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Huh? You say. Actually that's just me being clever...or trying to be. Fact is, I am a guitar player who has been playing for 36 years now and love the instrument. I also love the electric/electronic organ...
I've built several guitar amps and have done lots of fairly non invasive mods to just about every major brand of tube amp out there. I won't say I'm a saint, there have been several amps I cringe now to believe I defaced them, but back in the 80's my goal was to turn as many amps into Marshalls as I could get my hands on. Fortunately I was somewhat poor in those early days, but the tube amps were fairly abundant and there were cheap ones to be had that were excellent models, but a little down at the heel. I paid $25 for my first black face Fender Bandmaster head because it had cigarette burns across the front. Still it was untouched original under the hood. I loved that amp! I added a master volume and cascaded the preamp tubes ( in that order come to think of it). That was my first mod.
Then when I was 14 I found a THORDARSON T-31W50A ( PhotoFact Manual Thordarson T 31W50A 19 | eBay ) at a yard sale for $10. And there was this cream colored 8-track with vegetables all over it she even through in...hint hint. A day I'll never forget. Let me tell you, that T-3150A looked frightening in it's dusty old grey metal art deco cabinet, but it worked! It had some hiss, but the hiss was so subtle and blissfully filled with white noise I kind of liked it. So that was my first real amp I got into.
I was fortunate enough to have a dad that worked at an electronics firm and so he helped me build a synth from lots of old rotary switches and pots they had in their old stock. Plus I was able to print the PC boards for all of the projects in Craig Andertons book, Electronic Projects For Musicians. I built every project except the metronome and the mini-amp. I soon realized that music could be more than a wall of Marshalls, even though I loved my 6-EL34 & 5 ECC81 & 83 Dallas Arbiter Sound City 120R and their 50 watt model.
Ah' it's been 30 years, but music is timeless and so since those earlier days I have gotten into all kinds of music. Even organ music. Which brings me up to the title of this thread. We as guitar players need to be careful what we are making our amps out of. Back in 1996 I was given a little Lowrey tube organ, a 1960 LSC-1. I thought, okay here we go, it's going to be cheesy or dreary...but I was blown away! It was just awesome hearing that TONE! It was very easy to liken it to the same feeling I get when hearing a great guitar tone. From that day forward, 20 years after I got my first guitar at the age of 12, a mahogany Gibson parlor acoustic model LG-O, followed by a blood red Continental electric at 13, and a mahogany Gibson Melody Maker at 16...and many many more...from that day forward I had the utmost respect for this 'new old sound' that had come my way. A sound I never paid much attention to previously, this was different. I liked it a lot!
Even though we had a Hammond L100 sitting at home I played the piano more. I think the L100 just needed the Leslie speaker element but I didn't know what a Leslie was then. So ironically it was that Lowrey tube organ that woke me up to organ. As I think back I wonder if I'd not been given the tube oscillator Lowrey if I'd ever been so taken by the organ. I REALLY got into organs. I would check the thrift stores and happened to find a 56' cherry cabinet Hammond M3 for $25 that I honestly think I liked it better than ANY Hammond I've owned. I actually picked up a mint 1962 Hammond A102 for $800 when visiting my sister in Pittsburgh in Christmas of 96'. I found the ad in a penny saver at the Red Lobster. It said 'HAMMOND ORGAN 25 PEDALS' $900. I offered her $800. Which in 96' was a great deal for a Hammond B3 in a home cabinet with speakers. In fact that is still a great deal. You see, people play those Hammond CLONE WHEEL organs like the Hammond SK-1 and the red Nord, but a true Hammond player knows they aren't the real deal anymore than a guitar player knows a Line 6 is a Marshall or Vibro King ( which I found one for $300 once
. [Just once believe me!] So I had the Hammond B3 now, but needed a Leslie. I found a 59' Leslie 122 for $200 and suddenly I had THE Hammond sound. So I played that steady every day for 6+ years and ended up getting what they call 'tone wheel itis'. That is where every draw bar setting just sounds the same. Not really the same, but the awesomeness of the B3 sound starts to get a little boring. And I was a good player if I don't say so myself. But the organ seemed to be over for me. I went back to guitar and played with synths. ALWAYS analog. I am an analog purist. I know that adjacent frequencies in digital have no magic like analog has so they can get as detailed as they want with digital and it's just not going to be as good. End of story. Just a copy at best. Of course there are those who will argue, but my only come back is that if they like digital better it's probably because that's all they listen to. If you are recording in a sample or virtual domain then it's perfectly fine, but don't tell an instrumentalist or vinyl lover that their ears need checked. We hear just fine. We just listen better
So what happened after that tone wheel itis? Well, as fate might have it I was raking leaves for an elderly woman in my neighborhood about 4 years after parting ways with my organs. Actually someone stole my A102 when I was out of town, but anyway I was organless except for a Vox Jaguar that the thieves didn't get to (UNCLONEABLE BTW). Anyway, I raked the leaves and put the rake in the garage and saw a strangle little organ that said HAMMOND on it. Turns out that little organ was a black 1955 Hammond S6 chord organ with an original AO-35 chassis and 3-spring necklace reverb. She said, ' My aunt left me that, if you can play me a song you can have it.' So after spending 5 minutes trying to figure out how to turn it on by the knee volume lever, I played a tune. WOW! What a little beast it is!! I love my S6. Thank goodness the 2-6v6 amplifier is built into the main organ chassis or we'd see more of these junked for the amp. Which this is EXACTLY what the title of this thread is referring to. PLEASE PRESERVE THE ORGANS! Build amps out of anything, but a great little CONN Minuet or Caprice. ANYTHING but a Gulbransen spinet organ with it's 2-EL-84 amplifier on the key desk behind the busbars. Build a guitar amp out of ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING but a GREAT GREAT GREAT Wurlitzer electrostatic reed organ 1946-1961. These are recognized by the large brown fiberboard reed box on the right side facing the back, and the amplifier on the floor on the left. These electrostatic reed organs have an amazing tone and the reeds are NOT used acoustically or miked in any way, but instead there is a high voltage applied to the vibrating reed and stationary pick-ups, which are the heads of screws, are adjusted near the reed. Depending where the pick-up is located determines the voice ( or tab setting) that will be most prevalent. These Wurlitzer Electrostatic Reed organ is like the electric guitar and Hammond organ in that it is an electromechanical tone generator. There is a great article that explains with excellent detail how the electrostatic reed organs works here- https://www.nshos.com/wurliContents.htm and for the Hammond organ here- https://www.nshos.com/HAMMOND1.htm
Check their home page too. A great site! https://www.nshos.com/index.html
Okay, so here is how I got over the ' tone wheel itis'. As you might notice I still had a couple of organs. Even had a Yamaha B4cr Electone spinet organ, which is a poor mans version of a Vox really. Not that I condone destroying any organ, but these little 70's Yamaha Electone 'apartment size' organs are analog and there is nothing below the key desk except a pair of speakers and reverb springs. So you can make a combo organ quite easily from one. SO the way I got over the 'itis is I found a Jesse Crawford theater organ record one day and really like his style. Jesse was nothing like the stereotype of a theater organist. He had an amazing ability to play ballads on the theater organ and his command of swell pedal ( volume pedals) was uncanny! I began buying organ records from thrift stores and actually listening to the ones I already had and never paid much attention to. I discover other ways people play Hammond organs besides Jon Lord from Deep Purple, and Kieth Emerson. I found Walter Wanderly- in fact here is Walter on a Hammond L100- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9aftG6pybA Strangely Walter could pass for my Dad's brother, except Walter has more hair here ( same clothes lol). Man could he play though! Awesome groove. So that is Hammond at it's best IMO. I did get tired of Jimmy Smith, but have come back around after all. The tone wheel itis left me one day when I had an epiphany. Jesse Crawford the great theater organist was a national celebrity in the US, Britain, and elsewhere so he could have played a theater organ any time anywhere, but after he retired from theater playing he took a gig with Hammond in the 1940's until his death in 1961 I believe. When Jesse first heard the Hammond back in 1936 he said he'd never play one, but the handsome offer couldn't be turned down and Jesse became Hammond's hardest working player. Plus in 1940 Don Leslie invented the Leslie speaker, even called 'Crawford Speaker', or 'Hollywood Speaker'. That's when the Hammond had a theater organ sound. Jesse gave classes, wrote books, composed relentlessly. He made many albums on the Hammond as well. It was when listening to Jesse on this album-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTeIAbTtnjA that it clicked for me. As I listened I realized that Jesse could play the Hammond tone wheel organ and translate the voicing of the theater organ in his head as he played. See, the Hammond TONE WHEEL organ 1936-1975 only has flutes. It is a sine wave additive synthesis organ. Meaning, other instruments over-tone characteristics and timbre can be mimicked by the flute voices of the draw bars based on how far some are pulled out and others left in. There are 8 increments on a draw bar...( see the NSHOS Hammond Organ link above). The Hammond is a phenomena of sorts. And all it is is a bunch of little metal discs spinning in front of 91 individual pick-ups. VACUUM TUBE CONN ORGANS, and TRANSISTORIZED with tube amps are also amazing instruments.
Have a listen to a 1956 CONN SERIES 800-classic here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlFR5vOjnh8 and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48avZCxm8s8 and side-B here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L06vS6WRbIE What that is that you are hearing on these last 3 links is a VACUUM TUBE INDIVIDUAL OSCILLATOR organ. Every note on the organ has it's own tube ( or 2 notes per dual triode 12AU7). What this means is that each note can be tuned separately from the other. So like with a 12 string guitar, a choir, or real pipe organ ( which can never be in complete tune) these individual oscillators allow more realism and allow the organ to have celeste/chorus effect. This is what makes Hammond, Conn, Gulbransen, and Wurlitzer so important in the musical instrument family! They were so thoughtfully made and they were made to last for many many generations. These organs 1935-68 that have all of the tubes use individual/discrete components, as are the transistor organs up to 71' or so. RODGERS ORGAN CO. made transistor individual oscillator organs until 1990!
I JUST SAVE A CONN CLASSIC-815 ( like the 800 you just heard above, the 15 in 815 is for blonde finish). Saved it from the landfill!
A guy on Ebay listed just the preamp from the floor of the CONN 815 organ and said in the ad, ' I'll pull the amp, or you can come get the whole organ if you want it', but that organ was soon to be in the landfill! Fortunately he lived 20 miles from me. Here is the organ in the attached images. So have a good listen to the George Wright and John Gart and ask yourself, ' Would I feel okay junking one of these organs?'
SO ALL OF THESE ORGANS CAN ALWAYS BE REPAIRED NO PROBLEM. There are just too many who like to destroy an organ for the parts inside and then justify it by saying things like, 'well it's not a Hammond', or ' you can't get parts anymore', or even ' nobody cares about organs and you can get organ sounds on keyboards'. BZZZTT!!! WRONG! Please, if you understand why a tube guitar amp and transistor combo organs ( which by the same token transistor console and spinet organs ALSO sound great) then you should understand how important these organs are to keep around. Point blank, digital is a completely different mood than real analog organs because digital can't blend like analog can. Digital just is not the same thing at all.
Thanks
Paulj0557 ( on youtube and organ forum with same screen name) Here is my Youtube channel- https://www.youtube.com/user/paulj0557 and that's one of my 11 organs, a 1956 Wurlitzer 4410 electrostatic 'free reed' ( meaning all reeds vibrate continuously and soundproofed, remember " the reeds aren't used for their audible tone, but are used for their harmonic content " ( As per this video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJl2ixvDrzE at 36:35 )
I've built several guitar amps and have done lots of fairly non invasive mods to just about every major brand of tube amp out there. I won't say I'm a saint, there have been several amps I cringe now to believe I defaced them, but back in the 80's my goal was to turn as many amps into Marshalls as I could get my hands on. Fortunately I was somewhat poor in those early days, but the tube amps were fairly abundant and there were cheap ones to be had that were excellent models, but a little down at the heel. I paid $25 for my first black face Fender Bandmaster head because it had cigarette burns across the front. Still it was untouched original under the hood. I loved that amp! I added a master volume and cascaded the preamp tubes ( in that order come to think of it). That was my first mod.
Then when I was 14 I found a THORDARSON T-31W50A ( PhotoFact Manual Thordarson T 31W50A 19 | eBay ) at a yard sale for $10. And there was this cream colored 8-track with vegetables all over it she even through in...hint hint. A day I'll never forget. Let me tell you, that T-3150A looked frightening in it's dusty old grey metal art deco cabinet, but it worked! It had some hiss, but the hiss was so subtle and blissfully filled with white noise I kind of liked it. So that was my first real amp I got into.
I was fortunate enough to have a dad that worked at an electronics firm and so he helped me build a synth from lots of old rotary switches and pots they had in their old stock. Plus I was able to print the PC boards for all of the projects in Craig Andertons book, Electronic Projects For Musicians. I built every project except the metronome and the mini-amp. I soon realized that music could be more than a wall of Marshalls, even though I loved my 6-EL34 & 5 ECC81 & 83 Dallas Arbiter Sound City 120R and their 50 watt model.
Ah' it's been 30 years, but music is timeless and so since those earlier days I have gotten into all kinds of music. Even organ music. Which brings me up to the title of this thread. We as guitar players need to be careful what we are making our amps out of. Back in 1996 I was given a little Lowrey tube organ, a 1960 LSC-1. I thought, okay here we go, it's going to be cheesy or dreary...but I was blown away! It was just awesome hearing that TONE! It was very easy to liken it to the same feeling I get when hearing a great guitar tone. From that day forward, 20 years after I got my first guitar at the age of 12, a mahogany Gibson parlor acoustic model LG-O, followed by a blood red Continental electric at 13, and a mahogany Gibson Melody Maker at 16...and many many more...from that day forward I had the utmost respect for this 'new old sound' that had come my way. A sound I never paid much attention to previously, this was different. I liked it a lot!
Even though we had a Hammond L100 sitting at home I played the piano more. I think the L100 just needed the Leslie speaker element but I didn't know what a Leslie was then. So ironically it was that Lowrey tube organ that woke me up to organ. As I think back I wonder if I'd not been given the tube oscillator Lowrey if I'd ever been so taken by the organ. I REALLY got into organs. I would check the thrift stores and happened to find a 56' cherry cabinet Hammond M3 for $25 that I honestly think I liked it better than ANY Hammond I've owned. I actually picked up a mint 1962 Hammond A102 for $800 when visiting my sister in Pittsburgh in Christmas of 96'. I found the ad in a penny saver at the Red Lobster. It said 'HAMMOND ORGAN 25 PEDALS' $900. I offered her $800. Which in 96' was a great deal for a Hammond B3 in a home cabinet with speakers. In fact that is still a great deal. You see, people play those Hammond CLONE WHEEL organs like the Hammond SK-1 and the red Nord, but a true Hammond player knows they aren't the real deal anymore than a guitar player knows a Line 6 is a Marshall or Vibro King ( which I found one for $300 once
. [Just once believe me!] So I had the Hammond B3 now, but needed a Leslie. I found a 59' Leslie 122 for $200 and suddenly I had THE Hammond sound. So I played that steady every day for 6+ years and ended up getting what they call 'tone wheel itis'. That is where every draw bar setting just sounds the same. Not really the same, but the awesomeness of the B3 sound starts to get a little boring. And I was a good player if I don't say so myself. But the organ seemed to be over for me. I went back to guitar and played with synths. ALWAYS analog. I am an analog purist. I know that adjacent frequencies in digital have no magic like analog has so they can get as detailed as they want with digital and it's just not going to be as good. End of story. Just a copy at best. Of course there are those who will argue, but my only come back is that if they like digital better it's probably because that's all they listen to. If you are recording in a sample or virtual domain then it's perfectly fine, but don't tell an instrumentalist or vinyl lover that their ears need checked. We hear just fine. We just listen betterSo what happened after that tone wheel itis? Well, as fate might have it I was raking leaves for an elderly woman in my neighborhood about 4 years after parting ways with my organs. Actually someone stole my A102 when I was out of town, but anyway I was organless except for a Vox Jaguar that the thieves didn't get to (UNCLONEABLE BTW). Anyway, I raked the leaves and put the rake in the garage and saw a strangle little organ that said HAMMOND on it. Turns out that little organ was a black 1955 Hammond S6 chord organ with an original AO-35 chassis and 3-spring necklace reverb. She said, ' My aunt left me that, if you can play me a song you can have it.' So after spending 5 minutes trying to figure out how to turn it on by the knee volume lever, I played a tune. WOW! What a little beast it is!! I love my S6. Thank goodness the 2-6v6 amplifier is built into the main organ chassis or we'd see more of these junked for the amp. Which this is EXACTLY what the title of this thread is referring to. PLEASE PRESERVE THE ORGANS! Build amps out of anything, but a great little CONN Minuet or Caprice. ANYTHING but a Gulbransen spinet organ with it's 2-EL-84 amplifier on the key desk behind the busbars. Build a guitar amp out of ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING but a GREAT GREAT GREAT Wurlitzer electrostatic reed organ 1946-1961. These are recognized by the large brown fiberboard reed box on the right side facing the back, and the amplifier on the floor on the left. These electrostatic reed organs have an amazing tone and the reeds are NOT used acoustically or miked in any way, but instead there is a high voltage applied to the vibrating reed and stationary pick-ups, which are the heads of screws, are adjusted near the reed. Depending where the pick-up is located determines the voice ( or tab setting) that will be most prevalent. These Wurlitzer Electrostatic Reed organ is like the electric guitar and Hammond organ in that it is an electromechanical tone generator. There is a great article that explains with excellent detail how the electrostatic reed organs works here- https://www.nshos.com/wurliContents.htm and for the Hammond organ here- https://www.nshos.com/HAMMOND1.htm
Check their home page too. A great site! https://www.nshos.com/index.html
Okay, so here is how I got over the ' tone wheel itis'. As you might notice I still had a couple of organs. Even had a Yamaha B4cr Electone spinet organ, which is a poor mans version of a Vox really. Not that I condone destroying any organ, but these little 70's Yamaha Electone 'apartment size' organs are analog and there is nothing below the key desk except a pair of speakers and reverb springs. So you can make a combo organ quite easily from one. SO the way I got over the 'itis is I found a Jesse Crawford theater organ record one day and really like his style. Jesse was nothing like the stereotype of a theater organist. He had an amazing ability to play ballads on the theater organ and his command of swell pedal ( volume pedals) was uncanny! I began buying organ records from thrift stores and actually listening to the ones I already had and never paid much attention to. I discover other ways people play Hammond organs besides Jon Lord from Deep Purple, and Kieth Emerson. I found Walter Wanderly- in fact here is Walter on a Hammond L100- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9aftG6pybA Strangely Walter could pass for my Dad's brother, except Walter has more hair here ( same clothes lol). Man could he play though! Awesome groove. So that is Hammond at it's best IMO. I did get tired of Jimmy Smith, but have come back around after all. The tone wheel itis left me one day when I had an epiphany. Jesse Crawford the great theater organist was a national celebrity in the US, Britain, and elsewhere so he could have played a theater organ any time anywhere, but after he retired from theater playing he took a gig with Hammond in the 1940's until his death in 1961 I believe. When Jesse first heard the Hammond back in 1936 he said he'd never play one, but the handsome offer couldn't be turned down and Jesse became Hammond's hardest working player. Plus in 1940 Don Leslie invented the Leslie speaker, even called 'Crawford Speaker', or 'Hollywood Speaker'. That's when the Hammond had a theater organ sound. Jesse gave classes, wrote books, composed relentlessly. He made many albums on the Hammond as well. It was when listening to Jesse on this album-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTeIAbTtnjA that it clicked for me. As I listened I realized that Jesse could play the Hammond tone wheel organ and translate the voicing of the theater organ in his head as he played. See, the Hammond TONE WHEEL organ 1936-1975 only has flutes. It is a sine wave additive synthesis organ. Meaning, other instruments over-tone characteristics and timbre can be mimicked by the flute voices of the draw bars based on how far some are pulled out and others left in. There are 8 increments on a draw bar...( see the NSHOS Hammond Organ link above). The Hammond is a phenomena of sorts. And all it is is a bunch of little metal discs spinning in front of 91 individual pick-ups. VACUUM TUBE CONN ORGANS, and TRANSISTORIZED with tube amps are also amazing instruments.
Have a listen to a 1956 CONN SERIES 800-classic here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlFR5vOjnh8 and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48avZCxm8s8 and side-B here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L06vS6WRbIE What that is that you are hearing on these last 3 links is a VACUUM TUBE INDIVIDUAL OSCILLATOR organ. Every note on the organ has it's own tube ( or 2 notes per dual triode 12AU7). What this means is that each note can be tuned separately from the other. So like with a 12 string guitar, a choir, or real pipe organ ( which can never be in complete tune) these individual oscillators allow more realism and allow the organ to have celeste/chorus effect. This is what makes Hammond, Conn, Gulbransen, and Wurlitzer so important in the musical instrument family! They were so thoughtfully made and they were made to last for many many generations. These organs 1935-68 that have all of the tubes use individual/discrete components, as are the transistor organs up to 71' or so. RODGERS ORGAN CO. made transistor individual oscillator organs until 1990!
I JUST SAVE A CONN CLASSIC-815 ( like the 800 you just heard above, the 15 in 815 is for blonde finish). Saved it from the landfill!
A guy on Ebay listed just the preamp from the floor of the CONN 815 organ and said in the ad, ' I'll pull the amp, or you can come get the whole organ if you want it', but that organ was soon to be in the landfill! Fortunately he lived 20 miles from me. Here is the organ in the attached images. So have a good listen to the George Wright and John Gart and ask yourself, ' Would I feel okay junking one of these organs?'
SO ALL OF THESE ORGANS CAN ALWAYS BE REPAIRED NO PROBLEM. There are just too many who like to destroy an organ for the parts inside and then justify it by saying things like, 'well it's not a Hammond', or ' you can't get parts anymore', or even ' nobody cares about organs and you can get organ sounds on keyboards'. BZZZTT!!! WRONG! Please, if you understand why a tube guitar amp and transistor combo organs ( which by the same token transistor console and spinet organs ALSO sound great) then you should understand how important these organs are to keep around. Point blank, digital is a completely different mood than real analog organs because digital can't blend like analog can. Digital just is not the same thing at all.
Thanks
Paulj0557 ( on youtube and organ forum with same screen name) Here is my Youtube channel- https://www.youtube.com/user/paulj0557 and that's one of my 11 organs, a 1956 Wurlitzer 4410 electrostatic 'free reed' ( meaning all reeds vibrate continuously and soundproofed, remember " the reeds aren't used for their audible tone, but are used for their harmonic content " ( As per this video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJl2ixvDrzE at 36:35 )
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