Hammond Organ Buys

From detritu–(at)–x.netcom.com Tue Jun 8 12:47:41 CDT 1999
From: detritu–(at)–x.netcom.com(Lord Valve)
Newsgroups: alt.guitar.amps
Subject: Re: other “tonewheel” organs…..
Date: 8 Jun 1999 07:10:18 GMT
X-NETCOM-Date: Tue Jun 08 2:10:18 AM CDT 1999
Xref: geraldo.cc.utexas.edu alt.guitar.amps:183591

In <19990607204528.07275.0000168--(at)--g-fo1.aol.com> mcasn–(at)–ol.com (MCAS
NV) writes:
>
>Are there any other Hammond tonewheel organs other than the B3 which
might be
>bought for less money and still deliver that great sound…..?
>
>Sorry if this is slightly off-topic.

Lord Valve Speaketh:
Well, them gee-tah pickahs can kiss me fat BUTT if’n
they don’t like talkin’ about Hammonds…besides, the
dudes on alt.music.hammond-organ are some of the most
uptight wankers you’ll ever want to see. Worse than
RAT! What better place than AGA, hmmmm? Anyway,
the good ones are the C-3, which is a set of B-3 guts
wrapped in different furniture (slab-sided, instead
of legs, with a back on it that goes all the way to
the floor; this was so lady organists could play in
church without folks looking up their skirts) and the
A-100, which is a set of B-3 guts mounted in a console
along with a couple of power amps, a set of reverb
springs, and three speakers. (Usually, all Jensen
Alnicos.) On the spinet side of things, you have the
M-3, which is basically a B-3 with the bottom two octaves
lopped off, and only one octave of pedals (actually,
only 12 pedals, from C to B) instead of two. M-3s sound
really good for rock music, since the rest of the band
is so goddamn fucking loud that you can’t hear the
bottom two octaves of a B-3 anyway. (Sorry, had a Jazz
Snob attack. I’ll try to behave… 🙂 M-3s can be had
for a song…you can pick ’em up for $250, $100, even $50
sometimes. A good way to catch your first case of Hammond
fever; if it gets worse you’ll need a B-3, C-3, or A-100
for sure. However, many guitarists are completely overwhelmed
at the prospect of having more than six notes available at one
time, and retreat to the relative safety of strings and picks.
Oddly enough, many of the really good Hammond players I’ve
known over the years started out as drummers; good hand-foot
independence is a must if you’re going to kick bass pedals,
and drummers are trained in this from the git-go. So…
there are a few other Hammonds which B-3 afficionados will
settle for, and I’ve listed most of them. If you want the
best bang for the buck, shoot for an A-100…you occasionally
see these for $500 or less, and they’ve usually spent their
days as a piece of furniture in some rich lady’s house. If you
rip out the speakers, the amps, and the reverb unit, what’s left
is a B-3, and it’s the *best* gigging organ there is, because
a gutted A-100 is 3-1/2″ narrower and 80 pounds lighter than a
B-3.

Lord Valve
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