Hammond B-200

The B200 is just so easy to play. Good response from the keyboards and the tone bars are smooth and reliable. I am able to put it together without help, although the keyboard is heavy, its possible. Presets are full sounded, not for me though as I prefer to make use of the tone bars.

No MIDI and i am not aware on the technicalities of whether expansion is possible. Both keyboards are polyphonic and I have used at least nine notes on each of the keyboards together at any one time. Pedals are mono but not many of us want two bass notes at once!

No after touch, not even for the piano voice which is not good anyway. But, who buys a Hammond of this era for the presets. It's a Hammond so good for any type of music. Extremely versatile and sounds ranging from lush and mellow to full and powerful. Works best with the Leslie HL822 which plugs straight into the 11 pin connector. This has straight and rotary so ensures that the bass is not swirling around in the Leslie effect. Percussion such as piano etc also voices from the straight channel.

I bought mine back in the early '80's and gigged it for years. It's retired now and enjoyng home use. I only had one problem which sounded like a combination of a thunder storm and someone having a fry up. So, took it to Hammond when they were based in Milton Keynes who had it for the day, fixed the fault and carried out a few mods. The cost: Totally free of charge, don't know what it would be like now under new control but with a back up like that I have to say I was more than satisfied. Otherwise totally reliable and bearing in mind that it has spent much time being transported around the country, exposed to the elements it could be excused for going wrong, but apart from popint mentioned, it has not.

As I have said above. Hammond were extremely helpful to me at the time. Under new ownership now so time will tell. I had a need to contact Hammond Suzuki recently and although they were unable to supply what I needed (age of item) they were responsive and polite.

Either another B200 or maybe I would go for the B300 as the buttons are a little easier on the eyes. What was it with the B200, did the designer have an obsession with "tuti fruitees". I paid about ??2500 for mine in the 80's and I certainly have had value for money.

I've been playing since about ten years old, so for 35 years. I also have a Yamaha "domestic" organ for everyday playing and an aging Solina SE4 string ensemble. Old but the strings still are good. The only disappointment of the B200 is that the reverb only goes through the main channel. I am advised that on later models this was altered but I know I have one of the early ones so something that was improved with production. An engineer has kindly written up a mod on the wiring diagram which maybe I will do one day. However, whilst it is working I am thinking, leave it alone.

At the time nothing compared to it although I was offered an X5 which has a wonderful tone but, opted for the B.

One thing I would like to try is a second HL822.

I think the B-200 is very easy to use. Try pressing all the retro coloured buttons will result in understanding the organ within 5 minutes.

Then again, If you have ever played something like a hammond organ (with drawbars), it's peanuts.

I'm not aware of any manuals of the B-200. I would be interested if there was one. The presets are okay I think, but I doubt any hammond-player will ever use them. They are bit cheesy.

The organ is as said before indeed full polyphonic.
The effects are great! If looking at a 35 year old organ!
There is a keyclick function which will allow you to simulate the tonewheel-clicks (caused by dust) on a tonewheel organ. Also the percussion function is very good. Great for playing waterfall solo's.

The keyboard action is fantastic! Playing it is wonderfull. A few years ago I bought a Hammond XK-2 before I bought the B200, but the B-200 beats him easily. Very fast action.

There are no Midi connectors on the B-200. I believe there is a possibility to create that, but for me uninteresting. If I want to use MIDI, I'll use my Triton.

As a good hammond it doesn't react to velocity and has no aftertouch. And it would be weird if it would have it!

The sound is nice and warm. I must say, it is a must to have a Leslie-cabinet. My leslie broke down on me when I got the B200, so at first I had to do without. I can't say the sounds could satisfy me. But now that my Leslie is working again it produces a dream sound.

I got it connected to a Dynacord DC-200R. I don't see those much around, but it sounds great in combination with the B-200

I don't know if I can depend on it.
A keyboard teacher of mine has the same organ and he gigs with it over 10 years. He sometimes breaks a few keys, but they are easy replacible with keys from any house-hammond-organ without drawbars. (the lame hammonds I'd say). So I'd say it's quite reliable!

I bought mine when it was broke, but it looked very taken care of. Some plugs on the circuitboards were loose, after fixing that up, it worked again. I have one failing key which I have to replace.

I would gig without backup. Trust in your instruments!!!
But alas, I'm not a professional :)

Too bad hammond was taken over by suzuki.....
Doubt they'd care about a broken B200, but who knows!

I really don't know.

If I would lose it, I'd buy another, or a B300 which is basicly the same. I have been playing this hammond for about 3/4 year.

I also own:
- Dynacord DC-200R (leslie)
- Korg Triton Extreme 76keys
- Hammond XK-2

I love the sound of it, I also love it's looks, but I hate carrying it down the stairs of our practice room! :)

When I compare it with the hammond xk-2 I'd say the b200 is far better. It plays easier, it has more keys, it sounds better and warmer.

It sure is worth the money I paid for it (50 euro)!!
But then again it didn't work. I think here in Holland it should be worth 500 euro's.

Very easy to use, 9 drawbars for the upper manual, 9 for the lower and 2 for bass.
Controls for percussion, key click and brightness.
ive got a leslie 815 with it that sounds amazing

Full polyphony, hammond keyboard, wonderfull
the percussion is nice, set between 2nd, 3rd or both with short or long decay. theres a piano percussion and piano solo but these are terrible.
upper manual sustain, quite nice and relatively usefull... is a bit of an extra...
key click control, for the hammond key click
brightness helps stick the percussion and key click out.
not a tonewheel alas, so no smashing it around for cool efects.

what do you expect from a hammond? you dont need loads of bells and whistles, you just want a hammond

Hammond organ
need i say more?
Ive got mine goind through a leslie 815 and it sounds wonderfull.
iv found that the top end starts to thin out, so im using a standard guitar amp with the treble turned up to compensate, it also means i can get a bit of distortion without hurting my leslie

when i got it, 3 drawbars, 6 keys and the leslie controls were not working, and after an afternoon of fiddling around and cleaning up ive got all but 3 keys working, and those are just replacing the wires.
all the bits that are likely to go wrong in a gigging situation could be fixed with very few tools in a short period of time.

not somethign you throw around tho, because its so beautiful

support for an extinct 1970s organ.... i dont think so...
but theres loads of web based stuff to help you out. this model isnt too well documented, but the basic principles apply, and it really isnt that hard... i mean im 17 and i figured it out without any reading up...

For the price I paid, even half of this would have been enough...
for 270 pounds i get a drawbar portable hammond and a 215watt leslie.. wahay!

Indeed it's very easy, even one who never deal with drawbars before will quickly get into the thing. Who needs manuals for that kind of instrument? All the controls are in front of you and are self explained!

The B-200 has basically all the usual Hammond organ features. Some of them are really cool. There is a leslie slow/fast control in the expression pedal so you don't need to stop playing the keyboard to animate the speaker. Very usefull. Vibrato is the only thing that really sucks but may prove to be sort of a consolation if you don't have a rotary speaker. If you can't play bass pedals or don't want to, you can play the bass notes on the lower manual by pressing a single button. Very useful too! Keys are the same as the L and M spinet series.

When we talk about the Hammond sound we must talk about the speaker too. The B-200 has just 9 drawbars per manual besides it's transistored and the Rotosonic HL822 (or 815) speaker - designed for this model - is a solid state type, so you'll never get that rich B3 sound thought the organ and leslie together can give you a clean and true Hammond colour. But once you have a B-200 you can get a Marshall JCM or some effects pedal and suddenly you have something close to that dirty and crunchy sound produced by tubes and tonewheels. Percussion click is very important to the sound and I'm afraid mine is not very audible. However this probably may be a malfunction in my organ, not the model itself. Anyway, the pure sound of the B-200 is not very good. Unless you connect it to the right speakers and adjust them, you won't achieve that ELP and Jimmy Smith sound.

This organ is very well built but will never be as stable as the modern keyboards. If you will use it for gigs maybe it is wise to have a multitimbral synth for backup. Generally speaking it is very reiliable, but is necessary to have technical assistance for this kind of instrument as any vintage keyboard. Transistors won't easily break up as tubes does, but reverb' springs, percussion and other functions could have malfuncion when you least expect. The B200 has the visual impact on audience and it's far more pleasant to play and worthy in price than the modern simulators. Two men can carry it and it easily fits into a station wagon. Perfect for a rock band.

If I call Hammond-Suzuki they will try to push me a XK-3.
No, thanks!

You may think 1833,00 dollars is expensive, but let's remember I'm in Brazil and to our standards this price is very low. Just the leslie worth it! It is a true "analog" organ and it is a very important issue. If I lost it I would buy another one (if I could find another!).

A very easy to use organ because of the light touch of the keyboards.

I don't like the presets on the organ but the drawbar sounds on both upper and lower manuals are stunning. No in-built drum machine but the Hammond AutoVari 64 was purpose-built for it.

The presets are not impressive but all other effects seem to work well. I wish that I could alter the volume of the 2nd and 3rd harmonics though. The jaw-dropping quality of the drawbar sounds makes me forgive all - It's a wonderful machine.

Never had a problem.

Never had a problem.

I would definately buy another one if it were stolen - It's a dream to play.

Simple, straightforward organ technology. Presets aren't to my taste but you can set both manuals to 'tonebar'. No software, lots of reassuringly chunky coloured buttons, all self-explanatory.

Full-on polyphony. Pressing all the keys at once will sound awful but will work. Built-in effects...vibrato is usable but can't be selected for one manual only which is disappointing. Keyclick percussion is good, and by using sustain with keyclick repeat turned on you can get a crazy rate-adjustable 'echo' effect from the top manual. Good stuff.

Can be used with an 11-pin leslie cab but i haven't got one. Have tried it through one though and it sounded good. It also has three line outs and a headphone socket!

I was surprised when I first heard the B200, expecting it to be cheesy or limp. It rocks! A good selection of sounds can be had from it using the drawbars ad effects. Comparing it to a B3 is silly given the difference in price and technology, but through a few fx pedals you can get close enough to 'that' sound to convince in a live situation. I gig it through a Marshall guitar stack and the high output level of the B200 drives the valves well and crunches nicely. It is also good for a full-on righteous 'church organ' sound, if that floats your boat. The keys feel much better than a 'plastic' keyboard.

Even without a leslie, given the price of this organ it's a 10/10 on sounds for me.

It all works perfectly and given that it's 30 years old that's pretty impressive. I gig without backup regularly and it's never let me down yet.

Never needed it...which is good because I doubt Hammond-Suzuki would be interested.

If it were stolen (presumably by an olympic weightlifter!) I wouldn't hesitate to get another, especially at this price. Fantastic value for money. We needed an organ which looked and sounded immense and this is more than up to the job. It's portable but definitely a two-man lift, it looks like an amazing beast and has 'Hammond' written in big letters down each side. The B200, despite it's incredible cheapness, is a surprisingly good organ and versatile too with sounds ranging from scary prog to funky jazz all possible.

Highly recommended!

Easy!

Good choise of options, 2*9 sinus drawbars, (very good),2 bass drawbars,excellent reverb,perfect keys,solid percussions and clic,sustain, but vibrato is not
soo good for mee: no chorus and chelleste-vibrato (like t200, m100,and others electro-magnetic spinets),no separated vibrato for each manual, percussion is not ''bypassed'' from vibrato, and finally, vibrato is too slow for my taste...And no vibrato speed adjust...But, delay vibrato is cool!

Except vibrato, other things kick ass,drawbars sounds VERY close to console hammonds, mutch better from Hammond X5... And one important
thing:unlike "classic (portable) spinets", B200 have "foldback"for 2' 1 3/5' 1 1/3' and 1' drawbars!

Work perfect, sounds perfect (for no-tone-whell hammond)

Very funky-jazzy organ,this is my best organ, better from(my EX)hammond X5,korg bx3,... and TURBO better from virtual tone-well simulators. I bay
B200 two week ago, and I'm still "in love" in hee sound and key-touch! B200 sounds excelent vith Farfisa RSC 180 (single rotor leslie),and ELKA elkatone700. I love that "rainbow" organ!

Plug it in, adjust the drawbars to taste and play. It's an organ, so there's no matter of ease of use. As long as you know how to play. Transportable combo organ, still heavy but managable.

Superb keyboard, identical to the M-100. Great for glissandos etc. Great built quality, simply the best. Inbuilt spring reverb, pretty good, too. Nice vibrato effects, good percussion, key klick adjustable. It's analogue, so it sounds way better than all the modern wannabees.

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS! It's as close as you can get to the original thing without having to lug a B3 around and break your back. Very full sounds, just perfect. Nice percussion effects, optional e-bass on the pedalboard (sounds very good).

Built in the early seventies and still in perfect condition. That's built quality!!! Don't think it will ever crap out. Had it for two years now and not a problem.

It's worth every cent and I would certainly buy it again, if I could find one. They are rare and not very well known. On the other hand I don't think it will ever die on me and it's not light enough for a thief to snatch and run... I think Rhoda Scott used one, though. I got mine together with a Leslie (transistor type, don't know it's exact model number) and the Organ seems to have come with it because there's a footswitch fixet to the volume pedal and several buttons on the organ for remote controlling the Leslie. The combination blows any fake digital bullshit to smithereens: I compared it to a voce and found the sound of it weak comparing to the B-200. And another plus: this organ is the best-looking instrument I've ever seen. Black vinyl, chrome: pure sexiness!!! I spent hours just looking at it, an absolute eye-catcher.