page_title: Hammond organ
section_title: Clones and emulation devices
hierarchical_section_title: Hammond organ / Clones and emulation devices
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Clavia Nord Electro 2 61 keys
context_page_description: The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Various models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated sound by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup, and then strengthening the signal with an amplifier to drive a speaker cabinet. The organ is commonly used with the Leslie speaker.
  Around two million Hammond organs have been manufactured. The organ was originally marketed by the Hammond Organ Company to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, or instead of a piano. It quickly became popular with professional jazz musicians in organ trios, small groups centered on the Hammond organ. Jazz club owners found that organ trios were cheaper than hiring a big band. Jimmy Smith's use of the Hammond B-3, with its additional harmonic percussion feature, inspired a generation of organ players, and its use became more widespread in the 1960s and 1970s in rhythm and blues, rock, reggae, and progressive rock.
context_section_description: The original Hammond organ was never designed to be transported regularly. A Hammond B-3 organ, bench, and pedalboard weighs 425 pounds (193 kg). This weight, combined with that of a Leslie speaker, makes the instrument cumbersome and difficult to move between venues. This created a demand for a more portable and reliable way of generating the same sound. Electronic and digital keyboards that imitate the sound of the Hammond are referred to as "clonewheel organs".
  The first attempts to electronically copy a Hammond appeared in the 1970s, including the Roland VK-1 and VK-9, the Yamaha YC45D, and the Crumar Organiser. The Korg CX-3 (single manual) and BX-3 (dual manual) were the first lightweight organs to produce a comparable sound to the original. Sound on Sound's Gordon Reid said that the CX-3 "came close to emulating the true depth and passion of a vintage Hammond," particularly when played through a Leslie speaker.
  The Roland VK-7, introduced in 1997, attempted to emulate the sound of a Hammond using digital signal processing technology. An updated version, the VK-8, which appeared in 2002, also provided emulations of other vintage keyboards and provided a connector for a Leslie. Clavia introduced the Nord Electro in 2001; this used buttons to emulate the physical action of pulling or pushing a drawbar, with an LED graph indicating its current state. Clavia has released several updated versions of the Electro since then, and introduced the Nord Stage with the same technology. The Nord C2D was Clavia's first organ with real drawbars. Diversi, founded by former Hammond-Suzuki sales representative Tom Tuson in 2003, specialises in Hammond clones, and has an endorsement from Joey DeFrancesco.
  The Hammond organ has also been emulated in software. One prominent emulator is the Native Instruments B4 series, which has been praised for its attention to detail and choice of features. Emagic (now part of Apple) has also produced a software emulation, the EVB3. This has led to a Hammond organ module with all controls and features of the original instrument in the Logic Pro audio production suite.
caption: The Nord Electro emulated drawbars using buttons and a light-emitting diode display[101]
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