On Nov 22, 9:48�pm, "Eisboch" wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message

...



Actually, I think they used a Thomas on the Lawrence Welk Show.

Eisboch

It was indeed a Thomas, a 3-keyboard model called the "Trianon".

Not to be "picky" but, as a former organ hustler, you should remember that
the lower, upper and "upper-upper" �(usually the "solo") keys are referred
to as "manuals", not keyboards.

We had a three-manual Yamaha "Electone" at one time. �It's main speaker was
a huge, polysomething creation shaped like the top view of a grand piano.
Yamaha claimed great sound fidelity due to the speaker shape. �It had a
smaller secondary speaker, �rectangular in shape, that spun on a shaft to
create a Leslie type effect.

Going back to Hammond though .... the tone generator in the originals was a
weird and often problematic mechanical device. It, combined with a rotating
horn Leslie, produced the distinctive Hammond "sound" �that most of the
other organ manufacturers tried to emulate. �It's really only been since the
maturing of digital sound sampling technology that the organ and keyboard
manufacturers have been able to faithfully reproduce the original Hammond
sound although there are perfectionists that claim it still falls short. �To
my non-professional ear, the new Hammond/Suzuki �XK3 is about as close as
you can get.

Eisboch

The newer keyboards are incredibly versatile.

Showing my age here; when I played on a semi-regular basis my rig was
a Farfisa Compact Duo. Weighed about 75 pounds, was as awkward as a
matress to move and couldn't do half of what something that weighs 10
pounds and is only 4 inches thick can do today. Ran a VOX bass guitar
amp that came in handy -on the nights the bass player was too stoned
to show up I'd fake in with keyboard bass. I blew the speaker once,
however, with a bit too much percussion on the keyboard bass. That
bass speaker enjoyed a nice, soft attack. The other half of the
amplification was through a Fender Bandmaster, and a leslie when I
could borrow it from a friend.

I still remember the "reverb box". What a trip. There was a physical
spring in that thing! Iron Butterfly used the same reverb box for some
memorable special effects.

Always felt sorry for the guys who insisted on packing a B-3
everywhere. One of the few area clubs that regularly hired second-
string local talent (a category that would have included my band) back
in the late 60's was called Apricot Orange, and the only way in was up
a very long and very steep flight of stairs. About halfway up the
stairs that B-3 seems to weigh about 1000 pounds, even with end-
movers. People would start looking for suckers to help out, and I was
the sucker a couple of times. :-)

The M-3 was a better choice, at least from a logistical standpoint.

I always enjoyed starting one of the old tone-wheel models, however.
it was sort of like starting an airplane. You held up one "start"
switch unil the tone wheel got up sufficient rpm, and then it was
necessary to flip the "run" switch right next to it.

To this day, I don't think there's a better blues organ than the B3-
and that would include even the finest of the digital products
currently offered. Sort of like a tube amplifier produces a warmer
sound, they can't quite duplicate the electro-mechanical tone wheel
sound with a digital approach.