Angelo J Rossi blog

Well here they are, side by side with a nice little sleeping bag as sewn by John Cott of Pro Audio Rental, thank you John!  There have been some moments of frustration in the final tuning of this pair, but in that process, something is learned and information is gleaned.   Information I can share with you if you are interested in the slightest.I want to send a shout out first to the folks (folk) at Vintage Hammond.com, http://vintagehammond.com/ without who’s treasure trove of after market and vintage parts we could not have refurbished and outfitted our project.  Thank you Jerrell Kautz and staff for your devotion and service.  When I first fired up the Hammond at the studio, there was a strange sound, a sound that Kevin attributed to just plain analog Hammond noise.  However, the sound only existed in slow speed operation of the Leslie.  When I spun the horns and the fast speed motor kicked in the, “noise” disappeared. Upon further inspection we deemed it to be the high speed motor, which we then replaced.  As it turns out the second replacement motor was much quieter, so the process of elimination went better than expected. Since both motors were new, it was just a matter of luck that motor number two did not make that sound which was quite annoying.  I digress.   Now, once you replace a motor in these devices, there is an adjustment process by witch you angle the motors to spin the fly wheel upon operation.  This step is quite tricky.  Needless to say, one needs a needle-nose pliers, small hands and a strong grip to adjust the three nuts that angle the shaft to activate and deactivate the motor upon operation.  Once adjusted, the spinning action, slow/fast is now operational.  

Today was the final day for resurrecting the “shine” and the fury of this Hammond B-3.   With the addition of the percussion unit, the BCV is now an official B-3.  Kevin Korecky applied both talent and skill as well as creativity and engineering prowess into this rejuvenation and restoration project.  The result, sounds fantastic and looks 200% better. He breathed new life into this proud and unique instrument and deserves all of the credit for masterfully adapting and modifying this wood, making it worthy of any stage in the world.  The pictures show you the clean and shiny keys, the recently stained and polished wood, the engineering adaptation to the Leslie in support of higher quality JBL drivers and the augmentation of percussion and a larger (huge & blue) capacitor in support of the power supply modification to reduce hum.    Kevin also refurbished the pre-amp, and rebuilt the starting motor which was grinding a tad too much and replaced the older start and on/off switches.  Thanks to Kevin Korecky of Pro Audio Rentals in Palo Alto, CA without whom I would have never undertaken (financed) this venture.  Kevin, you are simply the best ;-> 

Ahh, today was a great day.  We installed the Hampton Voltage Power Supply (This power supply was found insufficient without capacitor augmentation, to drive the instrument – refer to Post 2/24 “Fini” for more detail.) and brought up the BCV without it’s slave partner, the tone cabinet, and then fired up the modified, “Frankenstein” Leslie and voala!  It’s alive!  Not only is that beast alive, it screams, it growls and no matter what they tell you down at the music store, there is no sound like a Hammond with a souped up Leslie.  There is such a growl with this Macintosh Amp (50 watts) and JBL drivers in place that it was almost too loud with the volume up half way.  The organ sounds as analog and sweet as you can get and through the Leslie that classic vibrato and swirl came alive instantly.  According to Kevin there are two issues to resolve;  1) there is a low 60 cycle hum, that we believe is caps in the pre-amp.  So a simple maintenance sweep through the pre-amp should resolve this annoyance.  2) The “throw” or displacement of the JBL 15″ bottom end speaker actually bumps up against the cut out for the speaker causing a scraping sound. So we are simply installing a gasket to solve this minor issue.  Talk about a screaming organ, this baby is growling like a lion, purrs like a kitten and sounds as sweet as a month old kitten, purring away.  This is again, one of the oldest living legends on the planet.  It would have been lost and left for dead, just like our freedoms and our democratic way of life, if not for the love of two individuals who embarked on a mission to resurrect this piece of Americana.  Imagine what hundreds of people can do if they decide to embark upon removing the current administrations agendas from our daily lives and strike a blow for a kinder and more gentler America.  Yes, we have been led astray, and we have most certainly been screwed by one of the most corrupt and idiotic administrations to have ever been elected to the presidency of the United States of America.  In fact, we are still being screwed it this “tape erasing” insult to our intelligence and the Justice Departments complicity is not enough to sicken your stomach, then you have a bolder constitution than I.  Yet, even though we have endured seven years of complete and total dereliction of duty and purposeful neglect, with a dream, a plan, some elbow grease and a vision, we can certainly overcome this set back and resurrect our democratic processes and let the the lovely swirling sound of freedom ring from our collective hearts.  I mean how difficult can it be to simply accept our misgivings, continue to defy the administrations lies and deception and move forward with purpose, together?  The answer is; as simple as rebuilding this classic instrument!

Well, I wanted to continue the patriotic theme and make these posts technically interesting as well. Kevin and I want to chronicle this restoration project and to share with you our journey in bringing this instrument back to life and to also upgrade the “package” so that it will be a road worthy and funky sounding instrument.  These old Hammond’s take a lot of care and feeding.  We found this Leslie, model 147 in a warehouse with a family of rats living inside.  The Hammond BCV was lovingly owned by it’s original owner and family and passed on to me when it came time to move.  It had been neglected, physically, but it is in working order, and sounds great with the Tone Cabinet that came with it.   Suffice it to say, we are cleaning these beauties up, restoring them back to their true splendor and glory by upgrading, cleaning, refinishing, and updating wherever we can with all American parts, kind of.  This will be a lengthy process and thus the post to the blog.  We are going to bring back this piece of Americana and restore her dignity and her grace, much the same as what we should do to our nations tarnished and battered image in the world today.  As our project goes, we are hoping we will find worthy and relevant topics of conversation to share on this post.     This Hammond Organ is a Model BC, Circa 1943 – 1947 which would have sold for about $1370.00 US in that time period.  You could have bought a home or a couple of cars for that kind of money back then as well.  The actual age is yet to be determined, but, we are working on it.  We are also adding a power supply and percussion module to make it more current and to get it closer to it’s predecessor, the B3 model.  For all of you antiquity buffs out there, yes it is not in it’s original condition.  We are intentionally beefing this system up and changing it’s illustrious character to accomplish a goal.  ((Point of note, it had already been upgraded by it’s original owner from a model BC to a model BCV))  Plus, we plan on using this instrument for recording and ‘live’ music performance so it has to be up to snuff, road worthy and ready to rock!

Recently, I purchased a vintage 1949 Hammond BC (B3 Family) organ.  I spied it at an open house (Real Estate, my wonderful day job) and with the help of some very wonderful people, Celeste Henzel & Linda Ramalot I was able to purchase this lovely instrument from the sellers who were also very special people.  These instruments have become the backbone to every Blues, R&B, Funk, Jazz and Rock & Roll recording that you have probably ever loved, listened to or danced to in your life (Jimmy Smith, Motown, Booker T, Rascals, Procul Harem, Spencer Davis, Traffic, Stevie Ray Vaughn, The Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, etc., etc.) and the list goes on.  That beautiful tone is lovingly enhanced by the Leslie speaker, which is also an American made artifact which is an integral part of the Hammond sound.  When I found this model 147 it was the home to a family of rats, so you can imagine how old and funky this honey was.  Without the Leslie speaker, the Hammond organ sounds like an ordinary church organ, without the soul.  With the Leslie, now that is a whole different animal.  I digress.  So, I am bringing some parts for the Leslie over to my friend Kevin Korecky (Pro Audio Rental) whom I recommend and use for all my restoration projects, repairs, and sound reinforcement events.  Kevin is one very talented, hard working engineer and craftsman and a good friend.  We have been hanging out for over 20 years in this show business, music production field and he shares the same passion as I do for music.  So, we are sitting there in his shop, checking out the new parts and discussing progress and Kevin tells me that he will use, “Muslim Cloth” for covering the low end speaker horn.  (Technical note:  What makes these speakers sound so kewl is that they rotate with two speed options.  One is a slow speed which produces a phasing sound and the second is a fast speed which produces a ’spin cycle’ whirling effect to whatever sound is being sent through the Leslie).  Now remember, this is a restoration project for a classic piece of Americana.  When I heard, “Muslim cloth” it just sounded bad given the current events of the last 6 years.  At the risk of sounding religiously insensitive, I want you to know that Muslim cloth is used for just about everything in stage/music production because it is porous and let’s the sound/light filter through and is very light weight.  I want to make sure that everyone understands that this is not a religious slight on purpose, but in jest and sensitivity, of course.  So I say to Kevin,  do we really want Muslim “anything” in this American made cabinet?   I happen to notice this American flag sitting on a shelve close by, all folded up.  I look at Kevin and he smiled, and the next thing we know, we had desecrated this flag for the purpose of making American music and restoring the honor of this original, “Hitsville USA” device within the speaker enclosure.  So, what do you think? Is this a good use of our flag?  Or, is this an act of treason, or simply a statement?  Personally, I think it looks great.  What are your thoughts?  Kevin and I were discussing building these out in all denominations, Canadian, California Bear, Confederacy, Italian, Mexican, Russian, French, African and selling them over the internet.  We are looking for VC.  Let us know if you are interested in investing ;->