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Hey Keyboard Guys!!! Can You Tell Me Anything About A Hammond M-3?


sydfan

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Yes, it has the super B-3 sounds ROM inside, so you are good to go. The leslie sim is pretty close too.

 

Look out for burned out LCD screens, they are getting hard to replace. And if the battery has gone dead, it might dump gunk all over the main processor pcb.

 

Other than that, it's all good!

;)

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Originally posted by mate_stubb

Yes, it has the super B-3 sounds ROM inside, so you are good to go. The leslie sim is pretty close too.


Look out for burned out LCD screens, they are getting hard to replace. And if the battery has gone dead, it might dump gunk all over the main processor pcb.


Other than that, it's all good!

;)

:mad:

 

You son of a buck!!

 

:mad: :mad: :mad:

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OK, OK, so I had a little fun.

 

The M-3 is a spinet, while the B-3 is a console. What that means is that the spinets have shorter keyboards and are more compact. They only have 1 octave's worth of pedals instead of 2 for the consoles, and the pedals are permanently attached.

 

Also, the spinets don't have foldback wiring in the manuals, which means that the upper drawbars die out on the top end of the keyboard, instead of breaking back in pitch like on the consoles. So trebly drawbar settings sound more bassy at the top end of the keyboard than on consoles.

 

Given all that, the M-3 is the most desirable spinet to have. There are only a few spinets that have the real tone wheel generators, others are all electronic junk.

 

Here are the most common TWG spinets:

 

M-1, M-2, M-3 - oldest spinets made, no extra gimmicks, real waterfall keys

 

L-100 series - budget spinet, has a different less effective chorus vibrato, and diving board keys

 

M-100 series - top of the line spinet for its day, but has diving board keys and extra preset tabs that are superflous junk for rock players.

 

If the organ fires up and works, I would sure take it for free!

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Originally posted by mate_stubb

OK, OK, so I had a little fun.


The M-3 is a spinet, while the B-3 is a console. What that means is that the spinets have shorter keyboards and are more compact. They only have 1 octave's worth of pedals instead of 2 for the consoles, and the pedals are permanently attached.


Also, the spinets don't have foldback wiring in the manuals, which means that the upper drawbars die out on the top end of the keyboard, instead of breaking back in pitch like on the consoles. So trebly drawbar settings sound more bassy at the top end of the keyboard than on consoles.


Given all that, the M-3 is the most desirable spinet to have. There are only a few spinets that have the real tone wheel generators, others are all electronic junk.


Here are the most common TWG spinets:


M-1, M-2, M-3 - oldest spinets made, no extra gimmicks, real waterfall keys


L-100 series - budget spinet, has a different less effective chorus vibrato, and diving board keys


M-100 series - top of the line spinet for its day, but has diving board keys and extra preset tabs that are superflous junk for rock players.


If the organ fires up and works, I would sure take it for free!

Thanks so much!!! Fantastic answer. I appreciate your time!

 

:)

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Not only is it a very inexpensive B-3 like organ, but many songs people assumed were B-3's were really M-3's.

 

Cases in point- "Green Onions" by Booker T. and the MG's, and the entire first album by Boston were all done on M-3's. Lotsa bands in the late-60's and 70's toured with chopped M-3's for both space and economic reasons.

 

And depending on how patient and skilled you are, foldback can be added to an M-3 to get an exact B-3 sound. There are specs on the net on how to do this. Not easy, but it can be done. But even without foldback, if you can find a Leslie and hook it up to the M-3, you will be amazed!

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The more i get into organ the more I understand that most of the records I assume were B3 are actually some other derivative..

 

In the last week, I have watched lots of videos of 1970s Focus (dutch prog band) and their organ seemed to be one of the L range... same with Procol Harum.. and didn't Emerson play a L100 too?

 

I saw a jazz/blues band playing an M3 when I was in Groningen Holland... the sound was as screaming as any organ I'd ever heard...

 

The guy had had it boxed up for easy transport, it looked great to me...

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Well, I went and looked at it, and it seems to need a lot of work. It has a terrible hum, and there's a lot of mechanical noise, although I don't know if that's normal for a Hammond. I have no idea how much it would cost to restore or even if it would be worth it, or where to take it. Does anybody want it?

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Originally posted by leavity

What is foldback?

 

 

It's a little hard to explain, but here goes.

 

A tone wheel generator (TWG) generates a bunch of sine-like waves. They get used in multiple places by the keyboards - the same tonewheel provides the pitch for say middle C with the 8' drawbar pulled, and the C one octave higher with the 16' drawbar pulled. These are connected thru a stack of contacts under each key. Each tonewheel might be connected to as many as 7 or 8 key contacts thru a bunch of wiring harnesses. The wires have resistance in them so that the longer the wire from one contact to the next, the more the signal is attenuated. This provides for the ability to make the higher harmonics for a lower note softer than the lower harmonics on a higher note, even if they are from the same tone wheel. There are miles of this wire under each keyboard.

 

Whew! Still with me?

 

On a spinet, one way of cutting cost was having fewer tonewheels in the generators. This means that some of the highest harmonics are not being generated. Another way to reduce cost was to reduce the complexity of the wiring harness for the key contacts, which was all strung by hand.

 

On a console, when the very highest harmonics run out of tonewheels, the wiring doubles back to an octave lower.

 

This is called foldback. If you pull out the very highest drawbar on a B-3 and run all the way up the keyboard, you will hear it fold back several times.

 

This is what is missing from the spinets - both because they lack the extra tonewheels and because the wiring for those high key contacts is omitted.

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Originally posted by sydfan

Does anybody want it?

 

 

where are you at?

 

 

Originally posted by mate_stubb

This is what is missing from the spinets - both because they lack the extra tonewheels and because the wiring for those high key contacts is omitted.

 

 

the second revision M3s actually have the same generator as a B3. supposedly.

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