Hammond Organs and Leslie Speakers.

[bigsbybender]

Is anyone here in to these monstrosities?

I'm having a good time lately working on these.  First I have a 1965 E-100 Console organ, which is functionally sound but the cabinet is shot, so I'm chopping it into a (barely) more portable unit. What I have found is that all of the "Tonewheel" models can be modified easily to get the great B3/C3 sound.

This week this one (below) came to me free on craigslist. It's a mid-1960 M-3 spinet.  It's often called the baby B-3. It has most of the functions of it's bigger brother but has a shorter keyboard and fewer presets. Word has it Booker T. Jones and Tom Scholz used M-3's on some of their most famous recordings. It was non-functioning when I got it, I brought it up on the current limiter and there was no glow from the 5U4 recto.  I put in a replacement, and this bad boy is back in business.  I had to oil the run motor and tonewheel as well to get rid of some squeaks. I think a filter cap job will have her as good as new.  It's also got a near perfect condition Jensen P12Q in it!

Tonight I built a "Line Out" by adding a box (lower Picture) on the speaker out where I can put it into a guitar amp like Deep Purple's Jon Lord.  It has switch that allows the internal speaker to be disconnected, (shunting the signal to an 8 ohm 20w resistor). Then I have a voltage divider that brings the signal down to line level. The "Line Level Out" will work whether the organ's internal speaker is active or not. So far it's only been played through my Twin Reverb.... I can't wait to drive it through my 18watt Stout!


j.

[stingray_65]

Looks like the M-3 I have sitting at a friends studio.

What about the Leslie?

Chopping is not too difficult if you have the woodworking skills/tools.

The finish on my M3 is horrible, I was told an old organ was sitting beside the road and I should go look
It was in the rain for about a week before I got it.

I keep saying I'm going to refinish it in piano black, by that I mean putty the wood in bondo and shoot it in auto primer and paint.

Ray

PS just pull that tired old jensen out of there and send it to me, I'll send you a nice new one to replace it.

[bigsbybender]

What about the Leslie?

The Leslie is hooked to the E100 console which hasn't been photographed yet.  I'm putting together a photo tutorial of how to convert the Leslie that I had to the more desirable 122/145/147 types.  I've done this with a Leslie 615 and I also have a Leslie 700 that will get the same treatment as soon as I find an affordable upper horn assembly. The 700 will probably end up with the M3 at the recording studio that I moonlight at. The E100 will  be chopped for gigs if all goes well. I got both for free. The E100 had a "bad tone generator" which is a load of B.S. as there is no Hammond Tonewheel that can't be resurrected. (so don't kill tonewheel Hammonds for tubes and iron, kill Conn's, Baldwins, Gulbriensens, Etc.) I fixed it and then played it for years with it's internal speakers. It was less than exciting sounding before I got the Leslie to work with it. Now I get a lot of great tones. The next step is to simplify the key "Percussion" into the B-3/C-3/A100/M3/M100 percussion. The E100 came out in 65' amidst competition from early solid state synths, so they added bells and whistles.  The trick is to remove the extra crap and you've got the great classic Hammond sound.

I'm supposed to be a guitarist, but I get more work playing Bass and Keys..... go figure.  I'm to a point where I have no pride and will just play for the sake of playing, no matter what it is.

Now that I'm getting the tones off of Hammonds like I heard in some of my favorite records, it's been a lot of fun playing them.

j.

[stingray_65]

I've got 4 of the leslie units with the styrofoam rotor out of various organs now and one with the wooden rotor and a 2 speed motor.

The 2 speed motor was on its last leg with rotted rubber and the oil had turned to paste.

I had this old 90Vdc PM motor and a controller lying around so I got the idea to convert it to a variable speed instead of a 2 speed.

I took one of the many expression pedals and replaced the pot with the pot from the controller and presto I had a speed pedal.

It then left me to mount the DC motor. the mount for the 2 speed just need a couple holes and presto!

that DC motor is so powerful there is no lag what so ever between pedal position and speed, no spool up lag, however if you go from full tilt high to absolute low, the  belt slips a bit from the inertia of the rotor.

I think if I were to put the controls on  one of the styrofoam rotors and a cog belt, it would be perfect.


Ray

[bigsbybender]

I had this old 90Vdc PM motor and a controller lying around so I got the idea to convert it to a variable speed instead of a 2 speed.

I took one of the many expression pedals and replaced the pot with the pot from the controller and presto I had a speed pedal.

Ray

That's a great idea!  Especially since I think my lower rotor is moving too fast in Chorale (Slow Mode).  I have one of those styrofoam rotor setups in a cabinet for Guitar. It used to be in a 1970's era Conn Solid State organ.  I connected it to the M3 (Above) to give some of that swirling Doppler effect, but Hammond's need that mid/high frequency horn to scream. So hopefully I can locate one (affordably) to help convert this Leslie 700 to a 145 as well.


I took some pics with my phone of the E100 and Leslie (below).  The E-100 was donated to a Salvation Army thrift store, then they threw it out because they thought the tone generator was shot. With some oil and "persuasion" I got the tonewheel singing again. All the rest of the functions worked great.... The only downside is the cabinet looked rough. I figure this is a guilt-free chop since the cabinet isn't worth restoring and I don't play pedals, let alone 25 key pedals.   

This Leslie was and involved project. I'm in the process of making a webpage devoted to the conversion this thing undertook. It sounds incredible now, just like so many great recordings. The Leslie breathed new life into this organ.

[G._Hoffman]

The Hammond Organ and the Fender Rhodes are the only reasons I wish I could play keyboards.


I don't, though, and I do not have a Hammond, but I DO have a Leslie.  I got one of the styrofoam rotors, motor, etc. off of eBay, and built a box around it.  




I haven't finished it yet - I've got the box finished, and it works great, but I haven't gotten around to covering it yet (I don't want to bring it back to the shop - I use it too much!)  I need to make a speed control for it, because it is a single speed unit, and I really would like to have more speeds available, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  (Also, there is a part of me that wants to use a micro controller to make a tap tempo speed controller!)


Gabriel

EDIT... fixed broken image link... sluckey

[thermion]

I inherited an X77 with stereo leslies about 3 years ago. It has the pedals, bench, autovari64, and rhythm rail. Maybe one of the last tonewheel hammonds? Probably built sometime between 1969-1971. The leslies are 200W solid state but I modded the non-working one with a ~30W 5881 cathode biased amp. Bought the 800hz crossover, split out the leads from the 12-pin "umbillical", made a VERY basic speed control pedal, set the lower deck to bombarde, and it's absolute bedlam. The bass rotor on the X77 is weird though - it's offset from the speaker by a few inches and the rotor actually has 6x9" speaker mounted in it so the bass has a spinning speaker too. The bass speaker doesn't fire down into the rotor but the wave sorta grazes it as it spins... strange setup but it sounds pretty good.
We hooked a delay pedal between the console and amp recently - you can imagine how fun that was. Next up - flanger hoax!
My only complaint - you have to be 30 feet away from the thing to experience proper psycho-acoustic swirl.

[bigsbybender]

I inherited an X77 with stereo leslies about 3 years ago. It has the pedals, bench, autovari64, and rhythm rail. Maybe one of the last tonewheel hammonds? 

Yeah that was the last of the Tonewheel models and the most advanced technologically.

The leslies are 200W solid state but I modded the non-working one with a ~30W 5881 cathode biased amp.

Much the same of what I'm doing with my Leslies.

The bass rotor on the X77 is weird though - it's offset from the speaker by a few inches and the rotor actually has 6x9" speaker mounted in it so the bass has a spinning speaker too. The bass speaker doesn't fire down into the rotor but the wave sorta grazes it as it spins...

That speaker in the "drum" is called a "Roto-Sonic".  They have a great sound! The technology that went into it was probably Don Leslie's greatest achievement.

We hooked a delay pedal between the console and amp recently - you can imagine how fun that was. Next up - flanger hoax!

ohhh man, you're giving me ideas....

j.

[bigsbybender]

My latest project was "chopping" my Hammond E100. This is the process of cutting out any unneeded parts to make it more portable.

The top photo is 'before at home' the second is it in my studio space finished.

I removed the internal speakers, removed the bass pedal clavier and "cymbal and brush sounds" (don't need em' for Rock N Roll). I altered the percussion to match the tonality and function of the famed B3. Once the cabinet was cut down, I refinished it as the original lacquer was coming off.

It still has it's original tube output section with a pair of 7591's running pretty hot.  I have a dummy load and made an L-pad to knock-down and send that powerful signal to a guitar amp and Leslie speakers. (I Can switch between guitar amp or Leslie or run both). It has loads of grind and has proven to be versatile.

j.

[Ritchie200]

Hey BB, that looks really nice!  Did you get any info/tips from Dawk?

Some sound clips?

Jim

[bigsbybender]

Hey BB, that looks really nice!  Did you get any info/tips from Dawk?

Some sound clips?

Jim

Yes I did, thanks for that link!   I got a couple designs of L-Pads for going direct into guitar amps.

Sound Clips coming soon.....

[DummyLoad]

so don't kill tonewheel Hammonds for tubes and iron, kill Conn's, Baldwins, Gulbriensens, Etc.)

the one i was given has a cabinet that looks like it has been in beirut + the reverb ckts, expression pedal ckts, and pre-amps ckts have been totally hacked, so it's getting chopped this week - i need the room. if you want the tonewheel you can have it, it does work; if you pay the shipping. somebody else on here called dibs on the drawbars. i don't like to butcher hammonds, but this one needs it.

i've already helped to butcher a baldwin and a conn. we have the iron. i gave buttery a pair of nice 18W OTs for 6BQ5 out of the baldwin. i kept the 35W 4 x EL84 OT and the PT to build a matchless DC30 clone. the conn iron was more or less useless - BIG PT and choke; the OT was fried.

as you know, the E-100 uses 7591s - i've never fooled with that tube so there's more incentive there as well to farm the iron...

--DL

[Willabe]

I believe the 100's have the vibrato that uses the saturable core reactor in it. If you have this you got the part to make sluckey's warbler.


       Brad            

[RC_cola]

I know where a L-112 can be found.

[duke of earl]

I would love to have a Nord C-2 for portability. I also wish someone had a good instruction video on playing the B-3.