michel devos

I am sure you gonna love it, Jim, just as did Jon Lord who was present at the launch. I'll see if I can put some pictures here.

I was last week at the Musik Messe in Frankfurt for the launch of the new SK serie from Hammond, specifically designed for the use in concert, tours or gigs. The new models SK1 and SK2 are both very light and portable (respectively 7 and 16 kg). They feature an astonishing B3 sound (same sound generator as the XK3, new B3) together with an extremely versatile synthetizer. The grand piano and Rhode emulations are really beyond description and must be heard to be believed! The Leslie simulation is also of top quality. And an USB port will allow downloading from any data base one wishes, making it possible to personalize the instrument way beyond everything that was available up to now. The demos were performed through a plain speaker system with very good results, but no doubt the couple SK + Leslie 3300 will get the gold medal. I wrote a review for a french website, while the guy playing the demos in the Hammond booth will post his own report very soon now : I shall definitely post the links here for those interested. Hammond has definitely produced a winner here...!

A damn' good idea you had , Jim...and lots of people are definitely thankful for this! I placed my order today and just hope Big O will ship to Belgium..! I just love the CD cover...great.

Hi marty, And welcome to our little discussion! Yes, agreed, that's the right word for distortion...but could you explain WHEN you like a little of it, and, in particular, WHY ? If you went quickly thru the posts of this thread, you'll have noticed I am not in favour of distortion, but I'm really interested in finding out why other people are. So thanks for your input.

I confirm there is already plenty of bass, and good ones, from the standard 3300. I have listened to this equipment for at least 20 different gigs and locations, but mainly in jazz programs and the bass sounds pretty adequate to me. But it may depend on the style of music you play with...Try it and let us know.

just curious, what brand/model earplugs do you use? I like very much the Elacin Clear sound : they are conforable, very linear and with several attenuation factors available. I usually wear them when making live recordings, where a good protection is necessary but also communication with the musicians or the crew. But check it personally, they might be less suitable for very high sound pressure levels.

Hi Jim, Yes indeed, to my ears the reference Leslie today is the 3300, no doubt about that. However, some guys like the looks of the "old" 122-147 cabinets, and many are still on the market, hence a niche for that kind of mod for people wanting to keep their beautiful wood object but with modern electronics inside. For my taste, I definitely vote both hands for the 3300, and I shall try to make one available to work with the B3, if possible...Is that electrically sound, by the way? If not, do you know of any "interface" that would allow that? Or would the preamp output used for the direct line signal be sufficient to drive the 3300 input? Thks for your comments

Last month, I recorded a live event showing several players and two B3's : the producer was evidently looking for en enormous sound impact in front of a large audience and, to do so, the B3's were each connected to heavily modified Leslie 760 and 109 thru fender guitar amps and a special cross-over. Speakers were JBL modified to suit mounting in the rotating drum and horn. As expected, the sound was very loud, and very bad...probably coming from a mismatch between the amps and the crossover...nevertheless, it had little to do with the original B3/Leslie sound. An engineer I had invited this evening was absolutely horrified by the results and started to explain how mods to the B3/Leslie should be done, in his view . The purpose of such mods can have only one target : get rid of the design problems (due to the gear available at the time ) and rebuild the instruments with modern hardware as close as possible to the original drawings : this would notably : -improve the bandwith linearity -improve the distortion figures -lower mechanical noises and hum produced by the motors -smooth the response curve by eliminating the resonances of the cabinet. -improve the acoustical power output A week later, I paid him a visit in his home, where he collects all sorts of hammonds, including an X-66 fully restored, and I had the opportunity to check visually and aurally the improvements brought to the instruments. To cut a long story short, the guy called Dan Vigin, replaces all the original parts like tubes and condo's by up to date models as close as possible to the original values. When not possible, he redesigns the circuits to accept a better element without jeopardizing the original balance. Power transformers are exclusively toroidal ones, all motors and electrical parts are screened with mu-metal, as well as cables sheath where requested. The internal sides of the Leslie cabinets are lined with a special acoustical absorbent to eliminate stationary waves and get rid of modal resonances. When listenign to the results, what one hears is a gorgeous sound, full and rich, powerfull and smooth... although the power output of the onboard amplifier of the 122 Leslie rates à clean but not gigantic 65 RMS watts (after rebuild, that is). I was so impressed to hear a B3, a C3 and various Leslies SOUNDING that way that we have decided to arrange a recording session in his place, so this sound could be shared with other Hammond lovers, probably first quarter 2011. I'll try to show some photographs of his work. "http://rapidshare.com/files/434424738/DSCN3025A.jpg" http://rapidshare.co...8/DSCN3025A.jpg http://rapidshare.com/files/434424536/DSCN2982A.jpg" http://rapidshare.co...6/DSCN2982A.jpg http://rapidshare.com/files/434424691/DSCN3021A.jpg" http://rapidshare.co...1/DSCN3021A.jpg http://rapidshare.com/files/435319512/DSCN3061A.jpg" http://rapidshare.co...2/DSCN3061A.jpg http://rapidshare.com/files/435319373/DSCN3029A.JPG" http://rapidshare.co...3/DSCN3029A.JPG</a>

My thoughts are going to you and your family.

My modest contribution has been sent by PayPal. (Household expenses) Thanks, Jim, for running the best Hammond jazz forum of the Web.

This LP is for sale on ebay germany. Follow this link http://cgi.ebay.de/LP-JIMMY-SMITH-The-Cat-Strikes-Again-Wersi-1980-Germany-/140459127725?pt=B%C3%BCcher_Unterhaltung_Music_CDs&hash=item20b40433ad to see a facsimile of the cover as well as the programm played. Published in 1980 by Wersi. It is not clear whether the text has been written by Jimmy himself : I think it is doubtful, the writer explains he plays an organ for 25 years but is limited in his range of expression even when using the full potential of the instrument; now that he plays a Wersi, he has many more possibilities for embellishment and will be able to play Jimmy smith sounds etc...can't really be from the master of the HAMMOND.

Argh..,sorry for dropping that letter, keyboard fault, evidently.. Nevertheless, I concur, it is very difficult to play in a comma, there are nine between two notes...And one word of caution : stay away from the aethylic commas, they are the worst. Mainly found in the Scotch symphony from Mendelsohnn and all the works of Ignaz von Burgundy.

Why the hell would anybody need to publish the umpteenth cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas, considering what is already available on the market in a time range of about 75 years..? And yet, I would like to draw your attention to a set that will be hopefully in the shops end of this year and that will contain the 32 sonatas, the five piano concertos and the nine symphonies transcribed for the piano by Franz Liszt. The pianist is Idil Biret, and we have recorded these works together over the last twenty years, except for the concertos that were taken care of by a german colleague in Ankara. But that is not a reason good enough to make a recommendation, which I almost never do for my own work. Having also made all the editing sessions of all the works, I can testify of the scrupulous respect of the score that Idil Biret showed for all of the scores. There will be some people, including myself, that will disagree with some interpretative issues, but no one will be able to fault her for a non-respect of the score : this is, to the coma, the precise reading of the most minute indications Beethoven scribbled on his scores and that only should be enough to make it a reference for every pianist wishing to build his own concept of these formidably challenging works. Also nice, the price is under 9$ when bought separately. For those interested, more infos here http://www.idilbiretarchive.eu/Beethoven_Edition.htm But don't forget Barenboim...

24 bits recording is now standard practice and I agree one should always use the highest resolution available, since disk space is not a problem anymore. Things are not that evident regarding the bandwith and I personally cannot hear a significant difference between 44 or 96 kHz : I would tend to believe this trend could be compared to the craze of "Quadriphony or Quadrasonic sound" of the 70's, when more always meant better..! But maybe the human ear will improve in the next decades or centuries, so if 96kHz makes the producer or engineer or marketing manager feel better, why not? And hey, Allen, I hope you don't only use you U87's for living room recordings For myself, I use MP3 to send samples or proof copies after editing thru the web. At home, I listen to Cd's or 24 bits from the PC, or, very seldom, LP's from my dusty Linn/Zeta/Koetsu red.

Make up one's mind between the Jackies (Davis and Gleason) and Deep Purple...Good Lord..! I need a drink here... And oh, by the way, here is another even more essential Hammond CD : http://www.amazon.com/Organs-Orbit-Ultra-Lounge-11/dp/B000002U4S/ref=pd_sim_m_8

Dreamin' is a sweet, nice activity...and it does not prevent reaching compromises. I would be more than happy if distortion kept restricted to people who deliberately use it as a musical choice, as you call it : that would leave room to discuss it as a personal taste, and not as an equipment shortcoming. The remaining ones would probably be as happy to enjoy playing or listening without the damn' thing, even if, according to the poll results, that would only account for 20%! Well, still a long way to go then...

Last friday, I went to listen an organ group with which I have a recording project goin'...The organist was playing an XK3 linked to a Leslie 3300, both brand new : not a hint of distortion here, the club room was bathed in flows of pure, warm sounds, with a perfectly adequate loudness althought the room was about 700 cubic meters, furnished with tables, chairs and carpets and around 150 people attending. I heard the guy tell me he had switched recently from his CV/Leslie 122 combo because he was fed up of the struggle to get heard over the noisy crowds in clubs and the distortion produced by his vintage gear...No doubt Jim will agree with this choice. For myself, I am confident that the spread of the leslie 3300 is goin' to make Hammond distortion nothing more than a (bad) souvenir in the comin' years!

Good to hear that...and you must be right, after 7 months nobody tried to shoot me yet..! Answering your question would depend from which point of view I'd look at the problem if asked : As a plain engineer hearing heavy distortion from a Hammond /Leslie, I might tell the player his Hammond remains a machine and, as such, obeys the design laws of every machine : that is, if one operates it outside its design envelope, it will no more function in accordance with its specifications and one of the results would be distortion. So, this answer would be : wrong. I might, in case that was not intentional, advise him on ways to eliminate the problem : better amp, more efficient drivers, more power etc... As a sound engineer, I would know that the words 'wrong' or 'right' have little meaning in art... and tell him rather I do not like his 'dirty' sound and why. That's way ahead of saying it is wrong... Simple matter of taste.

Jim, That confirms my own thoughts : originally, the Hammond distortion was generated by overdriving low power equipment in order to try reaching the desired loudness level in noisy environments such as clubs, dances etc... If one considers distortion as a welcomed musical intention, it has to be open to criticism : you find it thick, creamy, pleasant, I find it harsh, ugly, irritating, that's life. It is true that many followers of the great Jimmy went as far as copying even the less happy features of the Master's playing : as a result, distortion was endorsed as a trademark feature of the Hammond sound, which I believe it is not. Regarding the engineer's job, that depends entirely of his Ethics...Nowadays, the engineer is more often than not the producer of the session, especially in tight budget projects. Even if he isn't, I believe it is his duty to immediately report ANY sound anomally he detects. If the player confirms the distortion is intentional, fair enough with me : but what about the final CD listener hearing it? Will he believe this is just another musical signature, or that the recording engineer messed up his job? Understandably, to do so requires an expertise in the sound aspects of the many instruments one is bound to record : I have this knowledge for a great deal of them, unfortunately not yet for the Hammond/Leslie combination...The whole purpose of starting this thread was to confront my own ideas with the ones of other Hammond dedicated people such as the ones writing in this forum. Even if it appears I do not concur with the majority of the opinions expressed here, I am very grateful to have the opportunity to discuss it with all of you.

If your equipment detoriates gradually, you might not notice the change, and at some point it becomes part of your sound and you don't want to change it back. I was thinking about this part of African and African-American aesthetics, too - in African music it works nicely especially since much of the melodies are pentatonic and sound too simple without a dirtier sound. If a music gets harmonically more complex a distorted sound might counteract the musical intentions. But beyond all that it's a matter of personal taste, for the most part - and it depends on the type of music. Imagine a clinically clean toned blues ... since much organ jazz is connected to R & B it's no wonder many like a grainier sound - that's what I heard many organists say about Leslies. If I were an enginer I would carefully ask if they intentionally want that sound or simply can't afford the repair costs Agreed : it is tempting to formulate the reverse proposition "The less harmonically complex the music is, the more distorted sound comes in". But that would be awful, wouldn't it? It is perfectly possible to play the blues we a very clean sound, as you no doubt will agree...check this And yes, I'll try that next time to ask that question to the player, provided the check has been paid in advance! Ok, I'll try to watch myself ans stop joking...I notice this distortion problem seems to be less present at the moment. Here is a small list of organ cd's I recently bought and listened to without hearing it: Pat Bianchi East coast roots Joey De Francesco Snapshots Vince Seneri Urban Paradise + Street talk Organissimo Groovedelphia Lonnie Smith Spiral I should also add that some recordings I made last summer with Rhoda Scott and Barbara Dennerlein are completely free of distortion : they were both playing New B3's fed into Leslies 760. So maybe with the more recent equipment, distortion has become a thing of the past and that we'll mostly keep hearing it from vintage instruments?

Took the opportunity to listen again to this album, probably my fav among most of the JOS records...And I won't change my mind, everything is there, the virtuosity, the musicality, the inventivity, a wonderful programm of standards, lush ballads like Laura, Valentine, Lover man, the archetypical blues playing of After hours, some very audacious (for the time) musical patterns on Slightly monkish, the dramatic intros and protracted endings, etc...That's all of Jimmy, in its original organ guitar drums format. And the recording is adequate, bearing in mind this was a live act in 1957. For the best sounding Jimmy Smith (in my opinion) check Angel eyes : no distortion there (thanks Jim Anderson).

I'll have to be carefull here, since we are getting into finer nuances of the english vocabulary : I feel "dirtying" is closer to the concept I'm trying to explain than "thickening".I would associate "Thickening "to an intentional cut down of details to keep the most vital core of the musical message and increase its power of impact (usually in short an increase of sound volume/level). Dirtying would be a degradation of the pure sound in the sense of introducing "unclean" elements to the sound, usually produced when overdriving the power amp or feeding a wrong current or tension in the preamp tubes. I'll describe briefly a practical example : earlier this year, I recorded a gig over 2 evenings with a B3/122. A great deal of the program was in my opinion "spoiled" by distortion, even in some ballads and soft playing where there was no context for intensity, physical or emotional. Having checked three times the whole of my recording gear (Neumann, Sonosax, Sound Devices 24 bits) to make sure nothing was wrong fom my side, I had to accept this was stricto sensu what was coming out of the 122's... Back home the next week, I consulted two different Hammond experts from which I'll summarize the reports : "This is a common problem frequently met in old Hams : this distortion comes mainly from worn tubes in the preamp, a.o a penthod for which the HT is wrongly supplied thru a resistor of approx. 2 MegaOhm; the value of the resistor drifts with time to 3 megOhm and more and generates this problem, together with the ageing of the condensers in the circuits. Using a setting of 88800000 in the lower keyboard produces this muddy sound, caused mainly by the 2nd harmonic, and it should be much reduced by using the setting 808000000, since this will cut down the dissonant harmonic"" Now this is a french text written by a foreigner, so there might be some inaccuracies there... But another guy detected definitely a "worn out" organ in heavy need of replacement of the tubes and condos. What really puzzled me, when I played this recording to knowlegeable jazz nuts among my friends, nobody seemed to notice the distortion which, in this particular case, was caused by worn out components of the B3... Now reading all the contributions to this thread, I have to admit there are people liking distortion (at least from electro-acoustical instruments). I'll even agree that in some context, it may add drama and intensity to the music. What still remains unclear is : how can one differentiate between an artistic/aesthetic intention and a plain drift of some condenser or resistors..? Perhaps also this differentiation is not that meaningfull when one is interested in the musical contents only and not in the technical side ?

Exactly...that's what the competent engineer using fine recording equipment experiences when hearing distortion that cannot be reasonably identified (panic)... But I really concur with the idea of emphasizing a climax, either with the B3/leslie, the guitar (jazzbo) and the human voice (allen, michel) using some touch of linear distortion. You would not believe how many players have to rely onto organs in a very sad state, worn out Leslies, craclikng connectors and devices, especially when playing gigs in clubs renting the instrument for a week end or so. That is unfortunately more often the rule than the exception. This of course never happens during a studio production, where the instruments can be thoroughly checked and serviced if necessary. By the way, I love the more recent recordings of Jimmy McGriff and Hank Crawford : never a hint of distortion, whatever the sound levels; I believe he used to play an X3000, or maybe sometimes an X77? This can be checked on some youTube videos, featuring also Bob Devos and Hank Crawford live (at Yoshi's ?). There are unfortunately many Jimmy's sessions suffering from this problem : I can't remember this one, but definitely At Club Baby Grand, The champ (a new sound, a new star)and many others. Same for BabyFace Willette.

Works done with distortion present from the beginning are statements.

I seems a majority of the people expressing their opinion here favour some kind of distortion in some circumstances, I understand when the music reaches a climax or a paroxysm. Should we draw an analogy with the human voice as it reaches the threshold of screamin, by excitement for example? Might be an explanation...But how do we react with plain distortion constantly present at any point of the score..? Any justification or explanation for this..?