Hammond B-3000
Hammond's solid-state answer to the B-3 - a console that carries the drawbars and the key click, but not quite the scream.
Overview
The B-3000 arrived as Hammond's tonewheel era was ending. Hammond had stopped building the B-3 and the rest of the tonewheel line, and the B-3000 was the electronic equivalent offered in its place. It was a solid-state console that borrowed the B-3's controls and voicing and added sounds the old organ never had. Hammond's own advertising put it in the lineage: the B-3 "revolutionized the music world when it was introduced," and the B-3000 and the portable B-200 came "in the same tradition," starting from the famous B-3 sound and adding features made possible by advanced Hammond electronics.
The additions are the interesting part. The B-3000 is an open-pedestal console with two new piano voices, a transposer, strings, variable sustain and delayed vibrato. The key click option is a switchable feature meant to duplicate the traditional Hammond B-3 sound. The organ shipped with special Leslie speakers using quadraphonic amplification. If you wanted a new Hammond console with factory piano and string voices and a transposer built in, this was the machine.
The catch is that it doesn't sound quite like the tonewheel organs it replaced. Beat Instrumental said the electronic equivalent offers the same facilities as the B-3, plus electronic key click and electronic piano stops, but it "doesn't sound quite like the older Bs, as it doesn't scream up at the top end." The reviewer's test was specific. A straight C7 chord on the top octave with an 888000088 drawbar setting, volume up, should scream on a good tonewheel Hammond. The B-3000 doesn't. That one difference separates it from the B-3 in the minds of players, and it's why the B-3000 is a working instrument rather than a collector's holy grail.
The drawbar layout, the percussion controls, the vibrato and chorus facilities - the B-3000 carries the Hammond control set. It doesn't carry the tonewheel generator, and you can hear the difference at the top of the keyboard.
By the late 1980s the B-3000 was still turning up in working studio inventories, listed alongside a Leslie 722 in a Southeast recording-studio roundup (Mix, 1987, p.143). Dealer price lists document its commercial life. One list shows the B-3000 with the HL-721 Leslie Speaker at 4950.00, and a later list shows it with the HL-722 Leslie at 5295.00. It was sold as a console-plus-Leslie package, which makes sense since Hammond now owned the Leslie Company and the two were always used together. A separate accessory listing puts the HL-722 Leslie Speaker on its own, and the HL-822 appears as the Leslie for the portable B-200. Buyers were expected to take the console and the rotating speaker as a pair.
The Leslie is where a Hammond gets its expression. The rotating cabinet works as the organist's modulation and pitch control, adding emotion and feeling to the playing. It takes some mastering, but along with intelligent use of the swell pedal it makes the Hammond a truly expressive instrument. The B-3000's quadraphonic Leslie amplification was part of the package Hammond sold, and it's the reason the console is usually found, and usually valued, with its speaker.
For a player considering one today, the B-3000 is a different proposition from a B-3. It's a solid-state console with the Hammond interface and features the tonewheel organs never had - piano voices, strings, a transposer, variable sustain, delayed vibrato - and it delivers those reliably. What it won't do is the top-octave scream that tonewheel loyalists use as their test. Collectors note that the B-3000 turns up in studio gear lists alongside the Leslies it was sold with, and it was common enough in working rooms to appear in recording-studio inventories of the period. It is not the organ to buy for the classic tonewheel sound. It is the one to buy for a Hammond console with the modern features and the Leslie, at a price that reflects its place in the line rather than its legend.
Hammond ended the tonewheel era and offered this electronic console as the continuation. The players who tried it found the facilities intact and the top end softened.
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