Garth Hudson Organ and Note Bending??
Jeff Eldredge
Can someone tell me what kind of equipment Garth Hudson of The Band
used/uses that allows him to bend notes on what is presumably an organ?
e.g. solo on Chest Fever amongst other places. I don't believe he was
using a synth.
Thanks.
/jte
Bill Fish
: Can someone tell me what kind of equipment Garth Hudson of The Band
: used/uses that allows him to bend notes on what is presumably an organ?
: e.g. solo on Chest Fever amongst other places. I don't believe he was
: using a synth.
Hudson made those sounds on a Lowrey brand organ.There was a small
button/tab mounted on the left side of the expression pedal that would
detune the keyboard by,as I recall,a half-tone.It was pretty far out for
a "home" type organ back then in 1968.I dont know what model Hudson was
using,but Lowrey had the feature all over its line that year.
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Mike Sues
> Can someone tell me what kind of equipment Garth Hudson of The Band
> used/uses that allows him to bend notes on what is presumably an organ?
> e.g. solo on Chest Fever amongst other places. I don't believe he was
> using a synth.
>
One can achieve something like a note bend on tone-wheel Hammonds by flipping
off the Run switch while sustaining the notes you want to bend.
--
Mike
<ap...@freenet.carleton.ca>
This message was randomly generated by a distributed system of simian
processors.
Steven Mills
>From: j...@beefheart.cc.columbia.edu (Jeff Eldredge)
>Subject: Garth Hudson Organ and Note Bending??
>Date: 4 Apr 1995 21:34:18 GMT
>Can someone tell me what kind of equipment Garth Hudson of The Band
>used/uses that allows him to bend notes on what is presumably an organ?
>e.g. solo on Chest Fever amongst other places. I don't believe he was
>using a synth.
>Thanks.
>/jte
Correct - he was not using a synthesizer. He was using a Hammond (not sure
what model- presumably a C-3 ,a B-3 or an A-100, and a Leslie. These are all
tone-wheel driven organs, and the bending effect that you hear is accomplished
by turning the organ quickly off and then on again, which changes the rate of
rotation of the tone wheels, thereby changing the pitch - nifty trick.
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Steven Mills
Northstar Computer Resource
Net: nort...@pacificrim.net
WWW: http://www.pacificrim.net:80/~northstr/
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James McCarty
suprised the first time I saw them and it wasn't a Hammond.
As a historical (or hysterical) note, a lot if 60's vintage organs had
funky little switchs on the volume pedal to do assorted wierdness to the
sound. Some toggled sustain, other did a pitch bend (always fun in the midst
of church music), or it would actually change the voicing.
The Farfisa combo (and I believe the console) organs had a "whammy bar"
hanging down near the right side of the unit. This whammy bar could be
pushed with your knee to "open the filters" for that wonderful ear
splitting combo wail. Almost as much fun as either shaking the reverb
under the organ (great touch during "Riders on the Storm"), or holding a
chord and turning the organ off at the end of any Iron Butterfly song.
Steven Mills (nort...@pacificrim.net) wrote:
: Correct - he was not using a synthesizer. He was using a Hammond (not sure
Kent Williams
the power switch on the organ. The sag in the supply voltage would do
the pitch shift. This was a standard trick of the era.
As an aside, it's possible as well to bend notes on a Tracker pipe organ
by moving the stops from a full to a half open position. See the Keith
Jarrett album Hymn/Spheres. In the liner notes, Jarrett claims to have
discovered this trick, but I can't help but think he wasn't the first.
Pete
: Garth Hudson [and Jimmy Smith, and others] would bend notes by toggling
: the power switch on the organ. The sag in the supply voltage would do
: the pitch shift. This was a standard trick of the era.
Yes, it was a standard trick on a Hammond. Garth mainly played a Lowry.
The high-end Lowrys at that time had a spring return footswitch mounted
on the volume pedal that dropped the organ a half-step.
Pete
Paul W. Zablotski
In a previous article, kent (Kent Williams) says:
>Garth Hudson [and Jimmy Smith, and others] would bend notes by toggling
>the power switch on the organ. The sag in the supply voltage would do
>the pitch shift. This was a standard trick of the era.
>
Sorry Kent, but an earlier posting was correct, at least about Garth. He used
a built-in feature of his Lowrey (sp?) organ - a switch on the side of the
volume pedal that triggered a pitch bend.
Now, JS (and many other Hammond users for that matter) DOES switch off the
power to get that falling wail on a B-3, but this is unique to Hammond tonewheel
organs.
PZ