Hammond B-200
A portable built to follow the B-3. By most accounts it did.
Overview
The B-200 was one half of what Hammond's own advertising called the "Sons of B-3." The other half was the console B-3000. Both were professional organs, built to carry the B-3's famous sound forward with Hammond's newer electronics. Hammond International Canada's literature of the period said both instruments "start with the famous sound of the B-3 and then add new features." For the B-200 that meant a portable aimed at the working musician: harmonic percussion, piano, a tuning control, and a "key click" option included to duplicate the traditional B-3 attack. Hammond's copy was blunt about it. If you thought the B-3 was the living end, these new Hammonds would prove it was only the beginning.
The key click is what sets the B-200 apart from a generic spinet. On a real B-3 the click was a byproduct of dirty contacts, and players came to treasure it as the hard attack at the front of every note. The B-200 has a variable Key Click control that, per the period review in Beat Instrumental, electronically reproduces the sound of those dirty contacts. That control, paired with the basic drawbar voices, lets the instrument come closest to the early "smokin', snortin'" Hammonds.
It is a proper two-manual organ. Beat Instrumental (reviewed by Tom Stock) gave the basic specification: a 44-note upper manual and a 49-note lower manual over a 13-note pedal board, with 9 drawbars per manual and a control surface of 20 pushbuttons plus 7 rotary controls. Presets cover 8' string, Tibias at 16', theatre brass, tonebars and percussion on the upper manual. The lower manual gets 8' ensemble and tonebars. The pedals get bass guitar accent, bass-to-lower-manual and bass sustain. The percussion buttons handle 2nd and 3rd harmonic, decay, fast, piano, piano solo, repeat, and a variable repeat rate. Compared with its immediate predecessor, the X-5, the B-200 grew the lower manual to 49 notes, added a 16' lower-manual drawbar, moved all functions to LED indication, gave the upper manual a variable sustain control, and reworked the piano controls so a player can run piano with drawbars or solo piano alone. The lower manual also couples to the bass pedals and their controls across its bottom 25 notes.
It is built to be moved. Beat Instrumental described the finish as black leatherette and black anodised aluminium with wooden end pieces bearing the Hammond logo, and noted a sturdy chrome carrying handle. Hammond's own service manager at the time reckoned one person could assemble it alone and carry it away.
The recommended speaker was the new Leslie HL-822, a two-channel system that drives bass and treble independently through four amplifiers for a total rating of 215 watts. The reviewer said he was very impressed with it, even with a price tag closely resembling £1000. The organ itself listed at £1675.00 in the same period. The HL-822 was understood to have been developed specifically to complement this organ, and Hammond's advertising called the pairing "the blending of the best, Hammond and Leslie."
On the sound, the contemporary verdict didn't hedge. If you know what a Hammond should sound like, the B-200 sounds like that. The keyboard response was called unlike any other electronic keyboard - pure Hammond. The reviewer's larger point was that the instrument is almost beyond criticism, not because it's perfect but because it sets out to be a Hammond first and an organ second. Players raised on other instruments might find it not their cup of tea. The comparison offered was that a Bristol driver might not take to a Rolls-Royce but could still appreciate it.
The same review makes the case for why the B-200 existed in a market tilting toward polysynths. Straight organs were losing ground on the road, the argument went, and salesmen were forever talking up polyphonic synths that could approximate organ sounds while doing plenty else. True to a point, but if you want a Hammond sound, the only real way to get it is to buy one. The B-200, in that reviewer's estimation, was the one to buy.
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