Circuit Bending a Hammond Organ

DjViral · Post by **DjViral** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:47 pm

Hey i'm getting a hammond but don't really play the organ. I'm more into electronic and really wanna know if its possible to circuit bend a hammond organ.

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:50 pm

there's no circuit in a hammond.
maybe you can bend the tone wheels, but i wouldn't recommend that.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:52 pm

you're getting a Hammond, can't play it, don't know how it works and you want to screw up the internals?!?!?!?!

seems like a waste, trade it to someone who can use it.

my $0.02.

ciw · Post by **ciw** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:34 pm

come on, waste is art and art is waste. fair play

DjViral · Post by **DjViral** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:59 pm

aah well thanks for the replies anyway guys. yeah i'm not buying it. someone doesn't want it an it's just sitting in there basement so i offered to take it off them. don't know what i'll do though. it really wouldn't do anything for my electronic music so i'll probably find a buyer. unless i'm wrong any hammond owners out there doin crazy things?

Grahambo! · Post by **Grahambo!** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:25 am

crap. i'd buy a hammond organ in a heartbeat.

rozling · Post by **rozling** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:15 am

I'll sell you one! You pay shipping mmkay?

DJViral, do not attempt to circuit bend a fucking hammond organ unless you really, really, really know exactly what you're doing - the internal voltages can run higher than 600v as far as I remember. Though you'd be dead at much lower than that of course

Remember that these things contain capacitors, which store voltage even when the thing is powered off - enough voltage to kill. [edit] - should that be current actually? It's been a few years since I read up on it.

I have an L100 and took out the power amp to get repaired (stupidly) - when it came to disconnecting the last cable I realised that it carried a high voltage and that the bare wire had been exposed at all of the gigs etc I'd played. I've also seen a supposedly well maintained organ catch fire on stage - bottom line these can be volatile beasts.

Maybe find someone independent who knows about hammonds & won't rip you off to advise re the best place to sell it. You could end up making a packet and sending it to someone who'll really take care of it, if it's a decent model of course. What model is it, out of interest?

Peeddroo - of course it has a circuit! Not a circuitboard though, it's all hand-soldered.

rozling · Post by **rozling** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 1:24 am

Oh and where are you located? If you're near and it's a good deal I might be interested...

If you're messing around with it do try the old trick of turning it on, letting it warm up enough to make a sound, then hold down a chord & turn it off while keeping the keys pressed. Behold the marvel of electromechanical instruments

Or learn to play! You might be into electronic, but these things (when they work) are IMO very easy to sit down and pick out a nice tune on. Remember Won't Get Fooled Again? That's a Hammond played through a gated/filtered synth, really basic chords but a stunning effect. Then there's the option of routing crap through the leslie... or did it come with one of those?

bosonHavoc · Post by **bosonHavoc** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:58 am

+1 on learning to play it!!!

i'm going to go and check all my friends basements now!!

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:51 am

rozling wrote:Peeddroo - of course it has a circuit! Not a circuitboard though, it's all hand-soldered.

yeah, i was talking about some more electronic things like oscillators or chips. i don't think there's any in a hammond, it's mostly some electrical stuff to make the engine turn or amplify the signal.

creature · Post by **creature** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:17 am

I am an experienced circuit bender and I would not attempt to bend a hammond as a poster said about, you are more than likely going to kill your self unless you really know what you are doing. That is pretty much the only rule of bending, dont do anything that runs of the mains.

Get yourself a furby and a casio sk1 instead. loads of fun and safe

Steve

ciw · Post by **ciw** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:56 am

afaik it's not voltage nor current that kill (directly) so much as energy. ie. time * current * voltage. static electricity can involve huge voltages but be safe so long as little charge (and hence time) is actually involved. it's the big capacitors you want to worry about, the ones that can maintain significant voltage for significant time...

LDT · Post by **LDT** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:14 pm

Answer to the first post: To answer your question we need to know if it is a tonewheel organ or a transistor organ. All the answerers here are jumping to the conslusion that it is tonewheel, but if it is from aunt Hildas basement, it might just as well be a non-tonewheel, non-tube organ.
Anyway, it still would not make it a good choice, if you are not absolutely sure what you are doing.

A much safer way of modifying a Hammond, is with a good 5.5mm air riffle or similar. It is amazing how solid they are. You can shoot at it for weeks, and it will still be playing unless you take out the speakers. You need a bit more space though.
In general I can only recommend shooting at instruments as a studio passtime. It is a very fun way of getting rid of the useless junk that is just taking up space.

DjViral · Post by **DjViral** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:15 am

Hahaha shotting at a hammond for a studio passtime actually sounds fun. well thanks for all the replies. I'm getting it tommorrow, not too sure what model it is, but it does have a Lesley cabinet which i'm pretty psyched about. I'm in BC Canada which (for rozling) is not too close to Ireland, at least for selling. But tommorrow i'll post the model.
What a day too, i finally got the call from Ableton this morning saying they were sending my serials for the suite download. so i went back to sleep cuz i knew that if i went at it right away i'd be crash on Live overload. so got like an hours sleep obviously excited about the fact that Live serials are sitting in my inbox. so get up and finally download all the installers and in the middle of downloading my ISP calls saying they've disconnected my modem because there's a problem. then get this after calling me they tellme i'm not authorized on the account and have to get the person who orginally signed up to talk.
mom's at work, so at this point i pretty much lost it lol... anyway finally after 6 hours of waiting, being authorized on the account, I was told that i had a bandwidth limit of 60 gb. In January alone i had done 95 gigs hahahahaha. ridiculous torrents. anyway they turned it back on with a warning and now i'm sittin here writing this shit.... wait.... i should be playin on Ableton.
c ya (thanks again for the info)

spkey · Post by **spkey** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 2:39 pm

You should only bend battery-driven instruments!