Hammond B3

This is a preview of Pocket Organ C3B3, programmed by Shinya Kasatani, the creator of Pocket Guitar. Pocket Organ C3B3 simulates the draw bar controls and Lislie speaker system of a Hammond B3/C3 organ.

While this may be interesting from a technical standpoint – it’s hard to see how a tiny touchscreen Hammond organ is going to be musically useful. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put the same effort into creating original instruments, designed to make the most expressive use of the iPhone platform’s capabilities?

No release date or pricing has been announced for C3B3 yet.

via koyamatsuo

This may be the coolest DIY MIDI controller yet.

Markus Berger built this life-size MIDI organ controller for Native Instruments B4 virtual instrument:

The goal of this project was to build a MIDI Organ Controller to play and control the Native Instruments B4 (II) virtual organ software. Just like the software this project attempts to replicate the ‘real thing’—the classic Hammond B3—as much as possible. All of the software’s functionality known from the original instrument can be controlled from this controller. There is no need to take a look at the computer display or to control the software with the mouse or computer keyboard at any time.

Dave Cornutt has posted a great blog post over at Sequence 15 about moving in his Hammond organ:

About the organ: It’s an A100, one of the spinet styles that Hammond produced mainly for the home market. Despite that, it’s a full-up tonewheel organ, with exactly the same layout, sound generation, and controls as the venerable B3. In fact, if you are looking for that B3 sound but find the price tag daunting, you can pick up an A100 and get that exact same sound for $500-1000 less. I don’t know why it is that the A100 should sell for that much less than the B3 when they both use the same components. The only difference is that the A100 contains a built-in power amp (two, actually) and speakers, so you don’t have to have an external tone cabinet to play it. (Despite that, it does have a socket for connecting a Hammond tone cabinet, or with the proper adaptor, a Leslie.)

The A100 weighs about 350 lbs., and this one has a magnetic attraction for my toes. I actually dropped it on my toes once! So, of course, as we were moving it in, my shoe got stuck in a gap in the floor between the hallway and the room, and it nearly ended up on my toes again. 

Dave’s right – you can fairly regularly see A100’s going for a few hundred dollars. I think his second paragraph explains why – they weigh 350 lbs, but they don’t have the caché of a B3. 

His post also has some interesting A100 secrets and lots of extreme close up organ gear porn.

Billy Alexander won’t put Tony Monaco out of business anytime soon.

But for a guy without fingers, or even with fingers, he plays an amazing Hammond B3 in the traditional style.

via Tom Whitwell

Tony Monaco at the 2008 Winter NAMM show.

Man, can he play the Hammond B3.