From deke@dekethegeek.com Mon Aug 26 13:08:05 2002
Subject:RE: Analog tonewheels are back!

>> I don't see any other way to obtain "genuine Hammond tonewheels" at this
point
>> in time. The idea of obtaining a stash of repair parts for a product
that has
>> been out of production for almost 30 years is pure fantasy, IMHO.
>Kinda brings new light to the "New B3"...

The more I think about this, the more it doesn't make sense to me. I know
the H-S guys were trying to get more than one sound source into the "new B3"
so they had to do away with the tonewheels, but if they were so important to
the sound, why wouldn't they include them? Obviously, they thought other
components were as/more important, specifically the busbar/keying system.
All things considered, one could easily generate the tones necessary for a
Hammond organ with oscillators, as was done via transistors in later organs.
Another poster rightly pointed out that key click is a big part of the
sound, but there is more to it than just the key click.
Mike Fulk, a living Hammond encyclopedia, once told me that the miracle of
additive synthesis was the heart of the sound of the Hammond organ.
Basically, the tones all get to a terminal strip on the bottom of the
manuals in numerical order. From there, they are sent to their various
destination key contacts via a special resistive wiring... this is what
makes up the maze of small cloth covered wires on the bottom of the manuals.
Each resistance wire is rated at 16 ohms nominal impedance. Now here's the
fun part... each tone goes to many places on the manual... it may be the
fundamental for one key on a particular drawbar, but it is the third
harmonic for another key on the same drawbar, or a different one, etc. So
there are several possible places for most tones to show up on a single
manual. When the same tone is played (or released by the completion of a
circuit, since all tones are really playing all the time) by pressing
another key, the sound appears to come from two different sources, or
keys... when in reality, there is only one tone of that frequency coming
into the manual. It was explained to me that the illusion of another source
of sound is created because of the most important part of the Hammond
equation, resistive wiring:
When only one key is pressed using tone 72 for instance, the tone circuit
completes, but it is completed only through a 16 ohm resistor, the wire.
When another key is pressed that uses tone 72, the circuit is again
completed, but since there are two paths of equal resistance running in
parallel, the nominal impedance drops to around 8 ohms, and the tone comes
through louder, thereby creating the impression that the note comes from two
sources. It seems to me that this is the heart of the Hammond organ, and if
a clone uses this sort of "modeling technique" (as I assume most do), the
only thing missing is key click and a tube preamp. I may seem a little naive
here, but talking to a bunch of clone players I think many of you would
agree that a close semblance of the sound can be approximated without a TWG.
So my question to all of you is this: even if it were affordable, say
$500... do you think it would likely be part of your gigging setup for very
long? I would probably buy one for $500, but I think if I were going to
carry something so heavy to a gig it would be the real thing. This borders
on the question of the value of a chop, too, because you retain most of the
weight, but gain some carrying space.

Deke The Geek
-retaining plenty of weight lately-