Hammond B3000

Easy to use. It is a drawbar organ.

2 11-pin leslie outputs. Just plug and play. BUT know this is a 2 channel organ. If you run it into a single channel leslie you won't get any bass pedal. It can work with a simple mod.

The manual have diving board keys.

The drawbars are OK. No it isn't a mechanical tone wheel.... but is is OK. The presets suck.

It has some electric piano sounds and waveform synth sounds that are control with drawbars. Those suck also.

But it is an OK 2-manual gigging organ. It is half the weight of a tonewheel B or C.

Reliablity is good if you take care of it. I built a padded road case on wheel. Don't drop it and bang it around much. The IC board connectors can come loose. That is the most common problem with the organ.

Other than that there is no maintenance like on a tonewheel organ.

Ray Gerlich, the head of customer support at Hammond has always been very helpful to me over the years.

It is OK. People rag on this organ too much. Does it sound like a tonewheel generator. No, but it gets the job done. If you have a chance to buy one try it out. If it sounds OK to you buy it. If it don't then don't buy it. I bought mine for about $700 with a HL-722 Leslie. I would buy it for $700 again.

I currently use the Hammond B3000 model, along with both the Hammond B3 and the Hammond C3. The presets for the Hammond B3000 are terrible. The only preset that I go to is the Ab preset on the lower manual.

I'm not sure of the polyphony. The keyboard action is workable. The reverb and the sustain effects are good enough to be satisfied with. To my knowledge, there are no expansion capabilities. No MIDI capabilites.

The emulation of a Hammond B3 is awful. If I could afford a B3, I would buy it.

Yes, I can depend on it. Although, i wouldn't use it on a gig. I would prefer a B3.

I have never dealt directly with the Hammond-Suzuki company.

It my B3000 were lost, I wouldn't even worry about it. I would go out and purchase a Hammond B3. It is worth what I paid considering that I didn't buy it. I've been playing for a while. I also own a Casio toy keyboard which gets by. I compared the Hammond B3000 to the king of tonewheel organs, the Hammond B3 and it's come up short. I wish that it sounded a little more like a B3. It helps me make music. And that's all I have to say.

Dead easy to use if you know your way around a tonewheel Hammond console as it looks pretty much the same as a B3 - two 61 note manuals, reverse colour preset keys, 25 note pedalboard etc etc. Has all the drawbars in the same place as a B3, the second set on the lower manual offering a few reedy type voices as well as the normal flute sounds. Dead easy to use in a basic Hammond kind of way, although chorus and vibrato is a pig, hence the 8.

I'm comparing it with the B3/C3/A100 series as I guess it's that audience that it will appeal to most, and I'm also assuming you know what one of those operates and sounds like. There's a few extras like seperate Leslie switches for upper and lower manuals and, as mentioned above, the second set of drawbars for the lower manual features more reedy type sounds as well as the normal flute type voices. The vibrato/chorus is nothing like the real deal - there's no V1/2/3, C1/2/3 as on a tonewheel organ, just a crap chorus and two awful vibrato settings. There's a transpose slider on the left of the lower reverse colour preset keys and a slider to control the level of the built in spring reverb, as well as a switch to determine whether it goes through the static or rotary speakers of the Leslie. Synth style keys and slighty heavier and more 'clunky' than the waterfall keyboards on a tonewheel model, so if you're used to one of those it's going to take some time to adjust. Palm glisses HURT! That knocks the features score down to a 6. It's heavy and bulky, but only about half the weight of a B3. Just two 11 pin Leslie outs - plug em in and play, so you're gonna have to rig up some kind of send and return if you want to plug external devices in such as tube overdrive etc.... but don't bother.... read on....

Ok, again I'm comparing this to a vintage tonewheel model, and assuming that by looking at this site you want something gritty, grungy and BAD, and not a theatre organ! This organ sort of semi looks the part and has all the presence of a B3 sitting there in the room, but then switch it on and the problems start. No virtual modelling or sampling involved here, it's just your basic analogue sine wave organ sound, with a coupe of bad electric piano sounds thrown in. While the basic sound, especially on full organ with all the drawbars whacked out, is warm and rich, it sounds nothing like an original. And if you predominantly use the first three or four drawbars for a jazzy sound, or for rock or funk type stuff, you're stuffed. Switch the chorus or vibrato on and it becomes laughable. It's not even useable in a cheesy way! A Vox Continental sounds more like a Hammond than this does. Bung it through a valve Leslie for more bite and a bit of tube magic and you just get overdriven bad organ sounds. Let me just repeat that - no matter what you do, what you put it through, how you EQ or treat the sound, this organ sounds absolutely NOTHING like a tonewheel Hammond. It's not even as good as an L100. And the percussion? Mmm... BAD!! There's 2nd and 3rd Harmonic percussion, but no adjustment in level - it's far too loud as it is and sounds like a marimba. There's also switchable key click but that's too quiet and sounds like a gated fart. You're only chance is to fit a MIDI kit and stick something like a Voce V5 on top. In fact, if this had MIDI it might be worth recommending, as it does look the part, is playable (although the synth keys do let it down), and while a few of the drawbar tones do sound something like the real deal, the main ones for jazz/funk/rock use sadly do not. And the chorus and vibrato really are truly awful. And of course there's no separate key contacts for all drawbars as with the original, so as soon as a key makes contact you get the full sound of whatever drawbars you have out. If you want theatre or churchy tones, great - this organ is ideal, it's warm and rounded, great for ballads too, although not Whiter Shade Of Pale as the first 3 drawbars let it down so much. If you want gritty Hammond tonewheel sounds don't touch it, even with a very long stick. To quote part of an interview, I think with James Taylor of JTQ fame from about 1987 "Hammond make something that looks a bit like the original, but that's about all we can say in it's favour!" DO NOT buy one without hearing it first!

Typical Hammond quality of the time, ie nowhere near as good as a B3. The cabinet is fine, but the drawbars crackle as you pull em out, so no Chester Thompson style 'slidy drawbar wah thang', the reverb picks up mobile phones, taxis, UFOs and anything else in the area and worst of all I've never ever seen one where the keys haven't fallen out of line. It's still ok to play, but get your head down and look at the manuals from the side and you're talking the Blue Ridge Mountains Of Virginia - which is probably the most appropriate tune to play on the thing bearing in mind the sound of it!

The original Hammond company are obviously no more and I've had no dealings with Hammond-Suzuki so not really qualified to say.

I own a Hammond C3 and I was looking for something to gig with that both looks and sounds the part, but tried a B3000 cos it looks cool and weighs half what the C3 does, there's no oil to run out all over the place and it would be easier to gig with. My dissapointment when I turned it on and played it was extreme. If you're looking for a nice warm theatre sound it's excellent, if you want tonewheel sounds it really is a pig. You're far better off with something like a new Korg BX3, Oberheim OB5 or if you can get away with a single manual the incredible Clavia Nord Electro. Me? I'm off to cut my C3 in half...