Hammonds 1/2 note off scale

[Jkautz@WCBI.com (Jerrell Kautz)]

A while back on the list was a story about how a Hammond could get 1/2 pitch
off.   This same story was going over on the PIPORG-L group and today this
post appeared there and I thought HAMMOND lovers might want to see it:


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Date:         Thu, 4 Jan 1996 00:45:35 -0500
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Sender: Pipe Organs and Related Topics <PIPORG-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU>
From: Peter Stark <pastark@CLOUD9.NET>
Subject:      Hammond organs always in tune?
Comments: cc: norquest1@aol.com
To: Multiple recipients of list PIPORG-L <PIPORG-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU>

A month ago, Ingrid Gardner commented on Charles Wood's article on why he
likes his Hammond, and mentioned that she and her sister played a Hammond
organ that was exactly 1/2 note flat.

Charles Wood is not on the Internet, but I routinely download this
mailing list and give him a copy, albeit a month or so late. He enjoyed
seeing his article, and asked me to post his solution to the "1/2 note
flat" dilemma. Not having a Hammond myself, I will try to paraphrase his
explanation as well as I remember it.

Charles says that the tone generator in a Hammond connects to the rest of
the system through a single fat cable with 61 (?) wires, which goes to a
connector. When a generator is removed or replaced, all 61 of those wires
need to be disconnected, one by one.

Charles Wood suspects that some organ repairman was working on the
organ, somehow skipped the first wire, and wound up connecting the next
60 wires one place too far down. When he finished, he had one last
connection left over, at which point he realized something was wrong.
(Apparently an easy mistake to make.)

Since, in Charles' opinion, funeral parlors always tried to cut corners,
he thinks the repairman probably muttered something like "If those
cheapskates think I'm going to redo all this for the measly amount
they're paying me, they're crazy. Besides, they'll never notice if the
organ is a bit flat."

He feels that this is the only viable explanation for why the organ would
be consistently flat.