43 Facts About Hammond organ

Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M Hanert and first manufactured in 1935.

The Hammond name was purchased by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation, which proceeded to manufacture digital simulations of the most popular tonewheel organs.

The sound of a tonewheel Hammond organ can be emulated using modern software audio plug-ins.

In contrast to piano and pipe organ keys, Hammond keys have a flat-front profile, commonly referred to as "waterfall" style.

Hammond organ manufactured from 1969 onwards have the footage of each drawbar engraved on its end.

Related searches

Hammond organ's New B3 contains similar switches to emulate this effect, though it is a digital instrument.

Hammond organ's technology derives from the Telharmonium, an instrument created in 1897 by Thaddeus Cahill.

Laurens Hammond organ graduated from Cornell University with a mechanical engineering degree in 1916.

Hammond organ was inspired to create the tonewheel or "phonic wheel" by listening to the moving gears of his electric clocks and the tones produced by them.

Hammond organ gathered pieces from a second-hand piano he had purchased for $15 and combined it with a tonewheel generator in a similar form to the telharmonium, albeit much shorter and more compact.

Since Hammond was not a musician, he asked the company's assistant treasurer, W L Lahey, to help him achieve the desired organ sound.

In 1936, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint claiming that the Hammond Company made "false and misleading" claims in advertisements for its organ, including that the Hammond could produce "the entire range of tone coloring of a pipe organ".

The complaint resulted in lengthy hearing proceedings, which featured a series of auditory tests that pitted a Hammond costing about $2600 against a $75, 000 Skinner pipe organ in the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel.

Criticism that the Hammond organ was more aesthetically suitable to the home instead of the church led to the introduction of the model C in September 1939.

The Hammond organ was manufactured in a variety of different chassis, with the last two digits of the specific model number determining the style and finish of the instrument.

The Hammond organ was not particularly well made, and suffered a reputation for being unreliable.

The first Hammond organ that bridged the gap between tonewheel and transistor was the X-66, introduced in May 1967.

Hammond organ designed it as the company's flagship product, in response to market competition and to replace the B-3.

Hammond organ introduced their first integrated circuit model, the Concorde, in 1971.

Hammond organ had stopped manufacturing tonewheel organs entirely by 1975, due to increased financial inefficiency, and switched to making IC models full-time.

In 1979, a Japanese offshoot, Nihon Hammond organ, introduced the X-5, a portable solid-state clone of the B-3.

Laurens Hammond organ died in 1973, and the company struggled to survive, proposing an acquiring of Roland in 1972, which was turned down.

In 1985, Hammond went out of business, though servicing and spares continued to be available after this under the name of the Organ Service Company.

Sound on Sound Rod Spark, a longtime Hammond organ enthusiast, said these models were "a matter of taste, of course, but I don't think they're a patch on the old ones".

In 2002, Hammond organ-Suzuki launched the New B-3, a recreation of the original electromechanical instrument using contemporary electronics and a digital tonewheel simulator.

Related searches

Company has since released the XK-3, a single-manual Hammond organ using the same digital tonewheel technology as the New B-3.

Hammond organ has a dedicated Church Advisory Team that provides a consultancy, so churches can choose the most appropriate instrument.

Hammond organ modified their interface connectors to be "Leslie-proof", but Leslie quickly engineered a workaround.

Some Hammond organ staff thought Laurens Hammond organ was being irrational and autocratic towards Leslie, but Don Leslie later said it helped give his speakers publicity.

Leslie company was sold to CBS in 1965, and the following year, Hammond organ finally decided to officially support the Leslie speaker.

Hammond organ-Suzuki acquired the rights to Leslie in 1992; the company currently markets a variety of speakers under this name.

Hammond organ makes technical compromises in the notes it generates.

Originally, key click was considered a design defect and Hammond organ worked to eliminate or at least reduce it with equalization filters.

Third party companies manufacturer transformers that can allow a Hammond organ designed for one region to run in the other, which are used by internationally touring bands.

Early customers of the Hammond organ included Albert Schweitzer, Henry Ford, Eleanor Roosevelt, and George Gershwin.

One of the first performers to use the Hammond organ was Ethel Smith, who was known as the "first lady of the Hammond organ".

Organist John Medeski thinks the Hammond became "the poor man's big band", but because of that, it became more economical to book organ trios.

Hammond organ eschewed a bass player, and played all the bass parts himself using the pedals, generally using a walking bassline on the pedals in combination with percussive left-hand chords.

Hammond organ modified his Hammond so it could be played through a Marshall stack to get a growling, overdriven sound, which became known as his trademark and he is strongly identified with it.

Hammond organ continued to play the instrument in this manner alongside other keyboards in Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

Hammond organ was perceived as outdated by the late 1970s, particularly in the UK, where it was often used to perform pop songs in social clubs.

The sound of the Hammond organ has appeared in hip-hop music, albeit mostly via samples.

Hammond organ is positive about the future of the Hammond organ, saying "Everybody loves it.