M3 for gigging?

[BluesB3]

A week ago I saw an old video of Deacon Jones playing an M3 with Freddie King and it sounded pretty good. Then yesterday I saw a video of The Sacred Souls cutting a track at the Daptone Studio in Riverside CA. I wondered if anyone had experience or given much thought to gigging with an M3? Allegedly they're out there for gratis or $100.

 

Obviously it wouldn't cut it a trio or jazz gig environment but maybe in a classic rock or blues band. I've got RoK's and a 145. I wonder how much it'd weigh if I removed the speaker and maybe the amp? It's got to be a good deal lighter than lugging an A100 or a B3.

 

Offered FWIW here's a little back story.

Circa 1961, prior to the combo organ era, I was playing in a band with my friends. We had plenty of guitars and drummers and, since I had piano lessons as a young lad, I was designated to be the keyboardist. My folks went to the local piano store where they had bought my spinet and asked their trusted salesman for advice regarding an organ. I knew about Hammonds and that was my first inquiry. The trusted salesman said, "Yes they are good, but come look at the one we have on the floor." There was a puddle of oil underneath it. Then he steered us to a brand new Baldwin Orga-sonic and a set of RoK's. It was about $1000 in 1961 money. We financed it through GMAC and each month I tore off the little coupon and sent it in with a check. I earned every nickel of that $1000.

 

Obviously the spinet organ was ill suited to its job. I did remove the speaker and had a woodworker friend of my dad build me an enclosure for it so I could aim it at the audience instead of my knees but it had a hard time competing with guitar amps. After I was T-boned at an intersection on the way to a gig at Ole Miss, I took the insurance money and bought a Combo Compact and a blonde Tremolux and never looked back. Experience and hindsight are usually 20/20 and I always resented the shifty salesman steering me away from an M3.

 

 

[D. Gauss]

there's free or $100 M3s all over the place.(there's a whole wormhole to dive into on mods to make 'em more like a B3).    If I had the space I'd have one here...But... my back has no desire to move one ever, let alone to a gig and back.

[CEB]

…..

 

Nevermind. I thought this was about the Korg M3.    

[Bill H.]

Many of us resorted to Hammond spinets in our youth because we were young, in good physical shape, poor, and there were no alternatives. 

 

The Deacon Jones video is probably at least 50 years old. The first Sacred Souls live video that came up on a Facebook search had the keyboard player on an Atura Keylab 61. Personally I've never given any thought to gigging with an M3 again. I mean it's not even worth thinking about. 

[Baldwin Funster]

They're still about 250 lbs. Get one cheap. Put a fold back kit in it and rock out.

[Konnector]

I switched from a C3 to an M3 when I first started gigging as a teen. (C3 too bloody heavy.) M3 was half the weight and sounded just as good. Bit of a compromise going to 44 note manuals, but not such a big deal in a hard rock prog band. Two of us could pick it up and carry it without much bother. Sold it about a year later when clonewheels first started to appear. Didn't sound as good as the M3, (even though I still used a real leslie) but I sure liked the minimal weight and 61 keys again.

 

Clonewheels have come a long way. I wouldn't bother with an M3 for gigging these days, but having one parked in the studio or rehearsal space with a leslie ain't a bad thing at all. They do sound great. 

[Shamanzarek]

I began playing organ in bands in 1970. I didn't have a combo organ so I started out using our living room Wurlitzer 4100A all tube spinet through a guitar amp. The Wurlitzer was not very roadworthy and after a road trip to Reno, NV the lower manual wasn't working. I limped through a two week six night a week gig with only a mostly working upper manual. I had my repair guy come fix it when I got home. He recommended I get a Lowrey which he said were extremely well-built. For a couple of weeks I rented a Vox Super Continental from the repairman which I used for some local gigs in Oregon. Then we got another Nevada stint lined up and the band insisted that I needed a better organ.

 

So I went to the local Hammond dealer in Salem, OR. They tried to sell me on the Porta B which they thought was the hottest thing on the market for a band musician. They also had an M-3 which I played and liked much better than the Porta B. This was early 1971 and the M-3 was over ten years old at that time. I remember I paid just under $1K for it. Played it through the guitar amp for a while and then shortly after bought two brand new Leslie 147's from the organ repairman for slightly less than the M-3. It was a great sounding band organ and could cover most of what you expect from a Hammond.

 

In Oregon beginning around the mid-60s the Sunn amplifier company had a side business of portablizing Hammond organs mostly M-3s and some B-3s. I saw a few Northwest bands with them although at the time I thought Sunn was making organs because of the Sunn logo on the back. I also remember seeing the occasional national act come through town using an M-3 or other spinet. There was the Sons of Champlin with Bill Champlin playing an M-3 and the James Gang with Joe Walsh on an M-3 or maybe an M-100.

 

At least a couple of hit records in the US were recorded with an M-3 most notably "Green Onions" by Booker T (without a Leslie) and "Foreplay/Long Time" and "Smokin'" by Boston. In England there were almost no M-3s sold there but many famous bands used an L-100 or M-100 in the 60s and 70s making many iconic hit records with them. There is no reason why an M-3 couldn't be a viable alternative Hammond for recording or local performance purposes. The main concern is these organs are now over 60 years old and quite likely need work. They can certainly be kept working but with their low value you need to be able to work on them yourself. Assuming you can find a tech any repair is going to cost much more than the value of the organ. Then the price of a Leslie speaker could be a deterrent unless you just happen to have one.

 

Here is a Pacific Northwest band Don and the Goodtimes who used a Sunn modified M-3. Don played keyboard on "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen, formed one of the first Prog bands Touch in 1968, and was a staff producer for Elektra records.

 

 

 

[CEB]

I would not gig with a spinet.  But if you HAVE to the M3 is the one. 

 

I would never install a foldback kit.  That is a pain in the ass and you don't gain as much from it as you may think you will.  If you spend most the night on 88800000  you won't tell the difference.  If you start pulling the top 4 drawbars you will notice it in the top octave.   You have to do the job yourself.  It would cost a fortune to pay someone bench fees to do it for you.  It can improve the top end but .... it is a pain in the ass.

 

I would rather play my XK33c or SKx rig any day than a spinet.  A full console is a different story ... if it is backline and in proper order.

[stoken6]

6 hours ago, CEB said:

I would rather play my XK33c or SKx rig

I would rather gig a clonewheel than the real thing - unless you've got road crew. If you've got an M3 in your studio, or living room, that's a different matter. 

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Thethirdapple]

8 hours ago, CEB said:

…..

 

Nevermind. I thought this was about the Korg M3.    

Same, then the B3 entered my mind and yup… 

 

Still have a hard time with the idea of regularly gigging with those massive old skool setups. I am insanely impressed with rigs of future past…

 

 

 

 

PEACE

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[Lou_NC]

Having owned numerous clones (nowadays a Viscount Legend Live, XK-3/XLK, and SKX) but never a Hammond console or spinet, I have to ask..........is the keybed feel of a vintage Hammond A/B/C or M really *that* much different/better feeling than any of the clones I mentioned?  

 

Lou

[JamesInPA]

I play a M3 every Sunday for Church. It works well for the Church, but for gigging?  I would pass.

[Threadslayer]

I have fond memories of my M3. Gigged it with a 147 Leslie all through high school and college back in the days of Santana, Allman Brothers, James gang (Joe Walsh) as others have mentioned. No regrets. Finally traded it in for my B3 around 1973. No regrets there either.

[Kelly Gibson]

Great player on an M3.

[CEB]

 

[ABECK]

16 hours ago, CEB said:

I would not gig with a spinet.  But if you HAVE to the M3 is the one. 

 

I would never install a foldback kit.  That is a pain in the ass and you don't gain as much from it as you may think you will.  If you spend most the night on 88800000  you won't tell the difference.  If you start pulling the top 4 drawbars you will notice it in the top octave.   You have to do the job yourself.  It would cost a fortune to pay someone bench fees to do it for you.  It can improve the top end but .... it is a pain in the ass.

 

I would disagree.  I found it a valuable project.  Yes, it was a TON of work, but I learned soooo much about every component of the organ and absolutely brushed up on my soldering skills! 

I thought about gigging an M3.  If you have the means to transport it easily, it's def worth a shot.  That sucker is solid.  You can do handstands on it, cut up limes for cocktails and take a standing ovation while standing on the top and that bugger won't so much as bend.  I, personally had no means to transport mine, so in the basement it lived.

 

[CEB]

Yes Sir.  You have to do the work yourself or it will cost a fortune.  On a set of ROKs one man can handle the organ in the right conditions with a trailer.  ( low stages no serious stairs). FWIW I have rarely found a chop that was easier to handle than a stock cabinet on ROKs.  

[BluesB3]

7 hours ago, Lou_NC said:

Having owned numerous clones (nowadays a Viscount Legend Live, XK-3/XLK, and SKX) but never a Hammond console or spinet, I have to ask..........is the keybed feel of a vintage Hammond A/B/C or M really *that* much different/better feeling than any of the clones I mentioned?  

 

Lou

Yes

[BluesB3]

5 hours ago, Kelly Gibson said:

Great player on an M3.

Love the sax player too. Good tone. Gadd... it goes without saying.

I wonder if there's a guitar amp feeding the Leslie? It gets kind of throaty when he kicks it into gear. I wish I could find some info on his setup.

 

I feel kind of vindicated. If Mr. Hemmer can cover a groovin' jazz trio like this without a full console, surely the lowly M3 spinet and Leslie could cover a classic rock cover band gig.

[Shamanzarek]

As for lack of foldback on spinet organs there is a way to somewhat compensate for it which I have seen in videos of Steve Winwood and Matthew Fisher. When they come to a climactic chordal sequence in a song they play right hand in the highest octave on the upper manual with the left hand playing the same chords in the next octave down also on the upper manual. This method works for chords but would be difficult for solos with both hands having to play the same notes an octave apart.

[JoJoB3]

Sure! Next best model other than the 3-series models (A1xx, B3, C3, RT3, D1xx). Lots of hits made and folks still using the M3 (M1xx) and some players prefer the M3.  You'll find them free to $200 and usually working. Aside from tube checks, a good contact cleaning of all sockets, and an oiling it should play on for as long as you want it to (real organs are repairable, clones...often not so much).  If you have a rig to haul it they are lighter and smaller than the mentioned. M3 also makes a stage and band look pretty sweet as well (imo).

*the clones are great and def have their place but a working vintage Hammond plays and sounds far better. Place each in a room together and you'll see what's meant straight away.

[ABECK]

23 hours ago, Lou_NC said:

Having owned numerous clones (nowadays a Viscount Legend Live, XK-3/XLK, and SKX) but never a Hammond console or spinet, I have to ask..........is the keybed feel of a vintage Hammond A/B/C or M really *that* much different/better feeling than any of the clones I mentioned?  

 

Lou

At times, yes.  If you are using a very dynamic touch, the feeling of the key contacts engaging at different times becomes apparent.  It can affect the way you play...in a good way.  Kind of like if you've ever played a real clavinet.  The action begs for funkiness.

[Old No7]

On 9/7/2024 at 10:02 PM, Bill H. said:

Many of us resorted to Hammond spinets in our youth because we were young, in good physical shape, poor, and there were no alternatives. 

 

On 9/7/2024 at 11:47 PM, CEB said:

I would not gig with a spinet.  But if you HAVE to the M3 is the one. 

 

I would rather play my XK33c or SKx rig any day than a spinet.  A full console is a different story ... if it is backline and in proper order.

 

Given the choice -- which I DO HAVE -- I'll take my SK Pro 73 (& MIDI lower manual) over my old M3 Chop any day!

 

My back -- and roadies (wife, kids, bandmates, friends, etc.) -- all thank me.

 

Old No7

 

 

 

Edit to add...........

Oh, and let's not forget -- the M3 needs a Leslie!

 

[CEB]

I’m at home on 61 key manuals.   I freely switch the traditional roles of the great and swell manuals.  Often they are just twin swell manuals with different registrations.  Also I’m cheezy as hell and sometimes like to do full glissandos on the bottom while holding a screamer on top.  I just don’t like the offset 44s.  I’m sure I could adjust to a spinet.  The Hammond organist that first taught me the instrument taught me on both his B3 and M3. I’ve never owned a spinet. 

[Outkaster]

I don't like spinets.

[JoJoB3]

4 hours ago, Old No7 said:

 

 

Given the choice -- which I DO HAVE -- I'll take my SK Pro 73 (& MIDI lower manual) over my old M3 Chop any day!

 

My back -- and roadies (wife, kids, bandmates, friends, etc.) -- all thank me.

 

Old No7

 

 

 

Edit to add...........

Oh, and let's not forget -- the M3 needs a Leslie!

 

Disagree. Although way better looking if not chopped even that M3 and Leslie look a million times better on a stage than 90% of keyboards and keyboard stands. Likely sounds a million times better too.
Be a job creator and hire some youths to haul it to larger shows (although it really isn't that heavy).

[NewImprov]

On 9/7/2024 at 8:28 PM, Shamanzarek said:

I began playing organ in bands in 1970. I didn't have a combo organ so I started out using our living room Wurlitzer 4100A all tube spinet through a guitar amp. The Wurlitzer was not very roadworthy and after a road trip to Reno, NV the lower manual wasn't working. I limped through a two week six night a week gig with only a mostly working upper manual. I had my repair guy come fix it when I got home. He recommended I get a Lowrey which he said were extremely well-built. For a couple of weeks I rented a Vox Super Continental from the repairman which I used for some local gigs in Oregon. Then we got another Nevada stint lined up and the band insisted that I needed a better organ.

 

So I went to the local Hammond dealer in Salem, OR. They tried to sell me on the Porta B which they thought was the hottest thing on the market for a band musician. They also had an M-3 which I played and liked much better than the Porta B. This was early 1971 and the M-3 was over ten years old at that time. I remember I paid just under $1K for it. Played it through the guitar amp for a while and then shortly after bought two brand new Leslie 147's from the organ repairman for slightly less than the M-3. It was a great sounding band organ and could cover most of what you expect from a Hammond.

 

In Oregon beginning around the mid-60s the Sunn amplifier company had a side business of portablizing Hammond organs mostly M-3s and some B-3s. I saw a few Northwest bands with them although at the time I thought Sunn was making organs because of the Sunn logo on the back. I also remember seeing the occasional national act come through town using an M-3 or other spinet. There was the Sons of Champlin with Bill Champlin playing an M-3 and the James Gang with Joe Walsh on an M-3 or maybe an M-100.

 

At least a couple of hit records in the US were recorded with an M-3 most notably "Green Onions" by Booker T (without a Leslie) and "Foreplay/Long Time" and "Smokin'" by Boston. In England there were almost no M-3s sold there but many famous bands used an L-100 or M-100 in the 60s and 70s making many iconic hit records with them. There is no reason why an M-3 couldn't be a viable alternative Hammond for recording or local performance purposes. The main concern is these organs are now over 60 years old and quite likely need work. They can certainly be kept working but with their low value you need to be able to work on them yourself. Assuming you can find a tech any repair is going to cost much more than the value of the organ. Then the price of a Leslie speaker could be a deterrent unless you just happen to have one.

 

Here is a Pacific Northwest band Don and the Goodtimes who used a Sunn modified M-3. Don played keyboard on "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen, formed one of the first Prog bands Touch in 1968, and was a staff producer for Elektra records.

 

 

 

Wow, thanks for clearing up a mystery for me! When I first moved to Western OR in the '80's for college, I'd see those Sunn-branded organs in bands in clubs, mostly blues bands at the time. They eventually disappeared, I don't think I've seen one since 1985 or so, but I always wondered what they were.

[Delaware Dave]

21 hours ago, JoJoB3 said:

Sure! Next best model other than the 3-series models (A1xx, B3, C3, RT3, D1xx). Lots of hits made and folks still using the M3 (M1xx) and some players prefer the M3.  You'll find them free to $200 and usually working. Aside from tube checks, a good contact cleaning of all sockets, and an oiling it should play on for as long as you want it to (real organs are repairable, clones...often not so much).  If you have a rig to haul it they are lighter and smaller than the mentioned. M3 also makes a stage and band look pretty sweet as well (imo).

*the clones are great and def have their place but a working vintage Hammond plays and sounds far better. Place each in a room together and you'll see what's meant straight away.

 

I'd bet that other than weigh and size issues with hammonds and leslies the majority would still gig with them rather than clones and sims. I know i'd still be.  The magic of the keybed, the fat tone and the tube leslie just cant be beat.  I moved from the B3/147 to sample-based, then physical-model based then back to an L100p/Motion Sound for gigging 20 years ago.  But even that didnt do it for me. I left the b3/147 home because moving the beasts were just too much. Today i use vb3-ii and a burn/vent/internal sim with a semi-weighted controller.  Just doesnt have the same vibe. If someone would move and setup the beast for my gigs and maintain it i'd be using it still.

 

Piano, i used a cp70.  Dont miss it at all. My Kurzweil actually has better tone and a more likeable keybed action, would never go back to that.  Rhodes, wurli and clav, i like the physical models of the gemini module enough that with a decent keybed i dont think i'd go back to those beasts either. Synths, my various analogs never stayed in tune, so at least the digitals do, not as fat sounding but i dont use a tremendous amount of synth anymore but if you gave me a "staying in tune" analog Moog or Prophet, I'd gig with it.

 

[jpkeys]

Now that the M3 chatter has died down a bit, a gentle reminder that mine is still listed in the Garage Sale section, for free!