Hammond L-100
Description : Classic mechanical tonewheel organ .
Keys : Two 44-note offset manuals with a 13 note pedalboard.
Production period : 1961 - 1972
Used by : Änglagård, Keith Emerson ( live )
Sounds : Four preset sounds and then 9 drawbars upper manual, 7 for lower. Two levels of vibrato and chorus, reverb with bright/soft settings.
Weight : Pretty chunky…I would guess around 70 or 80 kgs maybe ?
Description : It is really weird to write about the Hammond L-100 as it is one of those classic keyboards that everyone knows about anyway so it is a bit difficult to write something new and exciting about it. But I can tell you what I think about it anyway. When I started playing with Thomas Johnson ( Änglagård, Reminder ) at school when I was around nine or ten years old the Hammond organ was a kind of holy grail when it came to organs…If you had a Hammond organ you were set…5 or 6 years later Thomas proudly announced that Tord ( Lindman guitarist of Änglagård ) could take his little drawbar Elka organ home from the rehearsal studio. Thomas had bought a Hammond L100 and a Leslie cabinet ( the revolving speaker that really gives the Hammond it´s signature sound ).
And for a couple of years when I was playing with Änglagård I was pretty inito the whole Hammond thing. When we recorded we used both Thomas´s L100 and used to borrow or rent B3s. I always preferred the L100 to the B3 because I felt that the thinner sound of the L100 was edgier and more guitarish in character and less church organnny than the B3. I don´t know if it makes any sense to you but that was my view of it all.
When Thomas started playing with Reminder we continued using Hammond organs. Usually the B3 at the EMI studios in Stockholm I started to feel really really bored with the whole classic organ sound so when I found an add in a paper advertising a Jen Allegro organ for sale for 250 kr I jumped at the opportunity. This became the Kitchen organ.
For a long time I preferred thinner reedier sounds or more theatre organny sounds ( as in exagerrated vibratos and spring reverbs ). Also it felt so clicheed with the Hammond...Using the fast leslie when the emotional section in the song comes…It just felt really really boring.
In march this year we brought Thomas´s L100 and leslie to the studio and back to life…and I must admit. The sound is fantastic.. It is a classic rock sound for all the right reasons. Loads of punch and distortion and really versatile when you start messing with the drawbars. Take this the right way…I am not throwing out the Hohner Lilput or anything. I just think the sonic palette at Roth Händle has been widened a bit.
Also there are loads of little tricks one can do with the Hammond…Di´ng it for instance…The L100s original tone is really great. Another cool trick is to turn it off while playing which means that the tone dips…( Tony Banks used this trick on the Genesis album Trespass ).
So far we have used it with Two times the trauma and Blanc but I think it will be used a lot more in the future. I´ll let you know.
Blanc - Julian- Doors