I was fortunate enough to inherit my grandfather's Hammond M-101 Organ. Real pain in the butt to move, but man does it sound great. This thing was built before I was born, back in 1967. I still have all of the original documents that have my grandfather's name on them. Plus all of the old songbooks, etc.

It does not have a leslie speaker. I couldn't even imagine how great it would sound if it did. All of the drawbars work perfectly. Keys, motor, speakers are all in great shape also. It's a little noisy when you set the mics up, mainly becase of the motor spinning. But if you crank it up really loud, it records pretty decently. It has a very percussive, Deep Purple kind of sound to it. And the foot pedals blast bass like crazy!!

I can always find room on a recording for organ. I also have tried some midi organs, syths, and other "fake" organs, nothing comes even close. You have to have the real thing. You have to have a Hammond.

Most home studios don't have all of the instruments (drums, organ, and piano), that's why most guys are using midi, or synths, or computer software, etc. My goal is to have all of it someday. Why not? If you want to produce good music, you need real instruments. The synths and the computers sound too synthetic. Plus, there's nothing like the sound of an instrument that was made over thirty years ago. Talk about character.

Here's the specs:

• Hammond M-101 home style spinet with internal amplifier and speakers.
• Finish: Traditional style, Mahogany
• Manuals: Two 44-key offset manuals, 13 pedals.
• Controls: 9 upper manual drawbars, 8 lower manual drawbars, 1 pedal drawbar. Tablets include Percussion (2nd, 3rd, fast decay, percussion soft), Vibrato (small, chorus, celete1, celeste2). Presets: 5 lower, 5 upper, 2 reverb, 1 volume.
• Amp/Output: Internal power amplifier, main 2-12", reverb 1-8" speakers.
• Features: Mechanical tone generator with scanner vibrato, no harmonic foldback.

I always see organs at garage sales, thrift stores, etc. Make sure you check the label, you may find a Hammond! If you do, scoop it up. You wont be sorry.

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