The Hammond organ has and continues to play a major role in many types of music from Gospel to Rock to Jazz to Bossanova and of course is synonymous with baseball games.  This is a vintage tube powered tone-wheel organ from 1961 in pristine condition.

The original idea Hammond had for the electronic organ was to simulate the sound of a pipe organ with a compact and relatively cheap instrument so that churches that didn’t have the money or space for a large pipe organ could still have an instrument.

The Hammond organ does not sound like a pipe organ, but it was a huge success and went far beyond it’s original market to invade and inspire many musical forms.

At its core the sound is generated by wheels spinning at constant speeds but having different numbers of notches, like cogs.  The oscillation is picked up and amplified to form the different harmonics of the organ.

This is all rather dry sounding, but the organ produces warm tones and when you crank the volume it distorts in just the right way.

Between the two manuals and the bass pedalboard covering over two octaves the instrument has quite a range and can either fill or subtly add to a song.  The ability to manipulate the tone and volume of the sound on the fly adds another facet to the instrument.  It soon becomes apparent that hitting the keyboard is just part of playing this beast.

The B3 is the most highly regarded model, used extensively for both recording and touring the world.  The A100 is the B3 dropped in a different chassis with some extras.  Apart from all the sonic options a B3 gives you, this organ also has a built in spring reverb, a tube power amp and three speakers.  With an A100 you can choose to add a leslie speaker, with a B3 you have no choice due to the lack of amp and speaker.