Product: Hammond A-100
Price Paid: US free used
Submitted
06/20/2001
at
09:30pm
by
Tim Stoel
Email: timstoel at yahoo<dot>com
Ease of Use
:
10
You sit down, turn it on, and play. Simple. Drawbars are more fun than an analog Moog and more expressive. The presets on the A-100 are not too useful, except for classical work. Rotary control for reverb and chorus/vibrato is simple, and percussion control is simple.
Features
:
10
Unlimited polyphony. Nothing I have ever played has action as good as this, not even my friend.s $80,000 Allen church organ. Effects are chorus, vibrato and percussion. An add on Leslie is a must have item. You can make your own presets for the preset keys.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
10
The A-100 is useful for any music style and is the most expressive instrument I have ever played. The volume pedal is awesome, better than somel lame knob.
Reliability
:
10
Turn it on, it makes sound. Replace tubes occasionally. I am still running on original tubes / tubes from the 1960s and 1970s and they are great. I would gig without backup if I were willing to risk hurting it on the road.
Customer Support
:
10
Well, I am a do it yourself person. Parts are easy to get, and not too expensive. It's like a boat: Occasionally you buy new parts just to make it better.
Overall Rating
:
10
If some yahoo managed to steal it from the lower level of my house, I would find him and torture him in unspeakable ways. It cost me a case of Mountain Dew and a trip to Taco bell for the 7 people I used to move it. I have played Hammonds for three years and this is my eleventh organ. I had this problem of habitually taking them home until I got this and now all the organs are going except the A-100. Thats a lot of organs to put in the classified ads. Compare it to a B-3 that is more money and requires a tone cabinet, it is not an option because the A-100 has built in speakers with reverb and the B-3 does not. I wish it had an XLR line out for hooking to a mixer, but all you need to do is wire it into the output for the Leslie, no soldering required. You could build one in very easily as well. It not only helps me make music, it almost seems like it is making the music for me and I am just moving my hands around. You have to get to know it very well and it rewards you more and more. It has a lot of possibilities for rewiring / hot-rodding because of the builtin speakers, and the architecture in general. An absolute gas to play. Nothing plays like a Hammond. Nothing.
