Just as the SQ-80 was the "Minimoog of the 90's" Hammond wasthe Moog of the 1030's through the 1950's. All to often, you think of the B3 or other organ. what you do not know much about are the other items that Hammond put together, in some cases. like Moog, to redfine the approach to music. Click on the picture to get at a saved search for each of these exotic creartion.

HAMMOND NOVACHORD

Heat your heart out Moog! A polyphonic synthesizer in 1939. Makes me feel like a baby: Wwaaaaahh!!

HAMMOND SOLOVOX

This little mono keyboard served as the technological base for other Hammonds like the Chord Organ and Extravoice organ, Which I cannot seem to find now. It appeard in such songs as 1964's "Sugar Shack".

HAMMOND CHORD ORGAN

This one I have the most experience with having had one for a quarte4r century: 1954-79. It was what I learned sound synthesis on in the 1959-79 period. This was not your stereotypical chord organ. It was all electronic with 96 different chord buttons for all keyes and major, minor, 7^th, major 7^th, minor 7^th, ninth, dim and aug. The 3-octave trble section was a two-channel system with two polyphonic voices; string and flute. The major variable part was the monophonic channel. 3 frequency ranges of sawtooth, available in any combination. a waveform changer that, if you selected one frequency range would give you a square wave and if you used more than one, gave a pulse wave of some kind. This was run through five filters: Mellow, VOICE 1, VOICE 2, VOICE 3 and Bright, used either by ones or any combination. The really neat thing was the bass pedals. There were only two of them but they played the root and fifth to whatever chord was being used. New, the "big" console model cost $US1,000 and in the hands of an adept player could make quite a bit of music

HAMMOND EXTRAVOICE
? Neverseen this one but did have Internet contact with an owner/player once, with a pic and all which are long gone. This was an all keyboard version of the chord organ, apparently with a single manual

HAMMOND SYTHHESIZER

I actually got up close and personal with the little repackaging of the Solovox. It was a very robust instrument. I should have grabbed it