Surely I am not the first one to find Hammond bass seriously lacking

[Watertownorganguy]

Over the course of my lifetime, it has been my pleasure to sit down and noodle around on almost every size, shape, brand, and type of organ anyone could imagine. Some were hardly more than a joke while some of the enormous pipe organs are simply beyond belief.

To me it just seems odd that Hammond never seemed to give much thought or concern to the sound of the pedal bass in their organ line. If you've heard one, you've heard them all....and I think for the most part, they sound rather pathetic at best.

Has anyone on the form attempted to build perhaps a separate pedal bass for a Hammond? From reading this forum, it is obvious that some of you guys are above genius level when it comes down to what makes these organs tick, so surely some of you have thought 'Gee, this pedal bass really sucks. I bet I can come up with a great idea that will be a thousand times better sounding than any Hammond ever made.' If so, I would love to hear and see what you've come up with. I will say, however, in defense of my current Hammond, the pedals actually DO sound far better than every Hammond I've ever seen or played. Believe it or not, I have actually been talking to some of my uppity pipe organ friends (who love looking down their pontifical noses at all Hammonds, of course!) and they are putting their heads together to see if they can come up with a way to create a decent-sounding pedal bass that is strictly a pipe organ, yet will take the place of the Hammond pedals. I am anxious to see what they come up with.

Ideas, thoughts, projects, photos......all will be greatly appreciarted.

[Admin]

The sound of Hammond pedals depends upon what vintage and what model Hammond you're talking about. Hammond changed the sound of the pedal tones multiple times on TWG models. In some cases they changed the mix of harmonics controlled by the 16' and 8' drawbars, in others they used complex harmonic tone wheels for the pedal notes.

Beyond that, the model E had a Great to Pedal coupler that allowed the drawbar settings on the Great to be duplicated on the pedal. The RT series with its 32 note AGO pedal board, and later the D-100 series, had a pedal solo unit with pitches ranging from 32' reeds and flutes to 1'. With the introduction of the H series and onward into the X-66 and X-77 models, Hammond upped the number of pedal drawbars to four and added string bass sustain capability. The X-66 actually had 5 pedal drawbars. Of course, with LSI models the pedal voicing capabilities increased with formant derived voices.

Although Hammond initially marketed themselves as an electronic alternative to the pipe organ, they quickly filled a niche in the pop and jazz genres as an instrument in it's own right. The style of playing and the music itself certainly did not call for the tonal resources of pipe organ pedals.

If you want greater variety in the pedals on a vintage Hammond, the best way would be to dedicate one set of the pedal switch contacts to a MIDI encoder. Then you have the world of MIDI capable sound modules at your feet.

[David Anderson]

In 1947, Hammond settled on the tone generator they would use until 1975 in the main console tonewheel organs. In 1947, the amplification and speaker systems necessary to produce thunderous bass didn't really exist -- or if they did, they were rare and expensive. Few audio amplifiers produced more than 40 Watts.

As Admin pointed out, Hammond came out with the Pedal Solo Unit in 1949 in the Model RT, which is essentially a monophonic bass synth featuring several octaves of reed tones. I'm of the opinion that a Pedal Solo Unit in good working order and properly tuned sounds pretty good.

It's not unusual these days to find churches with real pipe organs that have augmented the pedal ranks with synthesized tones and hidden speakers driven by high-powered solid state power amps. Some have kept it a secret so as not to offend the pipe organ purists.

There have been various String Bass units retrofitted into Hammonds to add variety to the tones.

[Fulsam135]

I've always despised my E-100's monophonic divider setup. While it's a clever way to slim down the TG, I always toyed with ideas on a custom built pedal voice circuit, which would have all the features you'd want (sustain, additional footages, bass vibrato, full polyphony, complex voices, MIDI).

The plans are very X-66-like. Divide the 8' octave down twice (for 16' and 32'), run them into keying circuits, and then use formanting for further voicing. Additional harmonics could easily be introduced with DC-keying, and an L-100 vibrato amp I have lying around could provide a bass vibrato feature.

Of course, you could just use whatever synth/plugin through MIDI, but designing one's own analog features into a vintage organ could be a fun exercise in electronics and engineering. If only one had the drive and free time. I lack both, but maybe someday I'll prototype the thing out.

[OneWatt]

...If you want greater variety in the pedals on a vintage Hammond, the best way would be to dedicate one set of the pedal switch contacts to a MIDI encoder. Then you have the world of MIDI capable sound modules at your feet.

Clearly here's where the modern world opens up the possibilities. I play a Hammond XK3c daily as a VPO through Hauptwerk. Besides those times when I'm choosing to use the native Hammond tonewheel sounds for jazz, there are no limits to the sounds these pedals provide when it comes to playing classical music. Go MIDI.

[uhoh7]

Grab a RT3 turn on the pedal solo. My house shakes.

[bnelson218]

My last touring X77 had a Trek II string bass unit which replaced the X's quirky and unreliable string bass. The organ's 4 pedal drawbars were channeled through the Leslie but the string bass went through a separate amp and sub woofer. My thinking on this differs greatly from the pipe organ purists. I originally played pipe organs and appreciate the various pedal voices and footages involved like 16' Bourdon and Diapason and 32' Baboon (sorry, couldn't resist), but I feel contemporary organs need a good, sustained string bass voice. As a serious pedal player, I always sought to get the best SB sound out the organs I used on the road and quickly found that Leslies just didn't have sufficient bottom end. And, I think it's unfair to ask the Leslie to provide that bottom end as it taxes the amp and adds unnecessary distortion. With my B3 I always used a PR40 in conjunction with one or two Leslies and greatly appreciated the bottom end that that open-back enclosure provided with its dual 15" speakers. (All this is, of course, IMHO)

[Tonewheel]

In my limited experience, I have found that the Hammond B3 has a wonderful bass when paired with a 147 Leslie with a good set of 6550 tubes. With a 21H, not so much. I would not call it pathetic when it comes to blues, jazz and rock. If Hammond erred in thinking somehow that the original B and C series were an excellent substitute for a pipe organ, that's just fine with me. I am very grateful for the huge "mistake."

We are in Germany for 18 months, and my B3 and A100 are, sadly, back home in Canada. But we have been visiting cathedrals and other churches here, and these organs are magnificent. No question that the bass pedals have access to an amazing variety of tone and richness that could not be duplicated on a Hammond. An old Yamaha DX7 synthesizer paired with a TX7 might do a better job at the attempt.

So here I am, down in the pews, gazing up over my non-pontifical nose (or serf nose) at the organ loft, and absolutely thrilled at the sound and feel of real pipes and real reverberation. It is stirring and goes deep into my soul.

Maybe some genius really can tweak the Hammond to try to imitate the bass pedals of these ancient organs. Might be like putting a 1960's Bentley grille on a 1960's Lincoln Continental.

[Hamman]

I always had issues with the sound of the bass pedals on TWG Hammonds.....that is until I purchased Mo'Bass units from Vintage Speakeasy. Unfortunately now defunct due to Steve Hayes death...RIP. It is essentially a "circuit on a board" that is wired in as a tone replacement for the 16 foot pedal bass drawbar. Perfect!! Right tone...not that hollowish tuba bass sound.....and right deepness/depth! I have 2-A105's with both utilizing these circuits in them. I can never pull that 16 foot drawbar all the way out because of the powerful bass. Mostly I bring the drawbar out to 5 or 6. (There is a gain adjustment on the circuit board that can fine tune/adjust the bass level) Bring on the lower manual Chorus.....I use setting 1 or 3...... and it seems to deepen the bass a tad more.
I have also replaced all the woofers in my Leslies with the Emminience Delta B's. Recapped/rebuilt the Leslie amps. Replaced the crossovers with Steve Hayes designed/built crossovers.
IIRCC you can still find the schematics of this Mo'Bass unit online....you just have to build it yourself

Found it....
Go to Post# 10
https://www.organforum.com/forums/sh...easy+Mo%27Bass

[Tonewheel]

Thanks for that, Hamman. Tips like these are great.

[KC9UDX]

Don't blame all Hammonds. :) My Concorde has pretty amazing bass.

[Hoaxel]

The mo´bass, where is it installed, in the output of the organ? Is it changing the sound or kind of bassboost? Axel

[Drawbar Dave]

The bass in my BC/147 shakes the room and I can feel it through the keys. I had to take a couple of pictures off the wall near the Leslie as they were vibrating!

[Hamman]

The mo´bass, where is it installed, in the output of the organ? Is it changing the sound or kind of bassboost? Axel

In effect, between the 16 drawbar for the pedal base and filter circuit....its been awhile...I'll try and post some pics of it when I get home

[delaware dave]

Listen to this song in its entirety and tell me if the bass is lacking...

https://youtu.be/HZ3f1Y8Aw_U