31 May
2009
31 May
'09
4:30 p.m.
Ken Restivo wrote:
Pursuant to the recent discussion of Hammond
emulations on Linux:
I just got back from the Boom Boom Room in San Francisco, where I spent the night playing
their house Hammond B3.
That is just one magical instrument. And, after playing the real thing for several hours
with a full band and for a packed dancefloor, it's clear that nothing I've ever
heard in emulation comes close to it. There's something about the way it moves air
around that I really doubt could be duplicated.
The bass player enjoyed standing in front of the Leslie, and said, "When you get
those swells going I get a nice back massage!".
Still, I'm going to try out Connie and am very intrigued by the idea of running
Beatrix on a dedicated netbook. And also need to get AZR3 running on my netbook too. And
motivated to finish writing the code for my Arduino-based swell pedal.
I think the Hammond might could be the original mad scientist instrument. Long before
Robert Moog started building synths, the Hammond had lots of knobs and buttons and sliders
for nerds to play around with.
-ken
Ken,
My last band was an organ trio with my buddy Dave playing the house B3
and me flailing away on my late 60s Gibby 335 piped into a 1963
blackface Super Reverb. That sound and everything else about that
experience will never leave me.
Three years ago, Dave and I followed up a lead on a closet classic B3
literally played by an old lady in her living room, and he couldn't have
reached for his wallet any faster. The Leslie was cherry too.
As to your mad scientist observation regarding the switches and sliders,
there's nothing quite as mad as the sound of switching off and on during
a song and hearing the tone wheels spin down and back up again!
Frank