Hammond organ

The Hammond organ is an electronic organ[?] which was designed and built by Laurens Hammond[?] in April 1935. The sound of the Hammond organ is associated with rock music, gospel music and jazz.

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

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