It’s an easy one this time (Again late 70s early 80s)

There was a famous American organist that was known for playing a particular instrument, however for a short time the organist changed to another manufactures instrument with the manufacture making changes to the instrument to suit the organists playing style. (And which was also made available for all users of said instrument)

Questions:

1. What was the organist name?

2. What was the make and model of the original instrument?

3. What was the make and model of the new instrument?

4. What was the modification to the instrument?

Happy thinking

Bill

Stevie Wonder? James Brown? I haven't got a clue.

Hiya Bill, what can I say other than ... gis a clue

Mike

Clue 1

purr, flap

Should be inundated with the answer now.

Bill

Must be Jimmy Smith with the Hammond B3. I know in the 80's he played a Wersi Saturn W3T, but no idea of the modification, possibly altering something inside to get the tone he was looking for, or something to do with the leslie?

Well spotted Craig I had no idea that he played the Wersi ... we learn something new everyday on this site

Would the mod be something to do with bringing the bass up-to the lower keyboard
One of these days I'm going to be able to answer one of Bill's brain teasers

All the best,

Mike

Hi Mike. An old mate of mine from NEDOS (North East Derbyshire Organ Society) built his Wersi from kit form in the 80's. He waited almost a year just for a few parts to finish it off. He liked Jimmy Smith along with Klaus Wunderlich and I remember him mentioning Jimmy Smith had this CD out. It wasn't until Bill's cat reference that my old brain cells kicked in
I was more into Jean Michelle Jarre and other synth players in the 80's. It was a battle between staying with the organ or moving to synths for me after leaving college - synths won hehe

As for the mod, are we talking about the 'paradise switch' here?

The EVB3 organ in Logic has a decay that includes a paradise setting, so this must be the same effect. I've used it a few times whilst using Logic.

A quick look to see an explanation in the manual states:

EVB3 Percussion Time Paradise Setting

The Time parameter has a maximum setting called Paradise. In this position, the percussion doesn’t decay at all.

The name is derived from the famous Jimmy Smith recording “Groovin’ at Small’s Paradise,” where Jimmy used a B3 that had a defect in the percussion trigger. The cool thing about this technical flaw is that one harmonic sounds without Chorus-Vibrato, while the drawbar harmonics feature Chorus-Vibrato. Although this is very specialized, it is a nice inclusion—especially for jazz-oriented players.

Well now that it’s all sorted, the modification was nothing more than a smoothing of the Sine wave waveform of the drawbars to make it sound more like a Hammond, rather than the sharp Wersi sound.

Until the next time

Bill

Looking forward to the next one Bill .... maybe I will know the answers next time

Good fun and enjoyable topics