Hammond organ

In imitation of a pipe organ, with its banks of pipes in multiple registers, the Hammond Organ used additive synthesis of waveforms from harmonic series to generate its sounds. As in Thadeus Cahill[?]'s earlier Telharmonium[?], the individual waveforms were made by mechanical "tonewheels" which rotated beneath electromagnetic pickups.

One novel feature of the Hammond organ was the use of "drawbars" to mix the component waveforms in varying ratios. Other features added to Hammond organs included vibrato and Leslie speaker effects. The distinctive "key click" that was originally a design flaw rapidly became part of the "Hammond sound".

Notable Hammond organ players:

• Jon Lord
• Keith Emerson
• Rick Wakeman
• Ken Hensley[?]
• Jimmy Smith[?]

External link

• http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/hammond/
• http://www.dairiki.org/HammondWiki/HammondWiki

Note: the HammondWiki material is licenced under the OPL, which is incompatible with the GFDL, and so cannot be copied here, except by the original contributors of that material.