When was the hammond organ designed and built. Legendary electrokeys. Hammond Organ. Hammond organ patent and trademark

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

Original purpose of the Hammond organ

It was not as expensive an instrument as an ordinary wind organ. So churches bought it as an alternative. But it turned out that the Hammond 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 it in acoustic scientific research. It was also bought by private individuals for home music playing.

Invention history

Inventor Lawrence Hammond has significant credit for discoveries. For example, stereocinema was originally his idea. In total, he has about 80 patents for inventions, and Hammond received the first of them at the age of 16. which was carefully designed, was not his first offspring.

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 for the 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 the sound signal was reproduction using mechanical phonic wheels. Levers helped mix different forms of electrical signal. The engine rotated discs with a wavy edge. The keyboard of the electric organ was actuated, as a result, each disc played a note. An electric magnet was located opposite. Due to the speed of rotation and the frequency set by the "roughness" of the disk, a tone of a certain height was formed. Several harmonics were added to the tone, which were responsible for higher and lower sounds. The registers controlled the volume. So 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, as it acquired this trademark. Suzuki, being an automotive company, has been eyeing the tool for a long time. Several analogies have been released that do not compare to the original electric organ. They are called only dummies compared to the original instrument. In 2011, the Hammond Suzuki division was formed.

Hammond himself patented the tool in a very short time, in 1934. Apparently, this happened because of the corresponding financial and political situation. The organ model originally sold had 2 keyboards with 61 notes. It was also equipped with registers for keyboards, 25 pedals and registers for pedals. The organ gained considerable popularity, but a certain case helped in this.

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. 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 such a development. All parameters were exactly as ordered by G. Ford. But it wasn't a coincidence. Ford simply became interested in the new organ after hearing about it and decided to buy out the patent to avoid publicity. After all, the author of the invention can start bargaining, but Ford did not like this.

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

Ford looked at 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 recognized it, bought 6 copies at once. Hammond's agents posted a price of $1,250. Thus, the first sale of organs took place even before the presentation at the Industrial Art Exhibition.

Electrical sales company

The further fate of the musical instrument can be called happy. Hammond didn't make a big markup on every sale. But it must be said that Ford asked him about it, offering money and workers for the company. The first year gave the realization of 1400 pieces of 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 previous models, that is, wind instruments, suffered losses due to the compact dimensions of the new instrument and the comparative cheapness. The prices were simply incommensurable. Having begun to lose in the market, the manufacturers of the former organs filed a complaint with the trade commission. The complaint contained a request: Hammond should no longer refer to his instrument as an organ. The reason was the lack of a proper sound range in terms of shades and harmonics, sufficient to match the organ.

Checking the electric organ for compliance with church tradition

This statement was not without 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 an exemplary competition in the church, while it was hidden from the listeners on which instrument the music was played. Hammond organ or traditional?

The jury consisted of students, but it was only one part of it. The second group included famous musicians and conductors. Professional musicians caught the difference in most cases, while students could not always distinguish performances. But no group was able to determine the difference 100%.

Hammond's firm was given the right to call the instrument an organ, but was ordered not to advertise it as an instrument with an infinite sound range. The exact figure has been determined as 253 million sounds.

Competition

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

Leslie produced speakers that Hammond 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 and did not make friends. D. Leslie's products were not advertised as actively, but they won in quality.

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

Development of tool design

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 additional devices that significantly updated the design. These are, for example, vibrato, and later amplifiers that were built into musical instruments.

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

Notable Hammond Organ Musicians

Hammond organs have been used to play 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 has taken the stage without a Hammond organ. For example, the Deep Purple group, as well as the Beatles, actively used it. Even during the period of mass fascination with the reproduction of samples, some synthesizers contained 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 Hammond player was chosen in a poll conducted by Keyboard magazine. This is Keith Emerson, repeatedly recognized as the best by the results of the year. By the way, he treated his instrument rather unusually. With the help of ordinary knives, he secured the keys to ensure a long sounding of the notes, while he himself continued to play music with both hands. Subsequently, it was his instrument that began to be used for samples of the Hammond organ in the popular E-mu Vintage Keys sound module.

The present period in the life of the organ

Hammond organs in their original form ceased to be produced in 1976, only loud fame remained. Numerous models of the musical sound synthesizer have been produced, but most are only referred to as toys compared to the original. The electronic sound synthesis that replicates the chip-based Hammond is quite complex in terms of exact reproduction. But until now, many tool repair companies produce parts for Hammond and repair it.

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

Several series have been released over 40 years Hammond Organ , very often subsequent models of the organ did not change the internal structure, but only received a new case, however, there were also noticeable innovations. Models with a wheeled 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 44-key keyboards, - for home music making.

Hammond A-102

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


Hammond B-3

Despite the rather large dimensions of the instrument, as well as its solid weight - about 190 kg, the keyboardists of rock bands and on tour did not part with their favorites, 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 set. Difference between B-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 musicians, and especially organists in skirts, be covered on three sides with solid panels.


Hammond C-3

Hammond B cost -3 with a walnut case was $2,750, and a cherry case was $2,835. The sound of jazz bands and organ trios, classic hard rock Deep 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, pop rock Three Dog Night, Spencer Davis Group, art-rock Colosseum : the revolutionary decade for popular music from the mid-60s to the mid-70s is impossible to imagine 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 Columbiarecordshappened to be Al Cooper ( AlKooper, AlanPeterKuperschmidt, 02/05/1944), a session guitarist who had never played the organ before, and did not even know how to turn it on. On the second day of heavy and chaotic sessions, taking advantage of the fact that producer Tom Wilson left the studio, Cooper decided to offer Dylan a simple but catchy organ riff. Returning to the control room, Wilson was surprised to see Cooper at the hammond, but despite this he let him play. After the first take, the producer advised Dylan to cut the organ part from the song, but he, despite protests, only asked to make it louder, and this theme became one of the most famous in rock music. In the same year, Cooper joined the Bob Dylan band, not as a guitarist, but as an organist. During Dylan's last show of the 1966 tour, just 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="_blank"> play it fucking loud! "

In addition to Dylan, Cooper, as a guest keyboardist, took part in the recording of Jimi Hendrix albums, TherollingStonesetc. He also founded his own record label SoundsOfTheSoundswho later helped bring the group to prominence LynyrdSkynyrd, organized groups TheBluesprojectAndBlood, SweatAndTears.

RHODA SCOTT Moanin' (Bobby Timmons) 1972

The eldest daughter in the family of an itinerant preacher, Rhoda Scott ( RhodaScott, 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 worship services, and even then her musical vocation was discovered, everyone noted Rhoda's vocal abilities and a rare flair as an instrumentalist. She entered the famous " Manhattanschoolofmusic"in New York, which she graduated with honors. She made her debut as part of CountBasiein Harlem, and was immediately accepted into the circle of masters. Soon, Rhoda 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 in both classical and jazz and blues music. He brilliantly owns foot technique, easily playing fast syncopated bass figures of jazz-rock on the foot keyboard - in all two pedal octaves they are no worse than bass guitarists. Gifted with an exceptional musical memory, she knows by heart more than a thousand pieces of music, and composes a lot herself. In addition, Rhoda never draws up a performance program in advance, but always plays, focusing on inspiration, the atmosphere of the place and moment, and the reaction of the public.


BILLY PRESTON summer time (George Gershwin) 1935/1974

One of those who were awarded the title of "fifth Beatle" by the ubiquitous press, Billy Preston William Everett Preston church choir. In the first half of the 60s, Preston easily, as if effortlessly, climbs the musical Olympus. Now his stage partners are Little Richard and Ray Charles. Preston was already quite a popular artist in America, but he became world famous due to his participation in one, at first glance, not very specialized project. TheBeatlesduring the recording of the album LetItBeexperienced 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 a concert by Ray Charles, who was then accompanied on the organ by Billy Preston. Harrison returned to the studio already in the company of Preston, and, perhaps, the brilliant spontaneity and cheerfulness of the American organist were transferred to the members of the Liverpool Four, briefly extending her life. A little later Preston helped The RollingStones(Sticky Fingers album and famous solo on I Got The Blues). He also wrote with Dennis Wilson from beachboysfamous song You Are So Beautiful for Joe Cocker. A touching episode took place already 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 a liver, the "peppers" brought him a demo-recording of the Warlocks song for their Stadium Arcadium album, and invited him to the session. Preston liked the song, and he just got out of bed, went to the studio, and recorded it on the first take. Plate came outacrossthreedaysafterof deathBillyPreston.


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

BoltHeavymetal

And, competing with us,

Wild, violent - the wind.

In the summer of 1968, a song by unknown performers, a very effective group of young people, one of the centers of which was the keyboard player, bursts rapidly into the American hit parade Goldie Macjohn ( goldyMcJohn, JohnRaymondGoadsby, 05/02/1945) - a man with a pirate appearance, bearded, with a huge mop of coarse curly hair, a symbol of savagery Steppenwolf. Assertiveness, a sharp sound, an electric organ going crazy - that was business card this song. Critics singled out the phrase " HeavymetalThunder"(itself it meant the roar of a motorcycle engine and came from the book Naked Lunch by William Burroughs"), and dubbed the band's style as heavy metal. After including their hit on the soundtrack of the cult biker film Easy Rider ("Easy Rider"), the song became an anthem, and Steppenwolf became a favorite group of bikers all over the world.

BLIND FAITH Can't Find My Way Home (Steve Winwood) 1969

Unfortunately, the only album of the super-group BlindFaith(Clapton-Baker-Winwood) will forever remain "the one in which an eleven-year-old girl (Mariora Goshen, who asked for a horse as a fee but received £40) is photographed topless." Poor management did not allow the composing talent of the team members to fully develop, not excluding Steve Winwood ( StephenLawrencewinwood, 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 ( KennethWilliamDavidHensley, 08/24/1945): "I'm not a very good keyboard player, and therefore I try to avoid black keys. White keys are much easier to play, so I concentrate on them. Also, I have very long fingers, and if I press black keys all the time keys, fingers can get stuck between them. Actually, I only started playing guitar and keyboards because I needed to turn my poetry into music. In the process of creating music, I composed some chords that were wrong, unconventional. That's why my technique is considered unique. I can't play like Jon Lord, Keith Emerson and keyboardists of their level. But I'm free to move around the keyboard and have a few tricks, and I think I'm good at it." Uriah Heep, with his recognizable combination of stretched keyboard sounds, guitar accents and multi-stepped vocals, managed to establish a strong position in the ranks of the hard rock elite of the 70s, despite open hostility from the press, mainly due to their eclecticism. musical material. The group was perhaps more popular in the USSR than at home, for which it received a separate devastating review: "The essence of the aesthetics developed by Uriya Hip and other representatives of" hard rock "was hopelessness. The lyrics of the compositions, accompanied by gloomy sounding music, over which David Byron's vocals forced to the limit, but poor in nuances, soared, as if asserting the meaninglessness of human existence in the capitalist world, 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 today Rarebirdare able to surprise with their special feature: gloomy hard rock without a guitar, replaced by a duel of two keyboardists. Graham Field(Graham Field, 05/03/1940) on HammondB-3 and Dave Caffinetti on electric piano, powerful melodramatic vocals and furious drum fills - more than forty years ago, at the peak of popularity, BillboardmagazinerecognizedRarebirdone of the top ten new teams.

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

MusicFrumpywas a unique, bizarre and previously unfamiliar mixture of rock, blues, jazz, psychedelia, with a touch of classical European music to German bands. Basic sound instrument Frumpythere were signature "male" vocals of Inga Rumpf and bright and long organ passages of the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Kravets ( Jean- JacquesKravetz, 05/23/1947), which were innovative for the German rock scene of that period. The group did not last long and in the year of their breakup 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 years in August 1972."

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


ATOMIC ROOSTER vug (Vincent Crane) 1970/1972

The talented self-taught pianist Vincent Crane (Vincent Rodney Cheesman, 05/21/1943 - 02/14/1989), in the late 60s became friends with the charismatic singer Arthur Brown and organized with him the legendary band Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, a kind of forerunner of Alice Cooper, Kiss, Merlin Manson, KingDiamond; the first album of the team made a splash in "swinging London" and is now considered one of the exemplary in early progressive, and song Fire became one of the biggest rock hits of 1968 on both sides of the Atlantic. Crane later formed his own band, Atomic Rooster, destined to become one of the legends of the British rock scene. The history of AR cost Crane health in many ways, first of all, mental health. He became a victim of manic-depressive psychosis, which repeatedly led 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, apparently, anyone.


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 ( RichardChristopherWakeman, 05/18/1949), a virtuoso keyboardist who received an excellent classical education, played with David Bowie, Lou Reed, Elton John, Cat Stevens, BlackSabbath, the author of hundreds of solo albums that have sold more than 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. Asked about how the idea of ​​wearing a silver cape on stage was born and why it was a cape, Wakeman laughs: "It's all because of one early review, which wrote that I play great, but I look like a crazy spider, with arms and legs outstretched around. We once performed in Connecticut, and we were represented by a local DJ. He was wearing this very raincoat. I just looked at him and immediately knew that this was the answer to my dreams. I offered him my week's wages (about $200) for this raincoat. After a little haggling, he sold it to me. I put it on right away and so went on stage. I still have this raincoat today, there were a lot of them, now there are four or five left. 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

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


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

Technically perfect and graceful art-rock band Rhoda Argent(Rodney Terence Argent, 6/14/1945) was close in its ethereal melodies and quasi-baroque keyboard passages to the music of ELP, Genesis and Yes, while retaining the minor and melodic freshness of the Zombies ballads. Unfortunately, following the rapid 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, intended not only for pianists, but also for beginners, began. A series has been developed M(produced from 1948 to 1968) with built-in amplifier, speakers and reverb. This instrument was widely used in home music making and in small churches, and competed with numerous compact organs that appeared on the market at that time.


Hammond M-102

The M-100 was played by John Paul Jones on two debut albums Led Zeppelin , on M-102 - Matthew Fisher from Procol Harum , also used by Rick Wright from 1970 to 1972 before switching to C-3.


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

David Gilmour Richard Wright( RichardWilliamwright, 07/28/1943 - 09/15/2008): "In the streams of arguments about who or what is PinkFloyd, Rick's enormous contribution has often been forgotten. He was noble, modest and closed, but his soulful voice and playing were necessary, magical components of the most recognizable sound. PinkFloyd. I have never played with anyone even like him. In my opinion, all the best moments PinkFloydThese 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 " WishYouWereHere” would not have been completely completed. In our middle years, for various reasons, he lost his way for a while, 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 came as a huge surprise to him (but not to us).” (the video is long, Wright's solo on the M-102 is from the 5:20 mark)

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

Adam Monroe 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 band on each note is individually sampled through the organ's built-in 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 run through Grace M101 preamps. The Hammond M3 organ combines the last two harmonics into a single drawbar, this note is not included. Instead, "digital foldback" technology was used to expand the Hammond M3 harmonics to look like 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, still awes musicians around the world. Styles change, trends come and go, but Hammopd remains - out of fashion and out of competition. So, a bit of history...

There were times when a self-respecting rock band simply could not appear on the stage without a Hammond C3 or B3. Many jazz and rock musicians fell in love with this instrument and popularized it, among them - Jon Lord of Deer Purple, Keith Emerson of ELP and others. Many people still cannot imagine themselves without this instrument, despite the fact that the Leslie 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! In our time, when each synthesizer model is produced for only a couple of years, after which it is replaced by the next one, it is difficult to imagine that any modern Korg or Yamaha model in twenty or thirty years (at least!) will be able to boast the same.

Historically, Hammond electric organs were invented to replace church organs. Each manual consists of 61 keys, with 25 pedals at the bottom (concert models had 32). The drawbars are marked according to the lengths 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 the lowest switch out produces a low sound corresponding to the longest pipe of a real organ.

Drawbar switches control the level of harmonics or sub-harmonics in the sound and work in much the same way as 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 register switches, we create timbres by increasing or decreasing the levels of certain harmonics. For example, if only the leftmost drawbar switch is pulled out, a low-frequency sine wave will sound.

The Hammond organ era began in 1933 when Lawrence Hammond of the Chicago The The Hammond Clock Company became interested in the "telarmonium" instrument, invented at the end of the 19th century and designed to transmit music over a telephone line. "Telarmonium" did not go further than experimental samples: the complexity of the design and the size of the instrument were to blame for everything (it occupied several rooms). However, an original idea was applied in its design: generators rotating at different speeds were used to create sounds of different heights.

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


The diagram (above) shows how the sound generation mechanism works: a gear wheel rotates in a magnetic field. And this is what it looks like in reality (pictured below).

Based on the idea of ​​gears 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 (he also became the first buyer). The second model was presented to Franklin Roosevelt, then President of the United States. Among the first buyers was also George Gershwin. This was followed by models B, B3, C3, M100/L 100/T100 and many others.

A common element in the design of all Hammond electric organs is an electric motor that drives shafts with gears (tonewheels) - in the C3 / B3 models there were 96 of them, in the rest there were fewer. Each gear has a diameter of about 30 mm; depending on the number of teeth and the speed of rotation, one of the sounds of the uniform temperament scale is obtained.

Hammond Percussion has nothing to do with percussion, but is a patented invention that changes 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 “tinkling” at the beginning of a note, and it is only heard 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 models B3 and C3. Some models (like the T100) had a spring reverb. Generally speaking, this reverb was invented specifically for "church" organ models (with a large solid body), but its design was so successful that Leo Fender bought this idea and began to apply it in guitar amplifiers.

Leslie effects

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

The design of the Leslie column (see Fig.) has a 40 W monophonic tube amplifier, a passive crossover with a crossover frequency of 800 Hz, a low-frequency loudspeaker and a high-frequency loudspeaker aimed at a rotating horn (there were actually two horns, but only "working" was one, and the second served as a counterweight). Models 145, 147 and 122 also had a counter-rotating rotor for the woofer. Depending on the speed of rotation of the horn and rotor, two different effects can be obtained: chorale (chorale - slow rotation, the effect resembles a chorus) and tremolo (tremolo - fast rotation). There are over 20 Leslie effect models.

Big and small

Models C3 and B3 are considered classic, which are instruments with a large body. B3 - American version of C3, has 4 legs instead of a one-piece body. It was this model, developed in 1955, that began to be 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 their timbre control capabilities are more modest. Large organs for ease of transportation could be divided into two parts.

Sound

Every performer who plays the Hammond tries to find his own sound. For example, famous jazz organist Jimmy Smith achieved his classic tone by pulling out the first three drawbar switches and setting the percussion control to Soft (third harmonic, fast decay). Almost the same settings were used by Brooker T on another classic track "Green Onions", but he also pushed a fourth switch.

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

The sound of Hammond organs made after 1968 is brighter than their predecessors. This is due to the use of other types of capacitors in the design. Although the difference in sound can only be noticed by someone who has been playing the Hammond for a long time.

Setting

Although Hammond organs are electromechanical devices, their pitch never changes unless the mains frequency deviates from 50 Hz or 60 Hz (mains frequency in the United States). Such a danger awaits musicians mainly at open-air concerts, 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 network does not cause the instrument to turn off, however, it begins to overestimate the system.

Imitation

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

Many attempts have been made to imitate the Hammond sound, but the results have been mostly approximate. This is due to objective difficulties, since it is very difficult to synthesize sound obtained by rotating mechanical parts in an electromagnetic field. Sampling a real Hammond organ does almost nothing, since the resemblance to the original exists only when played with single notes. The Leslie effect with the rapid rotation of the horn and rotor is almost impossible to imitate.

However, not all attempts at imitation were unsuccessful, and the CX3 and BX3 instruments from Korg, as well as the new CX3 model, which is devoted to a separate article in this issue of the magazine, came closest to the original. The first CX3 and BX3 were specifically designed in the late 70s to mimic the Hammond sound. The results were so successful that some musicians purchased a Korg CX3 or BX3 in order to have a backup in case their main instrument failed during a gig. However, real Hammond organs are very reliable, they can only burn out lamps.

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

In the late 80s, Suzuki bought the Hammond brand and began producing new organs under the name Hammond-Suzuki. The XB2 (single-manual portable instrument), XB3 (double-manual) and XB5 models have all the same features as classic Hammond organs (register switches, percussion for the second and third harmonics, key click), only the characteristic mechanical overtone of the rotation of the capstans is missing .

And did you know that…

Despite the fact that this fact is hard to believe, it is absolutely reliable: Lawrence Hammond could not play any musical instrument, including his own invention. And his musical ear, 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 (Louise Benke), hired in 1933, not so much because of the ability to typewriter and shorthand, but because of the ability to play organist, and company treasurer William Lahey, formerly 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 felt that the sound of Leslie's acoustic cabinets "substantially degrades the sound of the electric organ". “I never wanted my organs to sound like this”, “dirty sound”, - these are just some of the inventor's comments about Leslie's loudspeakers. Perhaps the reason for such statements was the lack of an ear for music: after all, the first Hammond organs were advertised as "a cheap alternative to church authorities”, for which phase and tonal variations (successfully imitated by the Leslie effect) are an integral element of the sound. And despite the numerous assurances of the musicians that the electric organ sounds more natural with the cabinet of Leslie, Hammond himself did not admit this.

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

Currently (2011) trademark Hammond is owned by Suzuki Musical Inst. Mfg. Co., Ltd., and is named Hammond Suzuki Co., Ltd.

Device

Hammond B3 and Leslie speakers

Links

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

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