Modern Vespa

Every year about this time is the yearly oiling of my 1962 Hammond A-100, everytime I open it up, I marvel at the machine inside, they don't make anything like this anymore!

Here's some more, showing a little more than half of its magnificence.

What do you oil in there?

See that little brass cup on the green felt in the first picture? That is the tone generator, there are two cups, each gets 1oz of special non-parafin Hammond oil every year, plus a little for the scanner that controls the chorus/vibrato.

Interesting. So, the oil is more for its damping characteristic, than for mechanical lubrication?

I am looking to get a Hammond B3. My grandmother had one with a Leslie 122 cabinet, and when she passed away my aunt just gave it away!

No, it's for lubrication! http://www.sl-prokeys.com/prokeys/generator.htm

A B3 with a Leslie is extremely cool! Dam!

Stories like that twist my stomach in knots.

I see a radioactive sticker im there.
Really?

Not really, but a great way to mark all your gear!
And free organs are great, not everyone has the $3K+ that a B-3 commands. I got lucky and bought my A-100 for $400, when I came to pick it up, the woman who owned it realized that she had underpriced it but let me have it for that price anyway. Her name was Betty and so is the A-100's. Thanks, Betty, wherever you are!

.............is that cool or what?!!!!!

I had the pleasure of working FOH when Joey DeFrancesco was at the Kerr Studio a couple of years ago. AMAZING organ player! There is something to hearing a B3 with a perfectly tuned Leslie cabinet whirring in the background.

The B-3 is a rugged instrument too. Traveled with an Evangelist from 1975 through 1979. On the road in a new place 50 weeks out of the year every year. During the winter in side and during the summer in tents. The B-3 held up with little repair, only regular maintenance. Never missed a beat. A true work horse in the music industry.

Hammond was originally a clock company until they decided to get into the organ business. I retired from the Organ & Piano industry nine years ago after working primarily for manufacturers of organs & pianos for over 35 years. I knew the President of Hammond very well and all of the people who ran the company on a daily basis as well as their sales force that sold Hammond organs to their dealer organization when they were the King of the organ industry. I also knew Don Leslie very well (who invented the Leslie speaker). Old Hammond organs (with the drawbar tone wheel system) will pretty much run forever with just an annual oiling of the tone wheels and blowing out the dust from the inside on an annual basis. The new Hammond company products and Leslie speakers are namesakes only and don't compare in sound & quality when listened to, side by side with an old B-3 or A-100. It was a different era.............and both Hammond & Leslie were very good consumer products.

can you tell our lass that please

Back in my playing-with-the-band days, I always lusted for a Hammond Porta B, because it had the Hammond sound and was, well, portable.

With a Leslie, the things were still a bear to transport.

I ended up buying a Farfisa which I used for years. An all-but-forgotten Italian brand that, although it sounded nothing like a Hammond, was at least very easy to move around.

This was several years before the first synthesizers that were road-capable started to appear, and before the electronics advancements that transformed keyboards into small, capable instruments we are familiar with today.

When my grandfather passed away in the early 80s my grandmother told my mother she was going to call someone to haul away his "worthless old cars". A fully restored down to the fringe on the side curtains 1927 Model T with 2 speed reverse and a fully restored 1950 something Nash Metropolitan. Fortunately my mother was able to stop her giving them away for free. My grandmother was shocked at the check she received when my mother found a couple collector to buy them.

Good story, that. Families need to rally 'round to protect old and distressed people from themselves. And the types who would prey on them.

Sorry, just a cynic.

I'm such a slow learner that I didn't get into my first band until I was over 50, now at 64, I'm really glad to have some light(er) weight options for playing a Hammond in public. I totally agree with XLR8 that modern Hammond-Sukuki products do not faithfully reproduce the old Hammond sound, but come closer than most of the Hammond clones out there. For gigs I use a Hammond XK1 with a two piece System 21 Leslie, a mere 200 lbs. or so, featherweight compared to 525 lb A-100 and 200 lb 122 Leslie speaker!

One of the guys I work with has been working on sampling a complete profile of a B3 paired with a Leslie (not sure which driver) so that he can still get "as much" of a Hammond sound without lugging the entire kit with him. Granted you cannot replace the real thing, but he's been at the project for about a month getting the largest sample library to run a VI in Logic Mainstage. I'll pass on the info on the plugin when he gets it done for those of you who are of the electronic composition persuasion (It should work with Logic, PT11, Ableton and Sonar... at least that is his goal)

Am I the only person who thinks that Joey DeFrancesco bears more than a passing resemblance to the late Paul Bearer (Bill Moody)?

FWIW, the issue was more that my grandmother didn't see value in 'old' cars nor did she see them in the cabinet victrolas he'd find in old barns and restore. She was one of those if it didn't fit her taste it was worthless. She was quite shocked at what people would pay for the cars and victrolas.

Not of The UnderTaker fame? (Dr. Rigor Mortis)
(....don't get me started!!)

Yup, that's the fella!

From as far back as I can remember, my mom had a Hammond C-3 organ. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the "Church" (aka installed) version, while the B-3 was the "portable" version, right? She used to put my brother and I to sleep by playing it at night so we could feel the vibrations through the floor/walls. No Leslie on it, but it was sure loud enough for a home setting...

I was just starting to get into recording when she got rid of it, and I didn't have anywhere to take it for myself in my college dorm room

She got rid of it because our next door neighbor was moving into a retirement home and so selling her house and most of her stuff. She was taking her baby grand with her, but couldn't fit her 1950s Allen organ with the two giant speaker enclosures (1 speaker, 1 Leslie) in as well. Since that's almost exactly the one she played at church, she thought it was better to practice on it than the Hammond.

Mom ended up giving the C-3 away as a sort of "Thank you for all you've done" present to a lady who had basically been taking care of my Grandma out of the goodness of her heart (she always refused payment).

I still miss that C-3, though...

Mark