Best Organs for Chopping?

Hi

What are the best organs for chopping? An old Hammond spinet, while not a B3, does have real tonewheels. What would the heaviest part weigh? Is setup a big pain? What about chopping transistor organs; I've heard of it being done to a Farfisa and ending up pretty light, though it's a fairly different sound. Would I be better off with a cheap Crumar T1? Modern clonewheels are cool (and my Karma has some decent presets that I've played around with), but I'm curious about alternatives that are analog, unique, lightweight, great sounding, cheap, whatever...

Thanks

Don't chop a B-3 or C-3 style cabinet (unless the legs are falling off or it has been visited by a chainsaw already) lest you risk the anger of the Hammond gods.

A-100 or any spinet Hammond is acceptable to chop. I wouldn't even play a Crumar, much less take the trouble to chop it.

All this business of chopping Hammonds up is a ridiculous because the weight is in the manuals and tone generator, not the case and legs. It serverly devalues and damages organs also. I saw a great looking C cabinet some little assholes chopped 3 years ago and it ruined the organ. They were in a jam band and never used it anyway.

A lot of techs do butcher A-100's because essentially it is a 3 series organ. For the most part people look down on chopping that are serious collectors.

Well yeah chopping any Hammond will be a lot heavier than chopping a transistor organ obviously, though I have seen some nice jobs. Although all the weight is there in aggregate, the last one I saw seemed to have it broken down into 3-4+ parts so that each section is easier to get around. It was a full size organ, not a spinet, that a Portland area organist Loius Pain plays. It looked like the manual was one section, tonewheels another section (which obviously would require some fancy wiring, but not impossible with a custom harness), amps another box, pedals, etc. Worked quite nice. As I recall, it was all built into flight cases as well. I was thinking a spinet would be cheaper and lighter... but again some other organs could be fun too. The Crumar has that wacky little bass synth, what's not to love?! And of course there are a lot of old cheap WurliTzer organs, Conn, Lowrey, Kawai, etc....

Yeah but when people talk about chopping 99% of the time it is Hammonds, that is the sound I am assuming you want. Get an M3 or L series. There are a ton of them around if that is what you really want.

i just get warm and fuzzy reading someone other than myself go off on jam band kids.

It was a C-2 and they wanted $500 dollars for the chop and I told them it is not worth it. I am not sure what happened to it but it was really nice looking before they tried to mod it.

Why would you bother chopping a Hammond? Get a clone if want something easy to transport!

What would being in a "jam band" have to do with butchering organs, I wonder?

I don't expect it to be easier to get around than a fancy new XK system, but it might sound nearly as good if not better, for a couple hundred dollars...

Any guesses what the weight of a M3 might be gotten down to? Or a transistor organ for that matter?

I'm confused. Your goal here seems to be to chop something, anything.

Usually, one finds an instrument that they want to play first, then considers what options they have for transporting it.

Well they are usually about 100 pounds less then a console but it depends on the model.

i have a real HAMMOND transistor organ with a built-in drum machine i would chop for you FOR FREE and give the organ to you as well if you want to come to the STG Soundlabs Campus North to pick it up.

then you can have an Hammond AND a transistor organ!

I'm confused. Your goal here seems to be to chop something, anything. Usually, one finds an instrument that they want to play first, then considers what options they have for transporting it.

A-freakin-men!

Wes Taggart

Analogics

http://www.analogics.org/

One time, at band camp, I chopped my soft synth...