Re: RT-3 differences &c (and Hammond artist discussion)

[e_gs18@mail.nerc-murchison.ac.uk (Russ Evans)]

Regarding splitting discussion of technical and musical issues, I say
"Go ahead".   I've put together a couple of artist-related articles
over the past week or so, but decided not to post them in view of
their bulk and the technical bias evident here so far.  I'll happily
throw them at Gilles' new list for others to pull apart!

To technical matters, then:

The existence of this support list has got me back to listening to a
lot of Hammond lately, and has rekindled a long-standing desire to 
own one of my own.  Over the weekend, I made contact with one Mark
Treacher, who is apparently the only person in southern Scotland 
regularly gigging with a Hammond.  He's given me lots of contact
addresses in the UK which I will forward to Mark & Brad for the FAQ.

Looking through the technical details in the FAQ, I noticed that there
are still a few holes in it.  There are no L's or M's in the list, or
the strange hybrid X-100 (if I remember that correctly).  As best I
recollect, the M's were built as complete units with amplification,
and the L's needed an external Leslie or standard tone cabinet -- have
I recalled it correctly?  Of course, both had 2 off 49-note keyboards,
a one-octave toastrack pedalboard, and one (?) set of drawbars per
manual; was the generator the same as the A-/B-/C- series?

Mark has a student friend with an RT-3 which may be for sale.  I am
well familiar with the A-100 (I played one frequently over several
years) and have a passing familiarity with B- and C- series.  I'm
assuming that the RT-3 case is "churchy" in style, and I note that it
has a C-type 32 note pedalboard.  But I also note that there are some
special pedal features (e.g. a 32' bombarde).  Does this mean that
there is an extra octave's worth of wheels in the standard tone
generator?  Or are these produced by a separate system of some kind?
The reason I ask is that whilst I could live with a baroque case in my
"music room", I would prefer something at least potentially giggable.
So, is it practical to re-configure the innards into a B-style
"portable" case, or is there some major snag I should be aware of?

Finally, Mark said he had heard a tale to the effect that at one point
towards the end of production of the original Hammonds, a technician
at the factory went a little crazy and rampaged around, destroying 
some key dies and moulds.  He suggested that this was the reason that
Hammond moved to produce hybrid and then solid state systems in the
early '70s (or whenever), and is the reason that certain parts are now
unobtainable at any price.  This story is new to me -- does it have
any truth or is it just another organist's legend?

Cheers!

Russ