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PURE Hammond
Since its introduction in 1955, the Hammond
B3 has become the essential performance tool for
the worlds great keyboard players. The instantly
recognizable B3 sound is synonymous with the world
of popular music, while no concert stage would
seem complete without a B3´s imposing wooden design.
Now look at the Portable B3. Simple clean lines.
All that magnificent and glorious sound. And portable.
B3 design specifications
Now, for the first time Hammond has exactly replicated
the original B3 design specifications with the
introduction of the NEW B3.
Sound generator system
The unique B3 sound is reproduced by a revolutionary
newly designed sound generator system (96DigitalToneWheels™),
which recreates all of those wonderful idiosyncrasies
of the Tone wheel generator which have eluded
all previous digital systems.
Waterfall keys & harmonic
drawbars
Two, 61 note, B3 style, waterfall key, keyboards
allow for the essential performance characteristics
of the Hammond masters, especially effortless
palm glissandos. While four complete sets of nine
traditional harmonic drawbars and twenty four
reverse colour key presets achieve total ease
of set up.
Mechanical multi-contact
system
It is by utilizing several tone varying features
that the B3 performs so uniquely. Upper and lower
pitch foldback subtly effects the overall sound,
while, probably, the most important and interesting
feature is the nine key contact system operating
on each key. These contacts connect from each
of the nine drawbar pitches and by pressing a
key slowly each pitch level can be determined,
high to low. This system created the earliest
form of touch response for tone variance as well
as expression. This mechanical contact system
is also responsible for Hammond´s famous key click
noise, an unintended feature that became an essential
component of the B3 character. The NEW B3 incorporates
a complete mechanical contact system, totally
unique in a modern instrument.
B3 expression curve
Sound dynamics are controlled by an exact copy
of the original B3 expression
curve incorporated in the new instruments foot
volume controller.
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Let us now consider the new digital tone generator and see
how it produces the sound. The unique Hammond
B-3 sound is reproduced by a revolutionary newly
designed sound generator system (96 digital Tone
Wheels). This new digital Tone Wheel generator
perfectly generates pure tones that is tones which
have no harmonic content of their own. This purity
is essential in order to attain a desirable tonal
cohesion between the fundamental and its harmonics
when they are mixed through the use of the drawbars.
Each manual of the organ is equipped with nine pre-set
combination keys. In addition, there are two sets
of manually adjustable controls for each keyboard,
thus making twenty-two different registrations which
are instantly available, in addition, of course,
to the many thousands of variations available by
adjustment of the "harmonic drawbars." "VIBRATO
AND CHORUS" has six possible positions corresponding
to three degrees of vibrato and three degrees of
vibrato chorus. The control pre-selects the extent
of vibrato or vibrato chorus which will be obtained
when either of the manual vibrato "ON-OFF" stops
is used.
The great and swell manuals are provided with separate "ON OFF"
vibrato
