fashionable music. Since then, the musical instrument has become more widespread than anticipated. It was used by military musical ensembles, timbre was studied on it, using in acoustic scientific research. Individuals also bought it for home music making.

History of invention

Inventor Lawrence Hammond has a significant track record of discovery. For example, stereoscopic cinema was originally his idea. In total, he has about 80 patents for inventions, and the first of them was received by Hammond at the age of 16. which was carefully designed, was not his first brainchild.

Having bought a used grand piano, he took out the keys and used them for his experiments in the field of sound generation. Having developed a method of electrical reproduction of sounds, a year later the designer was able to present a new musical instrument at the Industrial Exhibition. The basis for the synthesis of a sound signal was reproduction using mechanical phonic wheels. The levers helped in mixing different electrical waveforms. The engine rotated discs with wavy edges. The keyboard of the organ was driven, as a result, each disc played a note. The electric magnet was located opposite. Due to the speed of rotation and the frequency set by the "irregularities" of the disc, a tone of a certain pitch was formed. Several harmonics were added to the tone, which were responsible for higher and lower sounds. The registers adjusted the volume. This is how the sound was synthesized under the action of a synchronous motor, which is also an invention of this author.

Hammond organ patent and trademark

Nowadays, the Japanese company Suzuki is the owner of the Hammond music brand, since it acquired this trademark. Suzuki, as an automobile company, has been eyeing the tool for a long time. Several analogies have been released that are not comparable to the original electric organ. They are only called dummies compared to the original instrument. In 2011, the Hammond Suzuki division was formed.

Hammond himself patented the instrument in a very short time, in 1934. Apparently, this was due to the corresponding financial and political environment. The originally marketed organ model had 2 keyboards with 61 notes. It also had keyboard registers, 25 pedals and pedal registers. The organ gained considerable popularity, but it was helped by some occasion.

The beginning of popularity

An interesting story is about two engineers who worked for G. Ford, who instructed them to make an electric organ with given dimensions. The time to complete the assignment was limited, and the engineers decided to go to the Patent Office, where they found a patent already issued to Hammond for a similar development. All parameters were exactly as ordered by G. Ford. But this was not a coincidence. Ford simply became interested in the new body, learning about it, and decided to buy out the patent, avoiding publicity. After all, the inventor can start bargaining, and Ford did not like it.

The engineers threatened Hammond with trouble and asked to sell the patent. The presentation was planned only for April 1934, that is, a couple of months before this event. The engineers were refused. Then G. Ford personally asked to bring him the tool after the completion of its assembly.

Ford reviewed the organ and did not buy it, although he said that in two decades, everyone should be able to buy such a home musical instrument. After which dinner was given. Now Ford inquired about the price and, having learned it, bought 6 copies at once. Hammond's agents charged $ 1,250. Thus, the first organ sale took place even before the presentation at the Industrial Arts Exhibition.

Company selling electric organs

The further fate of the musical instrument can be called happy. Hammond didn't do a lot of wrap up on every sale. But I must say that Ford asked him about it, offering money and employees for the company. The first year saw sales of 1400 organs. Churches were considered potential buyers, but many individuals, including President Roosevelt, bought the instrument.

Despite the high price of the organ, its popularity was even more significant. Over the next two years, the company made a profit of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which by the standards of our time is equivalent to millions.

The emergence of opponents of successful production

Those who produced organs of the previous models, that is, winds, suffered losses due to the compact size of the new instrument and its relative cheapness. The prices were simply out of proportion. Having started to lose in the market, the manufacturers of the former bodies filed a complaint with the trade commission. The complaint contained a request: Hammond should not henceforth refer to his instrument as an organ. The reason was the lack of a proper sound range in shades and harmonics, sufficient to match the organ.

Checking the organ for compliance with church tradition

This statement was not devoid of real grounds, as it almost corresponded to reality. The sound of the electric instrument was different from the traditional church organ. But the commission did not consider this obvious and decided to arrange a demonstration competition in the church. It was hidden from the audience which instrument the music was played on. Hammond organ or traditional?

The jury consisted of students, but this was only one part of it. The second group included renowned musicians and conductors. Professional musicians caught the difference in most cases, while students were not always able to distinguish between performances. But not a single group could tell the difference 100%.

The Hammond firm was given the right to call the instrument an organ, but was instructed not to advertise it as an instrument with an infinite sonic range. The exact figure was determined to be 253 million sounds.

Competition

Leslie decided to produce its own electronic musical instruments similar to the Hammond, which led to competition. Electric current in America began to be translated from 50 Hertz to 60 Hertz. D. Leslie replaced tone generators on organs for the appropriate sound. At the time, he wanted to work for Hammond's firm, but was not accepted. Then he decided to take up the production of loudspeakers for an electric organ and achieved superiority over the engineers of Hammond.

Leslie produced speakers that the Hammond company used in their organ. These were complex instrument parts with rotating components. The companies were in a hostile relationship, although their founders did not quarrel or be friends. D. Leslie's products were not advertised as actively, but they won in quality.

The feud was ended after the death of L. Hammond by the fact that in 1980 his company bought the speaker firm Leslie. Lawrence Hamond himself died in 1973.

Tool design development

After the appearance of the first model, subsequent musical instruments from the inside did not always undergo great changes. Often they simply replaced the body. But we can also mention the additional devices that significantly updated the design. This, for example, vibrato, and subsequently amplifiers, which were built into musical instruments.

The Leslie speakers also had an unusual effect, as they were equipped with a rotating horn and reflector. These details were respectively in the high-frequency and only two. The sound changed in a complex of parameters: timbre, frequency, amplitude.

Famous Hammond Organ Performers

Hammond's organs have been used to perform music by the most famous musical groups, almost all rock bands. In those days, the organ timbre was very popular, so not a single modern musician could do without including it in his composition. No self-respecting rock band ever went on stage without a Hammond organ. For example, it was actively used by the group Deep Purple, as well as the Beatles. Even during the period of mass enthusiasm for playing samples, some synthesizers had several of his timbres. In our time, interest in historical instruments has revived, so the Hammond organ has again become in demand.

The most famous performer to play on Hammond was voted in by Keyboard Magazine. This is Keith Emerson, repeatedly voted the best in the year. By the way, he handled his instrument in a rather unusual way. With the help of ordinary knives, he tried to secure the keys in order to ensure continuous sounding of the notes, while he continued to play music with both hands. Subsequently, it was his instrument that was used for samples of the Hammond organ in the popular Vintage Keys sound module from E-mu.

Present period in the life of an organ

Hammond's organs in their original form ceased to be produced in 1976, only loud fame remained. Many models of musical sound synthesizer have been produced, but most are called toys compared to the original. Electronic sound synthesis that mimics the IC based Hammond is a complex process in terms of accurate reproduction. But still, many tool repair companies make parts for Hammond and repair it.

In the 70s, Japanese engineers were involved in production, and in 1986 Suzuki began to acquire the Hammond brand. At that time, she already fully owned Leslie. Now, producing its own Hammond organ, the Japanese corporation uses slightly different methods of sound reproduction.

Several episodes have been released over 40 yearsHammond Organ , very often subsequent models of the organ did not change the internal structure, but only received a new body, but there were also noticeable innovations. Models with a wheel tone generator can be divided into two classes: full-size (console) instruments with a large body and two 61-key keyboards, or, as they say, manuals, for concert use, and portable organs with two keyboards of 44 keys. - for home music making.

Hammond A-102

Model B was developed in December 1936, even before the Hammond Clock Company changed its name to Hammond Instrument Company, and was equipped with a chorus effect generator that included an additional set of sound wheels, slightly different in tuning from the basic set. SeriesBV and CV , produced from 1942 to 1949, received devices for the vibrato effect. Considered classic modelsB-3 and C-3 , with characteristicHammond Organ percussion effects, produced from 1955 to 1974, it was these organs that became widely used by jazz musicians, and from the late 60s - by a huge number of rock performers.


Hammond B-3

Despite the rather large dimensions of the instrument, as well as the solid weight - about 190 kg, keyboardists of rock groups did not part with their favorites on touring tours, since the design made it possible to divide the organ into two parts for ease of transportation, well, except that most of them traditionally refused from the AGO pedal box. Difference betweenB -3 and C -3 - cosmetic: B-3 is installed on four legs, and C-3 was intended for churches and female performers: it was required that the legs of the musicians, and especially the organist in skirts, were covered on three sides with solid panels.


Hammond C-3

Hammond B cost -3 with a walnut body was $ 2750, in a cherry - $ 2835. Sound of jazz bands and organ trios, classic hard rockDeep Purple, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Steppenwolf, Atomic Rooster, Grand Funk Railroad, Progressive Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd, Camel, Kansas, blues rock The Allman Brothers Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Three Dog Night pop rock, Spencer Davis Group, art rock Colosseum The revolutionary decade for popular music from the mid-60s to the mid-70s cannot be imagined without the dense, shimmering, boring sound of Lawrence Hammond's organ.


BOB DYLAN Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan) 1965

During Dylan's recording of his landmark song in a New York studio ColumbiaRecords happened to be Al Cooper ( Al Kooper, AlanPeterKuperschmidt, 05.02.1944), a session guitarist who had never played an organ before, and did not even know how to turn it on. On the second day of heavy and messy sessions, taking advantage of producer Tom Wilson's departure from the studio, Cooper decided to offer Dylan a simple yet catchy organ riff. Back in the control room, Wilson was surprised to see Cooper at the Hammond, but despite this, he allowed him to play. After the first take, the producer advised Dylan to cut the organ part from the song, however, despite protests, he only asked to make it louder, and this topic became one of the most famous in rock music. In the same year, Cooper joined Bob Dylan's band, not as a guitarist, but as an organist. During the last show on the 1966 tour, Dylan, right before they started playing the song, one of the purists who expected their idol to blindly follow the established traditions of folk, shouted " Judas!" Dylan replied:" I don't believe you, you lie " ... After that, he turned to the group and ordered them: " "target \u003d" _ blank "\u003e play it fucking loud! "

In addition to Dylan, Cooper took part as a guest keyboardist on Jimi Hendrix albums, The Rolling Stones and others. He also founded his own record label SoundsOf The Sounds, who later helped to make the group famous Lynyrd Skynyrd, organized groups The Blues Project andBlood, Sweat And Tears.

RHODA SCOTT Moanin " (Bobby Timmons) 1972

Eldest daughter in the family of an itinerant preacher, Rhoda Scott ( Rhoda Scott, 07/03/1938) grew up, constantly moving, in the atmosphere of Negro church communities. From the age of eight she sang spirituals and gospel at divine services, and even then her musical vocation was revealed, everyone noted Rhoda's vocal abilities and a rare instinct as an instrumentalist. She entered the famous " Manhattan School of Music"in New York, which she graduated with honors. She made her debut in the Count Basie in Harlem, and was immediately accepted into the circle of masters. Soon, Roda moved to France, where she continued her studies, studying counterpoint and harmony with the famous teacher Nadia Boulanger. Rhoda's musical talent is so versatile that she is equally virtuoso both in classical music and in jazz and blues music. Brilliantly masters the foot technique, easily playing fast syncopated jazz-rock bass figures on the foot keyboard - in all two pedal octaves no worse than bass players. Endowed with an exceptional musical memory, she knows by heart more than a thousand pieces of music, and composes a lot herself. In addition, Roda never prepares a performance program in advance, but always plays, focusing on inspiration, the atmosphere of the place and moment and the reaction of the audience.


BILLY PRESTON Summertime (George Gershwin) 1935/1974

One of those who were awarded the title of "fifth Beatle" by the ubiquitous press, Billy Preston (William Everett Preston, 09/02/1946 - 06/06/2006), at the age of three, sitting on his mother's lap, began playing the piano, and was considered a child prodigy of music: at the age of 10 he participated in a local symphony orchestra, and (!) Was a conductor church choir. In the first half of the 60s, Preston easily, as if playfully, climbs the musical Olympus. Now his stage partners are Little Richard and Ray Charles. Preston was already a fairly popular artist in America, but he took part in one, at first glance, not very profile project, which brought him world fame. TheBeatles while recording an album Let It Be were going through hard times: work on the record was accompanied by serious quarrels, and as a result of one of them, George Harrison left the studio and went to the concert of Ray Charles, who was then accompanied by Billy Preston on the organ. Harrison returned to the studio already in the company of Preston, and, perhaps, the brilliant spontaneity and cheerfulness of the American organist were passed on to the members of the Liverpool quartet, briefly extending her life. A little later, Preston helped The rolling Stones (Sticky Fingers album and famous solo in the song I Got The Blues). He also wrote alongside Dennis Wilson of Beach Boys famous song You Are So Beautiful for Joe Cocker. A touching episode took place at the end of Billy Preston's life: a recording with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. At that time he was already in the hospital, suffering from liver, the "peppers" brought him a demo of the song Warlocks for their album Stadium Arcadium, and was invited to the session. Preston liked the song, and he just got out of bed, went to the studio, and recorded it from the first take. Plate came out through three days after of death Billy Preston.


STEPPENWOLF Born to be wild (Mars Bonfire) 1968

I like smoke and lightning

Heavy metal thunder

Racing in the wind

And the feeling that I "m under

I like smoke and fire

ScreenHeavymetal

And competing with us

Wild, violent - the wind.

In the summer of 1968, a song by unknown performers, a very effective company of young people, one of the centers of which was a keyboardist, burst into the American hit parade. Goldie McJohn ( GoldyMcJohn, JohnRaymond Goadsby, 05/02/1945) - a man with a pirate appearance, bearded, with a huge shock of coarse curly hair, a symbol of the savagery of Steppenwolf. Assertiveness, a sharp sound, an electric organ going crazy - that was the calling card of this song. Critics singled out the phrase " Heavy Metal Thunder"(it itself stood for the roar of a motorcycle engine and came from William Burroughs' book Naked Lunch), and dubbed the band's style as heavy metal. After including their hit on the soundtrack of the cult biker movie Easy Rider, the song became the anthem, and Steppenwolf became the favorite group of bikers around the world.

BLIND FAITH Can "t Find My Way Home (Steve Winwood) 1969

Unfortunately, the only album by a super-band Blind Faith (Clapton-Baker-Winwood) will forever remain "the same girl (Mariora Goshen, who asked for a horse fee but received £ 40), is photographed topless." Bad management did not allow the compositional talent of the team members to fully unfold, not excluding Steve Winwood ( Stephen Lawrence Winwood, 05/12/1948), who later, like Clapton, was able to build his successful solo career.


URIAH HEEP July morning (David Byron / Ken Hensley) 1971

Ken Hensley ( Kenneth William David Hensley, 24.08.1945): "I am not a very good keyboard player, and therefore I try to avoid black keys. White is much easier to play, so I concentrate on them. And I also have very long fingers, and if I press black all the time keys, fingers can get stuck between them.In fact, I started playing both the guitar and the keyboards only because I needed to turn my poetry into music.In the process of creating music, I composed some chords that were wrong, That's why my technique is considered unique. I can't play like John Lord, Keith Emerson and their level keyboardists. But I'm fluent in the keyboard and have a few tricks, and I think I'm good at that. " Uriah Heep, with his recognizable mix of stretched keyboards, guitar accents and multi-stage vocals, has managed to establish itself firmly in the ranks of the hard rock elite of the 70s, despite open hostility from the press, mainly due to the eclecticism of their musical material. The group was, perhaps, more popular in the USSR than at home, for which it was awarded a separate devastating review: "The essence of the aesthetics developed by Uriya Heep and other representatives of" hard rock "was hopelessness. Lyrics of compositions accompanied by dark sounding music over which the vocal of David Byron, forced to the limit, but poor in nuances, hovered, as if the senselessness of human existence in the capitalist world was asserted, it is pointless to hope for something, it is pointless to fight for something: no matter what you do, you will never win. .. "(V. Lishbergov," Moskovsky Komsomolets ". December 7, 1979)


RARE BIRD Beautiful scarlet (Mark Ashton / Graham Field / Steve Gould / Dave Kaffinetti) 1970

Almost completely forgotten these days Rare Bird able to surprise with their special feature: dark hard rock without a guitar, replaced by a duel between two keyboardists. Graham Field (Graham Field, 03/05/1940) on Hammond B-3 and Dave Cuffinetti on the electric piano, powerful melodramatic vocals and furious drum fills - more than forty years ago, at the peak of popularity, Billboard magazine recognizedRareBird one of the top ten new teams.

FRUMPY How The Gypsy Was Born (J. J. Kravetz / I. Rumpf) 1971

MusicFrumpy was a unique, bizarre and previously unfamiliar to German bands mixture of rock, blues, jazz, psychedelia, with a touch of classical European music. Basic sound instrument Frumpy were Inga Rumpf's signature "male" vocals and the Frenchman's bright and long organ passages Jean-Jacques Kravets ( Jean- JacquesKravetz, 23.05.1947), which were pioneering for the German rock scene of that period. The group did not last long and in the year of its collapse received an obituary from the German music press: "After three albums, two singles and countless concerts at home and abroad, the country's beloved musical child ended its existence at the age of three in August 1972".

The progressive rock of the early 70s, with its "concept" albums, evokes conflicting emotions: for its fans, this style means a departure from the straightforward scheme of "verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus", a source of pleasure from artistic experiments and the creative pinnacle of rock poetry. For those who hate it, prog is a triumph of pomp and unbridledness, music created by nerds and bourgeois from private schools for their own kind. On top of that, importantly, "the girls don't like it - there are too many notes!" Hammond's organ, with its unique polyphony, has become one of the main instruments of progressive rock.


ATOMIC ROOSTER Vug (Vincent Crane) 1970/1972

A talented self-taught pianist Vincent Rodney Cheesman, 05/21/1943 - 02/14/1989, in the late 60s made friends with the charismatic singer Arthur Brown and organized together with him the legendary band Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, a kind of forerunner of Alice Cooper, Kiss, Merlin Manson, King Diamond; the very first album of the team made a splash in "swinging London" and is now considered one of the exemplary in the early progressive, and song Fire became one of the major rock hits of 1968 on both sides of the Atlantic. Later, Crane formed his own band Atomic Rooster, which was destined to become one of the legends of the British rock scene. The history of AR in many ways cost Crane his health, first of all - mental. He became a victim of a manic-depressive psychosis, which repeatedly brought him to a hospital bed in specialized clinics. Vincent's relatives do not want to let outsiders into the secret of his death, besides, Crane's psyche was in such a shattered state that the fact of his suicide did not surprise anyone, apparently.


YES Close to the Edge: The Solid Time of Change / Total Mass Retain / I Get Up, I Get Down (Jon Anderson / Steve Howe) 1972

Rick Wakeman ( RichardChristopher Wakeman, 18.05.1949), who received an excellent classical education virtuoso keyboard player, who played with David Bowie, Lou Reed, Elton John, Kat Stevens, Black Sabbath, the author of hundreds of solo albums, sold over 50 million copies, says of the early 70s in rock music: "It was a happy time, an amazing era." Rick became interested in orchestration while still at the Conservatory, when he studied Prokofiev and Rimsky-Korsakov. Since then, Sergei Prokofiev has become, according to Wakeman, his hero, and to such an extent that even in the car he constantly keeps records of Prokofiev's masterpiece "The Love for Three Oranges". The musician never listens to his albums - classical music is a hundred times more interesting for him. When asked how the idea of \u200b\u200bwearing a silver cape on stage was born and why a cape, Wakeman laughs: "This is all because of one early review, which wrote that I play great, but at the same time look like a crazy spider, with arms and legs outstretched around us. We once played in Connecticut, and we were represented by the local DJ. He was wearing this very cloak. I just looked at him and immediately realized that this is the answer to my dreams. I offered him my weekly earnings (about $ 200) for this cloak. After a little bargaining, he sold it to me. I put it on right away and so went on stage. This cloak I still have today, there were a lot of them, now there are four or five. The rest were sold at charity auctions. " (the video is very long, Wakeman's solo on C-3 - at around 12:57 - 13:46)

COLOSSEUM Valentyne suite (Pete Brown / Dave Greenslade / Dick Heckstall-Smith / Jon Hiseman / James Litherland / Tony Reeves) 1969

GroupColosseum consisted of intelligent, modest, not striving for popularity, closed in themselves and turned inside their music people, and the musical components of this group, perhaps, had more than anyone else: rock, jazz, blues, formatted by organ pseudo-classical Dave Greenslade ( Dave Greenslade, 01/18/1943); art-jazz-symphonic-rock band - this is how critics sometimes classify this unlikely, unprecedented musical team.


ARGENT Hold your head up (Rod Argent / Chris White) 1972

Technically perfect and graceful art rock band Roda Argent (Rodney Terence Argent, 06/14/1945) was close with its ethereal melodies and quasi-baroque keyboard passages to the music of ELP, Genesis and Yes, while maintaining the minor and melodic freshness of the Zombies ballads. Unfortunately, following their quick success, the band members soon began to focus not on creativity, but on their ambitions, playing long solo fragments.

In the post-war period, the development of new models of the Hammond organ began, intended not only for pianists, but also for beginners. A series of M (manufactured from 1948 to 1968) with built-in amplifier, speakers and reverb. This instrument was widely adopted in home music making and in small churches, and withstood competition from numerous compact organs that appeared on the market at that time.


Hammond M-102

John Paul Jones played M-100 on two debut albumsLed zeppelin , on M-102 - Matthew Fisher fromProcol harum It was also used by Rick Wright from 1970 to 1972, before moving to the C-3.


PINK FLOYD A Saucerful of Secrets (David Gilmour / Nick Mason / Roger Waters / Richard Wright) 1968/1972

David Gilmore Richard Wright( Richard William Wright, 28.07.1943 - 15.09.2008): "In streams of arguments about who or what is Pink FloydRick's enormous contribution has often been forgotten. He was noble, humble and private, but his soulful voice and playing were essential, magical components of the most recognizable sound. Pink Floyd... I've never played with anyone, not even someone like him. In my opinion, all the best moments PinkFloyd - these are the ones where he showed himself to the fullest. After all, without “Us And Them” and “The Great Gig In The Sky” that he wrote, what would “The Dark Side Of The Moon” be? Without his quiet touches, the album “ Wish You Were Here”Would not be entirely complete. In our middle years, for various reasons, for various reasons, he lost his way for a short time, but in the early nineties his liveliness, spark and humor returned to him, the reaction of the public to his appearance on the 2006 tour was very joyful, and this is a sign of his modesty that those standing ovations were a huge surprise for him (but not for us). ” (video is long, Wright's solo on M-102 - from the 5:20 mark)

(The ending follows.Focus and Boston , Tony Monaco and Don Airy,The Stranglers and The Black Crowes , Joey De Francesco and Barbara Dennerline)

Adam Monroe Music Rotary Organ was sampled from a Hammond M3 organ. The end goal was to simulate the sound of a Hammondnd B3 organ with a Leslie rotary speaker inside a VST / AU / AAX plugin. Each tow bar on each note is sampled individually through the built-in organ speaker via a Neumann TLM 102 microphone.

The signal was amplified through a Fender Deluxe Reverb and recorded on a Sennheiser e906. Both signals were routed through the Grace M101 preamps. The Hammond M3 organ combines the last two harmonics into one pull rod, this note is not included. Instead, a “digital foldback” technology was used to expand the Hammond M3 harmonics to resemble the Hammond B3 harmonics.

The organ "s range was augmented to be similar to that of a Hammond B3. This was accomplished by using the Organ" s pedal tones to add the lower octave notes.

The Leslie Speaker simulation was designed to mimic a real Leslie. The signal is split to a virtual bottom rotor and virtual upper rotor at around 600 Hz. Vibrato, chorus, and panning processing are used to simulate the rotation of the rotors. The upper rotor spins between 48/409 RPM "s and the bottom rotor spins between 40/354 RPM" s. Bottom rotor rotation can be bypassed. The Leslie simulation can also be bypassed.

B3 effects where also digitally simulated and these include percussion, vibrato, and key click. Vibrato scanner is similar to that of a B3 and includes vibrato as well as vibrato + chorus. Key click was simulated by adding random noise to the attack and release samples. Some key click can be heard in the original samples but the effect has been exaggerated. Percussion was simulated in VST as it is in real life: a higher amplitude, percussive decaying sound is added to the instrument via the 2nd or 3rd harmonic. The plugin also includes reverb, braking, variable acceleration, drive / distortion, smoothing, adjustable stereo panning, key-splitting, and preset switching.

ENGINEERING:
The instrument was equalized to sound slightly more aggressive than a typical Hammond organ and therefore has the potential to stand out more in a mix. This can be adjusted with the "smoothing" knob, which will attenuate some of the harsher frequencies

Inside the VST the amp and speaker signals go through preamp / gain staging whether or not the Leslie bypass is engaged. The plugin requires a decent CPU - at least an Intel Core I3. This is because internally each harmonic is being summed for each note - which can include things like percussion and key click - meaning that each note requires upwards of 22 voices. Internally the VST is capped at 330 voices, which is equivalent to 15 notes of polyphony. The voicelist also requires extra processing power, as (unlike a piano or other percussive instrument) each not can be sustained indefinitely, and thus newer notes must work around this limitation.

The plugin also does a fair amount of internal eq and sonic shaping depending on the preset. A great deal of time was spent experimenting and finding useful drawbar settings and eq combinations. There are 32 built-in presets modeled after classic Hammond Organ drawbar settings. You can hear an audio demonstration of these presets in the mp3 section.

The memory footprint of the plugin is around 400 MB. All of the plugin "s samples are loaded into memory upon loading as the plugin is primarily comprised up of looped samples, padded out with short attack and release samples. This means that this particular plugin is not dependent on a fast hard drive as it does not need to buffer samples during execution.

The plugin is designed to work with VST AU and AAX native versions and a Kontakt version was not created. This is because the plugin relies heavily on internal programming - for everything from the Leslie simulation to sample fold-back - that would be impossible to replicate with the Kontakt player "s simple scripting language.

This VST is, essentially, a hybrid between a Hammond M3 and B3 with a more aggressive sound. It is meant to sound a bit unique to already existing plugins and simulations, but with the wide range of parameter combinations, many sounds are possible.

The unique instrument, invented over 65 years ago, continues to inspire sacred awe among musicians around the world. Styles change, directions come and go, but Hammoпd remains out of fashion and out of competition. So, a little history ...

There were times when a self-respecting rock band simply could not appear on stage without a Hammond C3 or B3. Many jazz and rock musicians fell in love with this instrument and popularized it, among them - John Lord from Deer Purple, Keith Emerson from ELP and others. Many people still cannot imagine themselves without this instrument, despite the fact that Leslie's organ and column are rather bulky, and at least four people are required to carry them.

An important fact: you can still buy spare parts for Hammond organs! Nowadays, when each synthesizer model is released only a couple of years, after which it is replaced by the next, it is difficult to imagine that any modern Korg or Yamaha model in (at least!) Twenty or thirty years will be able to boast of the same.

Historically, Hammond electric organs were invented to replace church organs. Each manual consists of 61 keys, below there are 25 pedals (concert models had 32). The drawbars are labeled according to the length of the organ pipes. If you look at the register switches from left to right, you can see that the length of the corresponding "pipes" decreases. Pulling out the lowest switch produces a low sound corresponding to the longest pipe of a real organ.

The register switches control the level of harmonics or subharmonics in the sound and work in much the same way as the faders in a graphic equalizer. By changing the position of the faders on the equalizer, we change the timbre of the sound, and on the organ, using the register switches, we create timbres by increasing or decreasing the levels of certain harmonics. For example, if only the leftmost register switch is pulled out, then a low frequency sine wave will sound.

The era of Hammond organs began in 1933, when Lawrence Hammond of The Hammond Clock Somranu in Chicago became interested in the telharmonium instrument, invented in the late 19th century for transmitting music over a telephone line. The Telharmonium did not go further than experimental samples: the complexity of the design and the size of the instrument was to blame (it occupied several rooms). However, an original idea was used in its design: generators rotating at different speeds were used to create sounds of different heights.

It is not by chance that we mentioned The Hammond Clock Company: since Lawrence Hammond was directly related to the manufacture of watches, then one day (perhaps rotating some gear in his hands) he noticed that the shape of the teeth strikingly resembles the shape of the simplest sound wave - a sine wave. Hence the ingenious idea was born: to use gears rotating in a magnetic field to generate sound.


The diagram (above) shows the principle of the sound generation mechanism: a gear wheel rotates in a magnetic field. And this is how it looks (photo below) in reality.

Based on the idea of \u200b\u200bgears rotating in a magnetic field, Lawrence Hammond created a portable (for his time, of course) organ. A model called Model A was released in April 1935. Its manufacture was patronized by none other than Henry Ford (who also became the first buyer). The second model was donated to Franklin Roosevelt, then President of the United States. George Gershwin was also among the first buyers. This was followed by models B, B3, C3, M100 / L 100 / T100 and many others.

A common element of the design of all Hammond electric organs is an electric motor that drives shafts with toothed wheels (tonewhels) - there were 96 in the C3 / B3 models, in the rest there were fewer. Each gear wheel has a diameter of the order of 30 mm; depending on the number of teeth and the speed of rotation, one of the sounds of the equal tempered scale is obtained.

Hammond Percussion has nothing to do with percussion, but is a patented invention that alters the attack characteristics of a sound by adding an additional "percussive" tone (second or third harmonic) to it. The envelope of this signal can be adjusted, acquiring certain attenuation characteristics. Percussion creates a characteristic "jingle" at the beginning of a note, and it is audible only when playing staccato (that is, before pressing the next key, the previous one must be released).

Effects

Almost all models are equipped with vibrato and chorus effects, and the latter is used quite often on the B3 and SZ models. Some models (like the T100) had a spring reverb. Generally speaking, this reverb was invented specifically for "church" organ models (with a large one-piece body), but its design was so successful that Leo Fender bought the idea and used it in guitar amplifiers.

Leslie effects

Many organ models were not equipped with their own loudspeakers; instead, the Leslie acoustic cabinet, created by Don Leslie, was used almost at the same time as the Hammond organ was invented. The main purpose of this speaker cabinet is to change the sound, and not its high-quality transmission (all instruments, except for the organ and the electric guitar, sound simply disgusting through the Leslie effect),

The Leslie speaker design (see fig.) Contains a 40 W mono tube amplifier, a passive crossover with an 800 Hz crossover, a woofer and a tweeter aimed at a rotating horn (there were actually two horns, but only one, and the second served as a counterweight). Models 145, 147 and 122 also had a subwoofer rotor rotating in the opposite direction to the horn. Depending on the speed of rotation of the horn and rotor, two different effects can be obtained: chorale (slow rotation, the effect resembles a chorus) and tremolo (tremolo - fast rotation). There are over 20 models of the Leslie effect.

Big and small

Models C3 and B3 are considered classics, which are tools with a large body. B3 - American version of C3, has 4 legs instead of a solid body. It was this model, developed in 1955, that became widely used by jazz musicians.

Small organs include spinet type organs (portable electric organs for home use: models L100, M100). In terms of sound, these instruments are in no way inferior to large concert instruments, except that the possibilities for adjusting the timbre are more modest. Large organs could be split into two parts to facilitate transportation.

Sound

Every Hammond player tries to find his own sound. For example, renowned jazz organist Jimmy Smith achieved his classic tone by pulling out the first three register switches and setting the percussion knob to the Soft position (third harmonic, fast decay). Much the same setup was used by Brooker T on another classic track "Green Onions", but he added a fourth switch as well.

Each Hammond organ sounds different, even for instruments from the same series.

The sound of Hammond organs released after 1968 is brighter than that of their predecessors. This is due to the use of a different type of capacitors in the design. Although the difference in sound can only be noticed by those who have been playing on Hammond for a long time.

Setting up

Although Hammond organs are electromechanical devices, their structure never changes, unless the frequency of the current in the electrical network deviates from 50 Hz or 60 Hz (network frequency in the USA). This danger lies in wait for musicians mainly at concerts in the open air, where portable power generators are used, and the frequency can periodically drop below 50 Hz, which will cause the organ to turn off. An increase in the frequency of the current in the mains does not cause the instrument to be turned off, but it begins to overestimate the tuning.

Imitation

The production of the C3 and other models of electric organs with gears was discontinued in 1974. This was due to the high costs of their assembly. In our time, their release would not be economically justified, since all organs were collected by hand.

There have been numerous attempts to simulate the sound of Hammond, but the results were mostly very rough. This is due to objective difficulties, since it is very difficult to synthesize the sound obtained by rotating mechanical parts in an electromagnetic field. Sampling a real Hammond organ gives almost nothing, since it is similar to the original only when played with single notes. The Leslie effect with the fast rotation of the horn and rotor is almost impossible to simulate.

However, not all attempts to imitate were unsuccessful, and the instruments CX3 and BX3 from Korg, as well as the new model CX3, which is covered in a separate article in this issue of the magazine, came closest to the original. The first CX3 and BX3 were specially developed in the late 70's to emulate the sound of Hammond. The results were so successful that some musicians purchased a Korg CX3 or BX3 in order to have a backup in case of an unexpected failure of the main instrument during a concert. However, real Hammond organs are very reliable and can only burn out lamps.

Oberheim produced OB3 organs, which had three independent MIDI controlled sound generators for each manual and for the bottom row of pedals.

In the late 1980s, Suzuki bought the Hammond trademark and began producing new organs under the Hammond-Suzuki name. Models XB2 (portable instrument with one manual), XB3 (dual manual) and XB5 have all the same features as the classic Hammond organs (register switches, percussion for the second and third harmonics, key clicks), only the characteristic mechanical sound of tonal rotation is absent ...

Did you know that ...

Despite the fact that this fact is difficult to believe, it is absolutely reliable: Lawrence Hammond did not know how to play any musical instrument, including his own invention. And his ear for music, to put it mildly, left much to be desired: by his own admission, he could not remember and reproduce even a simple melody. That is why the inventor tried to hire people with a musical education: the first "ears" of Lawrence were the typist Louise Benke, who was hired in 1933 not so much for his ability to typewritten and shorthand, but because of the ability to play organ, and company treasurer William Lahey, who previously served as staff organist at St. Christopher's Church in Oak Park, Illinois. And we owe most of the sound innovations to the company's engineer, the excellent organist John Hanert, who devoted almost 30 years of his life (from 1934 to 1962) to the development and improvement of electric organs.

Lawrence Hammond believed that the sound of Leslie's acoustic cabinets "significantly degrades the sound of an electric organ." “I never wanted my organs to sound like that,” “dirty sound,” are just some of the inventor's own comments on Leslie's loudspeakers. Perhaps the reason for such claims was the lack of ear for music: after all, the first Hammond organs were advertised as a "cheap alternative to church organs", for which phase and tonal variations (successfully simulated by the Leslie effect) are an integral part of the sound. And despite numerous assurances from musicians that the electric organ sounds more natural with Leslie's cabinet, Hammond himself did not admit it.

(electric organ) that was designed and built by Lawrence Hammond in April 1935. Hammond's organs were originally sold to churches as an inexpensive alternative to wind organs, but the instrument was often used in blues, jazz, rock and roll (1960s and 1970s), and gospel. The Hammond organ gained wide popularity in military ensembles during World War II and in the postwar years.

Currently (2011) the Hammond trademark belongs to Suzuki Musical Inst. Mfg. Co., Ltd., and is called Hammond Suzuki Co., Ltd.

Device

Hammond B3 and Leslie speakers

Links

  • article about "Hammond Organ" on obsolete.com
  • Hammond C3 and Leslie. Photo gallery.
  • Real Hammond Organ - Remanufactured Instruments Store
  • HammondWiki - Warning: HammondWiki's material is protected by the OPL license, which is incompatible with the GFDL license. Only authors of original articles can copy materials here.
  • - Hammond organ.

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