Hammonds, Leslies and more... [Archive]

toddalin

08-29-2008, 10:31 AM

toddalin,

Do you have some photos and/or specifications of this system?
He would like to know more on this subject.

James Benatti Lansing

Sort of off topic, but see the pic of this transparent Leslie:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Leslie_Speaker.jpg/460px-Leslie_Speaker.jpg

These are not original components though and therefore do not produce the original sound.

While the actual horn and working parts appear correct, the original horn driver is a Jensen.

Note the baffles in front of the actual horn opening to disperse sound. Still, the horn beneath the baffle only routed sound up one side of the assembly. If the sound came out both sides, Leslies would loose some of their characteristic sound.

When you hear a leslie in a real live situation, it is not like recorded music as the sound is "thown" around the room, rather than back and forth across your speakers. To truely appreciate the Leslie, it must be heard live.

You hear the doppler shift and the sound gets loudest as the open side of the horn approaches you. As it spins away, you hear it go quiet. As it approaches the inside wall of the front of the chamber, away from you (everyone runs their Leslies backward toward the audience for most volume and less internal dispersion), it again gets louder as the sound is reflects off the back of the front wall toward you. But not as loud as when it actually was facing you. Also, there is a shift in timbre as treble is lost in this reflected sound.

It continues to spin and gets quiet again now facing the other side of the cabinet before spinning back to its loudest point at the rear, facing the audience or microphone.

If both sides of the horn were open, it would sound the same when it points forward or rearward.

The woofer should be a CTS or Eminance with a square magnet assembly. There could also be a dust cloth around the lower drum.

The main amp is rated at 40 watts RMS and (if memory serves), 60 watts peak using a pair of 6550s. Crossover was at 800 Hz. If the unit were an RV (reverb), there would be an addition 16 watt tube amp mounted in the top chamber driving a Jensen 6"x9" mounted in one side of the main portion of the central enclosure. Like the horn, while both sides of the enclosure were "louvered" for the 6"x9", it was only installed on one side and the other had a block-off plate.

Some of the Leslies had a rectangular port on the rear cover (mine included). I don't really see how it could have done much, because contrary to the clear Leslie shown, the corner of the piece of wood that the woofer was mounted on (right front corner in picure) was cut out between the central chamber and lower chamber. Also contrary to the picture, there was no chamber around the horn motors and air leaked there too.

Leslies were also designed these for other makes of organs, and later multi-channel Hammonds made use of additional 6"x9"s and could use the blocked off louvers.

The Leslie with my H324 Hammond actually had the 15" with the lower drum, some stationary 6"x9"s for the other channels, and instead of the horn, a pair of 6"x9"s were rotated in the upper portion. Contact was through brushes.

Benatti

08-29-2008, 11:11 AM

toddalin,
Many thanks a lot for the explanations. Plus that learn on these fantastic organ.
James Benatti Lansing

SMKSoundPro

09-11-2008, 01:00 PM

Sort of off topic, but see the pic of this transparent Leslie:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Leslie_Speaker.jpg/460px-Leslie_Speaker.jpg

These are not original components though and therefore do not produce the original sound.

While the actual horn and working parts appear correct, the original horn driver is a Jensen.

Note the baffles in front of the actual horn opening to disperse sound. Still, the horn beneath the baffle only routed sound up one side of the assembly. If the sound came out both sides, Leslies would loose some of their characteristic sound.

When you hear a leslie in a real live situation, it is not like recorded music as the sound is "thown" around the room, rather than back and forth across your speakers. To truely appreciate the Leslie, it must be heard live.

You hear the doppler shift and the sound gets loudest as the open side of the horn approaches you. As it spins away, you hear it go quiet. As it approaches the inside wall of the front of the chamber, away from you (everyone runs their Leslies backward toward the audience for most volume and less internal dispersion), it again gets louder as the sound is reflects off the back of the front wall toward you. But not as loud as when it actually was facing you. Also, there is a shift in timbre as treble is lost in this reflected sound.

It continues to spin and gets quiet again now facing the other side of the cabinet before spinning back to its loudest point at the rear, facing the audience or microphone.

If both sides of the horn were open, it would sound the same when it points forward or rearward.

The woofer should be a CTS or Eminance with a square magnet assembly. There could also be a dust cloth around the lower drum.

The main amp is rated at 40 watts RMS and (if memory serves), 60 watts peak using a pair of 6550s. Crossover was at 800 Hz. If the unit were an RV (reverb), there would be an addition 16 watt tube amp mounted in the top chamber driving a Jensen 6"x9" mounted in one side of the main portion of the central enclosure. Like the horn, while both sides of the enclosure were "louvered" for the 6"x9", it was only installed on one side and the other had a block-off plate.

Some of the Leslies had a rectangular port on the rear cover (mine included). I don't really see how it could have done much, because contrary to the clear Leslie shown, the corner of the piece of wood that the woofer was mounted on (right front corner in picure) was cut out between the central chamber and lower chamber. Also contrary to the picture, there was no chamber around the horn motors and air leaked there too.

Leslies were also designed these for other makes of organs, and later multi-channel Hammonds made use of additional 6"x9"s and could use the blocked off louvers.

The Leslie with my H324 Hammond actually had the 15" with the lower drum, some stationary 6"x9"s for the other channels, and instead of the horn, a pair of 6"x9"s were rotated in the upper portion. Contact was through brushes.
I beg to differ. It looks like an appropriate 147 leslie to me. Dad had a 122 with the on/off rotor. The 15' was a Jensen with a round alnico magnet. The horn driver was a Jensen, also.

This appears to be a working model.

Scotty.
ps. I am still fixing Hammond tone-wheel organs and tube-type Leslie's.

boputnam

09-11-2008, 03:03 PM

I beg to differ. It looks like an appropriate 147 leslie to me. Dad had a 122 with the on/off rotor. The 15' was a Jensen with a round alnico magnet. The horn driver was a Jensen, also.

This appears to be a working model.
I'm with Scotty on this one. I'd also add, that some of the best Leslie's I've heard have swapped in some old JBL's in-place of the Jensen. :applaud:

Note the baffles in front of the actual horn opening to disperse sound. Still, the horn beneath the baffle only routed sound up one side of the assembly. If the sound came out both sides, Leslies would loose some of their characteristic sound.I must not be understanding you - what do you mean "one side of the assembly"...? If you mean that twinned rotating horn? Both are "active", all the time.

You hear the doppler shift and the sound gets loudest as the open side of the horn approaches you.Again, aren't both horns active? You hear the doppler affect on each horn as the assembly rotates.

(everyone runs their Leslies backward toward the audience for most volume and less internal dispersion)No. Players may do that for themselves but it has little/no impact in the audience position. We use ours "pretty side front" :) and mic through the louvers.

FWIW, we run our leslies pretty side forward, and mic only one cabinet. I use two SM57's on the Hi rotor - one on each side (not shoved into the rear cabinet opening). This mic'ing assures we get excellent reproduction of the twin doppler effect you are trying to describe. These inputs are panned mid-hemisphere R/L respectively. The Lo rotor gets either a 421 or SM52 - something with a larger diaphragm - positioned anywhere on the low louvers. If stuffed into the rear, the rotor's wind noise is unacceptible. This input is panned C.

Love the Leslie...

Tim Rinkerman

09-11-2008, 11:33 PM

The high frequencies do only eminate from one of the horns of the "treble" rotor on a Leslie. The passage from the driver throat only goes to one horn, the other is for balance.
I love Leslies...I played organ in the 70's just to have control of that sound....! They're dirt simple and one of the most classic "aural" sounds there is. Early models were one speed, off or fast. The two speed models weren't built till the middle 50's.
I have a hybrid/mutt Leslie for myself...it has a 16 ohm 2226 in the bottom, but an antique Atlas driver in the top. Hammond orans are done making frequencies at about 6K, a top end driver that goes much past that is not necessary, detrimental in fact. If I ever see a real good deal on a single 2470 or 2482, it'll go there.

SMKSoundPro

09-11-2008, 11:47 PM

FWIW, we run our leslies pretty side forward, and mic only one cabinet. I use two SM57's on the Hi rotor - one on each side (not shoved into the rear cabinet opening). This mic'ing assures we get excellent reproduction of the twin doppler effect you are trying to describe. These inputs are panned mid-hemisphere R/L respectively. The Lo rotor gets either a 421 or SM52 - something with a larger diaphragm - positioned anywhere on the low louvers. If stuffed into the rear, the rotor's wind noise is unacceptible. This input is panned C. Love the Leslie...

This is the same way I mic'd a leslie when we doing Rocky Horror live on stage with a great band last year. I used a beta 57 on each side of the upper rotor, panned just like you did. Then I had a EV RE20 for the bottom rotor. The keyboardist dug the sound in the room.

So glad to know someone else mics it the same way! Every time he leaned on the organ, I leaned a little bit on the lower rotor. Man, it was heaven! I just sat there and thought of my dad.

Scotty.

toddalin

09-12-2008, 10:13 AM

[quote=boputnam;220697]
"I must not be understanding you - what do you mean "one side of the assembly"...? If you mean that twinned rotating horn? Both are "active", all the time. "

No, you are wrong.

"Again, aren't both horns active? You hear the doppler affect on each horn as the assembly rotates."

No, wrong again.

johnaec

09-12-2008, 10:41 AM

I love Leslies...I played organ in the 70's just to have control of that sound....!Here's an interesting later model "concert set" for sale in SF: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/msg/837033896.html

Not the classics you're talking about, but I'll bet they really put out...

John

boputnam

09-12-2008, 03:08 PM

No, wrong again.You are right, again.

Your original post got me curious - I only get to spend chance minutes around the cabinet and I'm not an organist - so I double-checked and I did have it wrong. There's good info on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_speaker) including much you posted, and another at Unearthing the Mysteries of the Leslie Cabinet (http://theatreorgans.com/hammond/faq/mystery/mystery.html) with this cutaway of the rotating horn.

I should know better than to doubt you, Todd, you are such a good tinker'er! :)

toddalin

09-12-2008, 04:21 PM

Here's an interesting later model "concert set" for sale in Denver: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/msg/837033896.html

Not the classics you're talking about, but I'll bet they really put out...

John

These used solid state amps, so lost some of that characteric sound. These could be had with JBLs from the factory, but not the 075s. Someone must have added those later.

The tweeters would do more harm than good for a Hammond. (But these had provisions for a 1/4" jack high impedience input through the combo pedal so could be used for anything.)

As was stated above, the Hammond is all done by ~6,000 Hz. Recognize that the Hammond wave form is a sine wave so there are no harmonics per se. Sounds are made by stacking sine waves on top of sine waves, hense the drawbars. You are essentually synthesizing the desired wave form out of sine waves. That's why a Hammond can have millions of sounds, but they still all sound like a Hammond.

What the tweeters will do for a Hammond is amplify the "key click" that some find annoying.

When you listen to a Hammond, especially the low notes played individually, you hear a very distinct "click" at the onset of the sound some of the time. (With no internal guts to cover this sound, mine was very notable if played though a high fidelity system rather than a Leslie, but some people actually like that sound.)

Because the tone generators put out their sine waves continually, whether a key is pressed or not, when you do press a key, you could be "keying in" anywhere on that sine wave. If you press a key and the wave is near the zero point, the note comes on nice and "smooth." But, if you press the key and the wave is at a crest or trough, it squares off the leading edge of the sine wave generating odd harmonics, and that characteristic "click" sound. This is known as "keying on a transient."

This is somewhat alleviated by using a high resistance coating on the buss bars that the keys actually contact. There is a buss bar for each drawbar (9) and each key has an associated gold wire (9) attached to the key that makes contact when the key is pressed. The wire pushes through the coating giving a more gradual leading edge to the wave reducing the transient noise.

Part of regular maintenance on Hammonds includes oiling the motor and gears and rotating the buss bars against the key contacts to clean them off.

boputnam

09-12-2008, 06:54 PM

As was stated above, the Hammond is all done by ~6,000 Hz. Todd, I cannot find this reference - but if you have a second, can you explain this a bit further?

Tim Rinkerman

09-12-2008, 07:44 PM

Laurens Hammond was an inventor and an engineer, he could not play his own instrument! He was a pretty remarkable individual in his day. There is a pretty good book about Hammond and Leslie(Don) called "Beauty and the B"..you get the whole story behind both of the guys famous for the Hammond/Leslie sound. Hammond defended the accuracy and purity of his tone generation system to the time of his death. He detested what the Leslie speaker did to the sound of his organ, and did everything possible to keep the two apart. There are many great stories of the rivalry between Hammond and Leslie...if you were a Hammond dealer and tried selling Leslies with them, he would pull your dealership. He made it so that the organ power supply was in the Hammond tone cabinet so you could not use the organ without it. The big selling point of Hammonds is that as long as you have 60hz. power, it will never be out of tune. The "tonewheels" ,96 of them, spin on shafts geared and connected to a 60hz. synchronous motor..Hammond INVENTED the synchronous motor to run clocks. The tone wheels look like gears cut with different pitches, or tooth sizes..they each spin next to a magnetic pick up, the bumps on the wheel spinning in front of the pick up creates the tone. The higher frequencies are made by wheels wth fine "teeth", the lower ones are made by wheels with fewer teeth, down to some that only have two. The highest frequencies that could have been produced in this way was limited to the gear cutting technology of the day...they couldn't accurately cut teeth any finer than the ones that produce the highest tones in the organ. (We're talking about a mechanism that remained basically unchanged from the 1930's to the 70's).
I didn't want to totally hijack this thread,explaining the way tones and harmonics are added and layered would take a bit...

toddalin

09-12-2008, 10:58 PM

Todd, I cannot find this reference - but if you have a second, can you explain this a bit further?

As Tin said, there are 96 tone wheels. But five of these wheels are used for counterbalance and so produce no frequency. Recognize that each wheel represents an individual note/frequency. No frequency dividers are used and this is a purely electro-mechanical affair. This allows 91 actual notes to be played.

Pulling the 16' drawbar (left-most bar) produces a "subharmonic" one octave lower that the note actually played on the keyboard. With just this bar pulled, the lowest C on the keyboard (and pedal board) is 32.7 Hz. Each subsequent C is one octave higher and double the frequency.

The keyboard has 5 octaves of 12 notes and a C on top for 61 notes (requiring 61 tone wheels). Push in the 16' drawbar and pull out the 8' bar and everything goes up one octave. This requires 12 more wheels - now 73 are accounted for. Push in the 8' drawbar and pull out the 4' bar and everything goes up another octave requiring 12 more wheels - now 85 are accounted for leaving 6 wheels. These 6 wheel takes you up to F#8. F#8 has a frequency of 5,919.92 Hz.

Any note on the Hammond above this note folds back down an octave. This is most discernable with the 1' drawbar that does a double fold over the two top octaves and you really hear it in music when the organ is going up a scale and all of a sudden sounds lower again. It just sounds like the 1' drawbar drops out at the G.

I think that my D (produced sometime between 1939 and 1942) had less foldover. I think the balance wheels were actually used as tone generators.

Anywho, the top frequency generated by the tone wheels is F#8 that has a frequency of ~5,919.92 Hz.

Recognize that these are sine waves and have no harmonics (to speak of). Any other type of wave would have its own set of harmonics and when you are "building" a wave form of your own chosen harmonics that is not what you want.

Any frequencys above this F#8 are associated with "noise" such as key click which is also "undesireable."

Hoerninger

09-13-2008, 02:07 AM

SMKSoundPro

09-13-2008, 04:07 AM

Man, Do I love this thread!!!

Great organ grinder names and the technology of the instrument that provided them with their "voice."

My dad worked at the Hammond Oran Studio in Moline, Ill. from 63-73. Then to a different piano and organ seller in Davenport, Ia. He would always go on the Hammond service on Tuesdays with a WWII radio tech that was amazing in his skills. Dad learned alot from him, which he taught me.

Always carry a yardstick, or something else about the same to press down all of the white keys at a time to shift the buss bars. Dad always had full set of tubes in the bench with extra rotor belts for the Leslie.

Dad was different in that he always used the PR-40 tone cabinet with the 122 leslie. I see many kits consisting of just the organ and leslie, now. Dad's pedals were just flat wore out and the wood worn away from 30 years of 6 night's a week playing. He/we added a Krueger String bass unit to the pedal board with their little leaf contacts. Sounded great.

I have a CD of Eddie Layton. He was always one of dad's favorites. "Skatin' with Layton" was one of the record albums in the family stack.

Has anyone mentioned Booker T?

I still have dad's B200 combo with the matching 823 leslie. Chrome legs and very cool. Solid state insides, but with a full size combo leslie. Both my dad and his uncle, my great uncle, Al Koeller played it at the Ameriacan Legion dances in East Moline every Sunday night. What an amazing place. The only men were on the bandstand, with all of the widowed women looking for someone to dance with.

I also have a PR-40 for parts, and wasa thinking of turning it into some cool retro hifi speaker with a pair of JBL 150's and a 375 and close up the open back! Saw a pair like that once. The pair went for BIG money!

GREAT THREAD!

I have never heard a B3, or any other organ, with JBL's. I know the K145 was touted for that use. Don't believe I've ever seen or heard one.

Thank you for thread. It is healing.

Great Uncle Al, dead
Dad, dead
#1 son, dead.
I'm #2 son.
#3 son in Air Force Band.

Scotty.

Tim Rinkerman

09-13-2008, 06:37 AM

http://www.discretesynthesizers.com/nova/intro.htm
A link from the archives on the Novatron....if you want to know more, you'll have to dig Laurens up.....

boputnam

09-13-2008, 08:23 AM

I didn't want to totally hijack this thread...Todd and Tim, thanks for the detail. Don't worry about "hijacking" this thread - we can move this to a separate Hammond thread if you want (anyone?). The explainations are really excellent. Keep the discussion going if need-be.

Todd - I've played around with the drawbars a few times. Never could understand how they worked. Great stuff.

Doc Mark

09-13-2008, 09:38 AM

Hey, Scotty, and All,

Yes, this is a great thread, on several levels! Thanks for posting further info about your familie's involvement in music! Great stuff!

The keyboard player in our band used to play a Hammond B3, with two Leslies, plus he had a Rhodes piano, a Hohner clavinet, and a Moog synth. All great stuff, in it's day. He ended up replacing the regular Leslie speakers with JBL's, though I don't remember what he used, and all of us LOVED the sound he got. We felt like it was stronger, punchier, and much better detailed, than whatever speaker he had in there originally. We were on the road for 11 months of the year, for 5 straight years, and that keyboard system, with the Hammond and Leslie speakers, served us very well! Loved the sound of it! Take care, and God Bless!

Every Good Wish,
Doc

Ducatista47

09-13-2008, 11:19 AM

Todd and Tim, thanks for the detail. Don't worry about "hijacking" this thread - we can move this to a separate Hammond thread if you want (anyone?). The explainations are really excellent. Keep the discussion going if need-be.

Bo, it might be easier to simply rename the thread Favorite Organists and Organs or Organs and Favorite Organists or some such. Then future searches could turn it up easily. Could you, as a mod, do this?

Since Doc has mentioned it, will someone please start a Fender Rhodes thread?

Clark

toddalin

09-13-2008, 12:02 PM

Interesting discussion here - just my 2cts:

Theoretical any waveform can be produced by an appropriate edge. But the Hammond uses additional RC filtering (as far as I know) to achieve a sine wave.

To come back to organ players:
Ady Zehnpfennig is a well known player for the "Dr.Böhm Orgel" and he has used these instruments with virtuosity. Dr.Böhm organs were sold as kits. The different add ons made each organ an unicum.
In contrast to the Hammond with its unique electromechanical sound generator and the addition of harmonics the Dr.Böm Orgel used an electrical saw tooth wave generator and took the bars to subtract overtones.
___________
Peter

Hammond is not the only organ to use drawbars and sine waves are not the only waves used in the "stacking synthesis of sounds.

The Vox Continental, Super Continental, and Continental Baroque (that I had) also use drawbars. But they only have 8', 4', 2', "mixture" bars for pitch. But, there are two bars that let these pitches be "flutes" (sine waves), or "reeds" (square waves). These were actually produced for VOX by The Thomas Organ Company.

BTW, I worked at the Thomas Organ Company ~1974 as an electronic line tech and we produced the VOX organs, cry babys, and even Vox Churchhill PA that used JBL 15" and 375s with Hartsfield horns/lenses. I had friends that used to dumpster dive for the lenses that they were always chucking out. We were on Hayvenhurst a couple blocks from the JBL Northridge facility.

Similarly, the Farfisa Professional (used by Sylvester Stewart - Sly Stone) had 8 of the Hammond drawbars only missing the 1' bar. But each "bar" was actually a 4 position switch rather than the 9 position "switch" of the Hammond drawbars (i.e., off and 8 levels of volume).

But the Farfisa had 8 bars for flutes (sine waves) and 8 bars for clarinets (square waves) that could be mixed.

The Gulbransen President had similar drawbars to the Hammond for their "flutes" (both number and settings), and even the Yamaha Electone used the bars, but similar to the way the Farfisa did it with the multiposition switches.

Ducatista47

09-13-2008, 02:34 PM

toddalin

09-13-2008, 03:11 PM

A tiny article in two pages named
Whatever Happened to Farfisa and Vox Organs in Mainstream Rock Music?

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/931405/whatever_happened_to_farfisa_and_vox.html?cat=33

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/931405/whatever_happened_to_farfisa_and_vox.html?page=2&cat=33

This guy knows a lot about Vox:

http://www.voxshowroom.com/equipment/index.html

Likewise:

http://www.combo-organ.com/Vox/voxindex.htm

His main page is a portal to all things combo organ:

http://www.combo-organ.com/

For all I know, this could have been my old Continental Baroque. ;)

As for the article saying cheap..., these were ~$1,150 in 1969-1970 dollars. Somehow I got mine out of the Recycler for $125 in perfect shape and I paid an additional $250 for the VOX PA system (but not the Churchill). Later sold the organ for much more.

http://www.combo-organ.com/Vox/Dual/Baroque1.jpg

Note that the upper keyboard is indentical to the Thomas Trianon organ and each key had its own independant "keyer" so that the keyboard could be polyphonic. The lower keyboard used the drawbars and the bass section could be separate, or be part of the lower manual.

BTW, we also made the Moog satalites and integrated them into the organs too. I had a Moog Satalite that was "liberated" piece by piece by someone in the Moog department. ;)

Ducatista47

09-13-2008, 07:15 PM

The brochure touts the B3 for your living room. I wish!

Here you are:

http://www.hammond-organ.com/index.htm

Go to "Desktop Images"

This is a nice website. See the "Museum" and "History and Reference" sections. There is a very good photo of Jimmy McGriff in the Artists Gallery.

Tidbit:
2002 Re-introduction of the model B3. Critically acclaimed and accepted by the worlds most renowned Hammond Players, the 'New' B3 features Digital Tonewheel generation that produces 96 analogue frequencies, controlled by traditional analogue key contacts and drawbars! Looks, sounds and feels identical to the best of the original B3's.
Look in "New Instruments" The B-3P portable looks awesome. $15K though.

Thirty years ago a friend of mine had a huge white Hammond. I thought it was an X77, but the picture does not look like it. Maybe it was an HX100?

Clark

boputnam

09-14-2008, 12:45 PM

Since Doc has mentioned it, will someone please start a Fender Rhodes thread?Ready when you guys are...

:bouncy:

Brad Anbro

09-14-2008, 06:09 PM

Bo, it might be easier to simply rename the thread Favorite Organists and Organs or Organs and Favorite Organists or some such. Then future searches could turn it up easily. Could you, as a mod, do this?

Since Doc has mentioned it, will someone please start a Fender Rhodes thread?

Clark

How about a thread that gives honors to the old, large Wurlitzer pipe
organs? My mother (now deceased was a very accomplished organist
and was very partial to Hammond organs.

One of the LP records that my parents had, when I was a kid growing
up in the mid-1950s, was by an organist named LEON BERRY, who
played a Wurlitzer pipe organ at a skating rink in Chicago. He also had
a large Wurlitzer pipe organ that he rescued from a theatre and had
installed it in his BASEMENT (the Beast in the basement).

I'm in the process of putting all my Leon Berry LP records onto CDs.
The only Leon Berry LP record that I do not have was the very last
one that he recorded, after his recording stint with Audio Fidelity
Records had ended.

Leon was truly a talented organist and he could make the Wurlitzer
sound like an entire orchestra was performing. He was also very
skilled at taking "standard tunes" and improvising on them. I never
get tired of hearing him play the organ.

I guess I'm getting old; I seem to like Leon Berry's music as much or
more than all of the "classical (hard) rock" that I've acquired over
the years (I'm 57 years old).

Long live theatre-type pipe organ music & JBL!

sincerely,

Brad Anbro

boputnam

09-14-2008, 08:20 PM

How about a thread that gives honors to the old, large Wurlitzer pipe organs? I personally think these ideas are all good, however, I suggest we respond to input/posts rather that pre-parse, if you know what I mean.

Todd and Tim did a phenomenal job in sharing their collective knowledge and experience on an instrument that many marvel at and yet did not fully understand. Thank-you, guys. Their contributions have already given me, personally, many hours of musing on why?/how?/oh!/wow... And, Clark rigthly suggested we dedicate a thread to this.

Anyway, as always, we'll try and be responsive to content. :)

Tim Rinkerman

09-19-2008, 11:00 AM

Some Hammond history for the weekend...The Hammond organ was derived from a late 1800's electronic instrument that took 30 railroad cars to transport, and was invented 20 years before the amplifier..true or false?

Hoerninger

09-19-2008, 12:37 PM

Some Hammond history for the weekend.....true or false?
Please tell the story.
The Hammond patent 1956350 (http://www.pat2pdf.org/) is too lengthy. :p
____________
Peter

Tim Rinkerman

09-22-2008, 10:27 AM

Thaddeus Cahill's "Telharmonium". One of the greatest unknown musical ventures in American history. Google it, or look it up..
It was a series of generators or dynamos, all built onto a stepped shaft..the different diameters gave different pitches. Remember, this was before amplifiers...his goal was to have music on demand in homes provided by this machine...the newly invented telephone provided speakers in every house that had one. Since there were no amplifiers, the current had to be great enough to excite the carbon crystal earpieces by itself. The last generation of this machine weighed 200 tons, and was housed in Telharmonium Hall in NYC. Some of the tone generators looked like railroad tank cars, they were that big...It was not very succesful in the early 1900's, by 1912 it was dead. The size and scope of this machine and its goals, were every bit as lofty as space travel in its day. The cabling ,since it was strung next to phone lines, induced crosstalk everywhere...people threatened to destroy the building because it interrrupted phone service. Hammond got the idea for his tone generators from this invention.
Its a long and interesting story, more interesting than the Hammond patent search, though...

robertbartsch

09-23-2008, 11:53 AM

In the early 1970s I knew a friend who had a Leslie. It had a wooden cabinent with slanted cut-outs for the top and bottom speakers...

...heavy as hell. I beleive his was ordered with JBL components...not sure if it had tubes or not.

I remember the back was open so you could see the moving parts - very cool.

Great sounding system - He played Santana music often. It sure beat the church music his mom pumped out at home.

Ducatista47

09-25-2008, 08:14 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyQFGlWU70&feature=related

Dig it...

While I'm at it, Joey DeFrancesco teaching drawbar settings. Stick around for the final two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hFRDzXIF2c&NR=1

Clark

louped garouv

11-20-2013, 09:10 PM

This is somewhat alleviated by using a high resistance coating on the buss bars that the keys actually contact. There is a buss bar for each drawbar (9) and each key has an associated gold wire (9) attached to the key that makes contact when the key is pressed. The wire pushes through the coating giving a more gradual leading edge to the wave reducing the transient noise.

Part of regular maintenance on Hammonds includes oiling the motor and gears and rotating the buss bars against the key contacts to clean them off.

Todd, a quick correction... my understanding is the drawbar wiring was originally palladium...
if yours are gold, they may have been reworked a'la "prokeys" methodology...

I'm reading all I can on Hammond organs...
recently came into a model d - dx-20 - 31h set up...

lots to learn

been digging on Barbara Dennerlein's playing... wowzers
but she's got midi pedals running string bass

louped garouv

01-30-2014, 09:12 AM

So, I guess it may be a long shot, but is anyone intimately familiar with the Bill Beer (Keyboard Products was hte company name, I think???)
modified Leslies...

My understanding is that it may have employed solid state amplification, a Large Format JBL Phenolic Driver (with a reducer, I suppose! current offerings are conical reducers), and a JBL D140?

In addition to the amp and driver mods, a guy that used to work for him commented online somewhere that they would overhaul the motors, and install and "
relax new tires" - also indications are that there may have been variable speed control impelmented on some units...

*edit* found some info ....

> Bill's Leslies used his hand built replacement amp which was bi-amped at 100
> / 100 watts. He used a JBL E-140-8 ohm woofer (earlier models had a JBL
> D-140-8 ohm) for the bass and either a JBL 2482 or later a 2485 treble
> driver - 16 ohm for the treble with a special throat adapter which reduced
> the 2" throat to a 3/4" throat. This made for about 100 watts bass and 80
> watts treble and allowed the bass to distort while keeping the treble fairly> clean which simulated the tube growl when pushed. (2 of his Leslies will
> handle a 10,000 seat auditorium quite nicely for volume -- and will
> permanently damage your hearing if you sit within 30 feet of them when at
> full throttle.)

> Some of Bill's organs and some of Bob Schelcher's organs (www.tonewheel.com (http://www.tonewheel.com))
> were done with full pedals - and both used a custom multipin 36+ pair
> industrial connector and hand-wired cabling harness to allow detachment of
> the pedal keyboard for transport.

Steve Schell

02-01-2014, 11:17 PM

louped garouv

02-02-2014, 10:22 AM

Louped garouv, back in 2003 I bought a quantity of 35 large format JBL compression drivers from a prosound company, as they were converting their cabinets to the new lighter weight neo drivers. Most were 2440, 2441, 2480 and 2482 with Radian diaphragms. The odd man out was a black JBL labeled 375 HP, which looked like a 1960s 375 only with phenolic diaphragm and a nicely machined aluminum insert press fit into the throat. They said that it had been pulled from a Leslie cabinet. Perhaps it had been installed by Bill Beer.

That's quite interesting Steve, thanks for the input.

Perhaps it was indeed... seems to "fit" the time/available & expedient tech.

You don't happen to have any pics I suppose? Not that the description isn't adequate...
But you know, never hurts to send inquiry

Warm regards