Drawbars & Percussion
29
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Creating your own Custom Tone Wheels
As stated on page 11, the first three Drawbar Voice Modes - “B-type1,” “B-type2,” and “Mellow” - are designed to
reproduce the sound of traditional Hammond Organs. Within each of these three Voice Modes are four different settings
designed to reproduce specific characteristics of vintage Hammond Organs.
During the time the vintage Hammonds - B-models, C-models, A-100, etc. - were being manufactured, each individual organ
was subjected to a very rigorous series of checks and tests to insure the quality of each unit, and to insure that all the units
representing a particular model series, such as the B-3, all sounded alike. However, since the very newest B-3-type organ
is at least 37 years old - production of tone-wheel organs having ceased in 1975 - and since the vintage instruments long
antedate digital technology, they are dependent for their sound on analog components. Several factors such as the rate at
which different components age, the fact that similar components used different materials throughout the lifespan of the
model series, etc. may affect the sound of a particular unit. Thus, a B-3 manufactured in 1959 may well have a slightly
different tone than one made in 1969, not necessarily because of the year but because of slight differences in component
values among other factors.
Over the years, a great deal of arcane folklore - a great deal of it falling into a category best described as “old wives’ fables” - has
sprung up regarding such topics as the superiority or inferiority of this or that period of time during which vintage Hammonds
were manufactured, the superiority or inferiority of types of materials for certain components, etc. Some of these differences
do exist, but as noted above, they are more likely to be the result of factors not necessarily having anything to do with the
age of the instrument. Many characteristics of the Hammond Organ, especially as heard in much jazz and rock music, have
to do with the overall condition of the instrument - whether it has been in a home for the bulk of its life and played only rarely,
whether it has been used by a touring musical ensemble and been moved frequently, perhaps even dropped occasionally, or
even whether it has sat in a recording studio with sporadic or no maintenance, etc.
Because of these many factors - again, some real, some contrived - and because different people therefore mean different
things when they say “Hammond Sound” or “B-3 Sound,” the Custom Tone Wheel feature is included to allow you to find
the nearest approximation of what you want your “Hammond Sound” to be. The following pages will explain the feature
in more depth.
SPECIAL NOTE:
The characteristics of Drawbar Voice Types “Btype1" and Btype2" apply equally to all
Hammond Organs based on the B-3 design, which includes models B-3, C-3, A-100 series, RT-3 and D-100 series.
Contrary to popular myth, there is NO inherent difference between a B-3 and a C-3 - they were manufactured to the
identical specification except for the cabinet design. The A-100 and D-100 had slightly different circuitry due to the
need to drive self-contained speakers; however, they were calibrated the same as the B-3 and C-3 so that they
sounded identical when connected to either an external Hammond speaker or an external Leslie Speaker. For the
sake of brevity, “B-3" will be used to refer to all models based on the same platform.
Summary of Contents for Sk-series
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