pizzafilms Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Wakeman's solo on Roundabout is a thing of beauty, but the sound of his B3 is simply glorious. Tons of beautiful electromechanical goodness. I was wondering from any of you Hammond gurus out there...what makes that sound like it does? Specifically. I know there's things like crosstalk and leakage and tube overdrive, but I'm not sure what it is that I'm hearing...and I'd love to mimic it. Damn it sounds good. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HammondDave Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 First, you are probably hearing a C3. No,Leslie... chorus vibrato, '55 and '59 B3's; Leslies 147, 122, 21H; MODX 7+; NUMA Piano X 88; Motif XS7; Mellotrons M300 and M400’s; Wurlitzer 206; Gibson G101; Vox Continental; Mojo 61; Launchkey 88 Mk III; Korg Module; B3X; Model D6; Moog Model D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Tonewheel Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 In a Keyboard interview, he said the C3 was run through a flanger as well and mixed with the direct signal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzafilms Posted November 25, 2015 Author Share Posted November 25, 2015 Here's a better listen. Somebody sent me this, it's the solo mostly isolated. Wakeman-Roundabout solo It doesn't sound like there's a flanger in there to me. Are you sure that's not a leslie? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WesG Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 It sounds like a Leslie 122 on chorale to me. There's certainly some kind of tube amp in the chain. From http://www.keyboardmag.com/play-like-%E2%80%A6/1252/5-more-ways-to-play-like-rick-wakeman/51133 Ex 5 is influenced by Wakemans great Hammond organ solo on Roundabout from the Yes album Fragile. On the solo, Wakeman drowns his B3 in a lot of distortion, using a drawbar setting of 88 880 000. Note he also employs the third percussion harmonic and the slow or Chorale setting on his Leslie. All the material for the line comes from the D Blues scale (D, F, G, Ab, A, C, D). An important technique in this type of organ playing is to play a little sloppy. This creates a great texture especially with the distortion. Dont be afraid to schmeer the notes together and hit different notes of the scale simultaneously to create interesting intervals and dissonances. Hammond: L111, M100, M3, BC, CV, Franken CV, A100, D152, C3, B3 Leslie: 710, 760, 51C, 147, 145, 122, 22H, 31H Yamaha: CP4, DGX-620, DX7II-FD-E!, PF85, DX9 Roland: VR-09, RD-800 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outkaster Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Wes I had heard at that time their were mostly C-3's over there that were manufactured by Hammond. That is why Wakemen and Stevie Winwood had them. Todd or Sal would know better. "Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello" noblevibes.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aidan Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Yeah, the C3 was the most common Hammond seen on equipment lists for UK acts. Emerson also had one. Yamaha: P515, CP88, Genos 1, HX1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WesG Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 I wouldn't be surprised if Keyboard mistook a C3 for a B3. It's not like you can hear the difference. Hammond: L111, M100, M3, BC, CV, Franken CV, A100, D152, C3, B3 Leslie: 710, 760, 51C, 147, 145, 122, 22H, 31H Yamaha: CP4, DGX-620, DX7II-FD-E!, PF85, DX9 Roland: VR-09, RD-800 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Tonewheel Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 FEBRUARY 1979 Contemporary Keyboard - Interview of Rick Wakeman by Dominic Milano Question: What about the solo in "Roundabout"? Answer: That was done anyway similar to "Heart of the Sunrise." All the black and brown drawbars were full out and all the white ones were on about six. There was a phaser on, and the flange or was on too. The flanger was just slightly bubbling -- said on the verge of getting the non-tonal type of sounds. The phasing had a really heavy sweep to it. The Leslie was being turned on and off constantly. That was it. The thing about a Hammond is that you can really build on it. You just have to be careful not to throw in the kitchen sink too early. It's still a nice instrument. It's nice to see it coming back and being used a bit more. With all the development of electronics of these past few years, it got lost. When I was on the road, I noticed some keyboard setups that didn't have Hammonds, and I thought he was sad. Question: Do you know how your Leslie is miked? Answer: It was boxed in under the stage. So it didn't have to play at high volume. I wanted a decent dirty sound and I wanted it at low volume. But they boxed it in part way. It was partly open because it has to breathe. The sound has to go somewhere. But they lined the boxed with foam and used very directional mikes. Question: Do you know what kind of mikes they were? Answer: To be honest, I don't. I'm terribly ignorant about all that. They started off using Neumann U-87s, which worked none too special. Then they changed is something else, but what, I don't know. Our understanding is that the louder you have things on stage the more problems you have getting the separation between everything. So this tour we all cut down to next to no volume. All my stuff was shot straight at me from under the stage so no one was bothered by. Steve [Howe] had a couple of small Fender Twin Reverbs and Chris [squire] had a couple of 4x12 cabinets under the stage. Playing at low volume gives the PA much more of a chance. Most people use Leslies flat out, obviously to get the sound. But when you start miking that and you've got to find a place to mike it at that works well, then the complications start. If you can work on the Leslie and get a decent sound, or work on the organ and Leslie together and get a decent sound at low volume, than half your problems are solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outkaster Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Yeah, the C3 was the most common Hammond seen on equipment lists for UK acts. Emerson also had one. I had heard that a couple of times Aidan. Electronically they are the same just wierd you didn't see many B type Cabinets. "Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello" noblevibes.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WesG Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 I think Boosey & Hawkes (UK importer) just didn't like B cabinets. They were even taking BC tray organs and making something like an A100 out of them back in the day. Doc Tonewheel - excellent article! Certainly different from what Keyboard had to say above. Is it possible this interview may have been talking about a tour rather than the album? We at least now know for sure that we're not talking about NO Leslie. One interesting observation, he mentioned the low-volume growl, which is why I'm hearing "Leslie 122", the distortion comes on much sooner due to the lack of a negative feedback circuit as in the 147. Hammond: L111, M100, M3, BC, CV, Franken CV, A100, D152, C3, B3 Leslie: 710, 760, 51C, 147, 145, 122, 22H, 31H Yamaha: CP4, DGX-620, DX7II-FD-E!, PF85, DX9 Roland: VR-09, RD-800 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzafilms Posted November 25, 2015 Author Share Posted November 25, 2015 I also noticed that Wakeman's C3 sounds oddly out of tune on the live Yessongs recording. How does that happen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Tonewheel Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 It seems that at least 1 C3 owned by Wakeman (as well as Eddie Jobson's) was done by ProCo which had a built in phaser. Not sure if used on the Fragile album or just for touring or both. http://www.matrixsynth.com/2011/08/eddie-jobsons-hammond-c3.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzafilms Posted November 25, 2015 Author Share Posted November 25, 2015 Interesting. That page says the ProCo modified C3 with phaser went to Wakeman in 1976. That would make sense for some of the Hammond sounds on Tormato. I can definitely hear a phaser in there. But I'd bet that it wasn't used in the Fragile days circa 1971. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iluvchiclets Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 I always thought the organ was running through a leslie on the song!? If I'm wrong, I must be wrong on a lot of other recordings too... But it simply sounds like a really loud Hammond, that's all! Electro 5, NI Kontrol S61/49, MX49, PC3, Rev2, Prologue, Pro3, Juno-DS, Mopho Keys, SE02, drums, tons of synth software, guitars, amps, and pedals...help me!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B3Nut Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 C-3 and 122RV on Fragile, judging from pics I've seen from that time frame. Some DI mixed in in Roundabout...Heart Of The Sunrise is mostly all Leslie. You started hearing more direct and FX on his Hammond in Close To The Edge. His later setups had all his boards going to a custom mixer, and he could send the signals to the straight amps or to twin 147's, he sometimes channeled the Mellotron to the Leslies also (check out Catherine Howard from Six Wives...'tron through Leslie on fast in places!) The main reason the C-3 and A-100 were more popular than the B-3 overseas is that licensees could fairly easily make the C and A-100 and spinet cabinets in-house. The B cabinets were more difficult to manufacture, so B-3's were imported as complete organs. C-3, A-100, and spinet models were shipped from Chicago as "tray organs" - just the internal components which were then installed in locally-produced cabinets. This made them less expensive from both a shipping expense standpoint and IIRC there were some tax differences as well. This is also why even after Hammond stopped making A-100 series instruments except the A-105 for the US market in 1965, the European licensees kept producing the standard A-100 units up to the end as all the amp/speaker/reverb components were still being made for the A-105. Leslies were manufactured overseas this way as well, with locally-produced cabinetry (with some really sharp designs for consoles and Leslies coming from Deutsche Hammond in Germany and the Danish Hammond licensee too. Deutsche Hammond made an M-3 with a locking lid that looked much sharper than the American M-3...) TP --- Todd A. Phipps "...no, I'm not a Hammondoholic...I can stop anytime..." http://www.facebook.com/b3nut ** http://www.blueolives.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doerfler Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Steve [Howe] had a couple of small Fender Twin Reverbs (snip) under the stage. man, how times have changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doerfler Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 C-3 and 122RV on Fragile, judging from pics I've seen from that time frame. very informative post, Todd. Thanks for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundown Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 I'm actually not a fan of that sound, or that version of the song (album cut). I much prefer the live version on Classic Yes, recorded in '77 or '78. His solo is more fluid, Howe is playing an electric, the rhythm is much more straight ahead, and the vocal harmonies are near perfect. I also love the unison lines between Wakeman's organ and Howe's guitar toward the end of his solo. This was the version I knew first, so when I first heard the album cut, I was a bit taken a back by the differences (as much as I like Bill Bruford). Sundown Finished: Gateway, The Jupiter Bluff, Condensation Working on: Driven Away, Eighties Crime Thriller Main axes: Kawai MP11 and Kurz PC361 DAW Platform: Cubase Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmammal Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Yet another great example of the question "What Does A Hammond Sound Like And How Do I Get That Sound?" This is a studio cut. They did all kinds of experimenting to get that sound. I used to do a fair amount of recording and I know a lot of others here have as well. If you have the budget which of course Yes did, they can sit there for hours, days, weeks messing with stuff. Just the mic's alone with some studio EQ would change the sound a lot. Different amps, different pre's, different mic's, try putting the amp in a corner, try isolating it, etc, etc. Then there's all the outboard effects. Then there's the post processing. Those guy could take a raw recording of a stock B3 and leslie and you wouldn't even recognize it when they're done with all that crap. What is that sound you ask? Who the hell knows. Even Wakeman himself doesn't know, he said so. He let the studio guys do their magic and he gave it a thumbs up or down and then for the rest of our musical lives we all go crazy trying to duplicate it. This is one of the big advantages with modern clones with amp modeling and all the effects including the Burn or Vent or both. Now we can get pretty close when even 10 years ago it was pretty difficult. Bob Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werno Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 Speaking of Fragile, you should check out the just-released Steven Wilson remx, available as CD/Blu-Ray or DVD-audio/CD 2-disc sets. Both versions have the same CD with the stereo remix plus bonus tracks, both have hi- res stereo and 5.1 surround mixes but the Blu-Ray has more bonus features like a stereo instrumental mix of the entire album. You can hear Wakeman pretty clearly in the back channels in 5.1, not sure it makes it easier to cop his sound but it sounds great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Heslop Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 I know in other interviews Wakeman had said he didn't like Leslie's and that he felt they took away from the natural sound of the Hammond. I don't know if he used one on Yessongs, because it sounds pretty straight to me, but perhaps I should give it another listen. Funny this should come up. Last week I was experimenting with my Korg Kross trying to create a combi with Hammond on the top half and mellotron on the bottom with the ability to fade from strings to flute with the mod wheel, and switch to choir as well. This meant using 4 stereo limiters and didn't leave enough space for the overdriven Leslie simulation, so instead I used the organ chorus effect, and then in the master fx I used a flanger. Immediately upon playing I realized I had achieved a pretty close approximation of Wakeman's sound, and then remembered that old interview in Contemporary Keyboard. Also of note on that particular solo, what we hear was the first take. Stage: Korg Krome 88. Home: Korg Kross 61, Yamaha reface CS, Korg SP250, Korg mono/poly Kawai ep 608, Korg m1, Yamaha KX-5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HammondDave Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 I don't believe that he uses a Leslie on Yessongs. '55 and '59 B3's; Leslies 147, 122, 21H; MODX 7+; NUMA Piano X 88; Motif XS7; Mellotrons M300 and M400’s; Wurlitzer 206; Gibson G101; Vox Continental; Mojo 61; Launchkey 88 Mk III; Korg Module; B3X; Model D6; Moog Model D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzafilms Posted November 27, 2015 Author Share Posted November 27, 2015 Yeah, it sounds like a Leslie on Fragile, but no Leslie on Yessongs. And it sounds out of tune at times on Yessongs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.