Hammond Porta-B

As easy as it gets. Pull out the drawbars to your liking and start playing. Has switches for vibrato, reverb, percussion, etc.. If you didn't know how it worked at all you could learn in about 5 minutes.

Full polyphony, vibrato/chorus, percussion, 6-pin connectors for real leslies as well as a direct 1/4" line-out for a 147, motion-sound, or another amp. It also has internal speakers but not recommended to listen to other than for fooling around. Obviously sounds better through a rotating speaker. The vibrato/chorus on this model is not the B-3 vibrato/chorus scanner so if you are looking for "that" sound you won't find it w/ this particular organ. Not necessarily a huge detraction. 44 keys per manual instead of 61, so you can't get low octaves on the keyboard like a B-3. Biggest negative in my opinion, the lower keyboard only has 7 drawbars, not 9. The 16' and 5 1/3' are missing. This wouldn't be as big of an issue if the keyboard were 61 notes, but since both keyboards are 44 notes, it is. You can't get the low tones because of the 44 keys and even when you are at the lowest octave on the lower manual the lowest drawbar setting is the 8' drawbar, therefore difficult to comp bass lines on the lower keyboard. Not as big of a problem w/ the upper keyboard even w/ its 44 key restriction because the upper keyboard has the 16' and the 5 1/3' drawbar allowing for a decent sound at the low end of the keyboard. If you use the footpedals, which has one 16' drawbar assigned to it you can get the low tones missing from the lower keyboard.

Removing two screws allows you to lift the organ from its stand. The organ piece weighs about 125 pounds (estimating). I was able to take it out of the backseat of the car myself (can't do that w/ a B-3). The base which includes the keyboard legs and footpedals is not that heavy. So it is portable. You need help putting the keyboard back on the stand because you have to line up the pegs from the stand w/ the holes on the bottom of the keyboard and you can't really do this alone.

As compared to the B-3, it has the "tone" that you are looking for. It doesn't have the "balls" the B-3 has due to 44 note limitation, and two critical missing drawbars on the lower manual. However, if you use the footpedals it does sport the "Hammond sound". Also, I am using a motion-sound Pro3T rather than a real leslie. A friend of mine has a speakeasy vintage pre-amp and a Leslie 145. The Porta-B sounds much fatter through that than through the Motion-Sound (real leslie drum rather than drum simulator through a Peavey KB-300).
Other reviews have mentioned the popping percussion and percussion as being loud; I don't find this to be true. I actually find the percussion to be somewhat mellow as opposed to being loud. Unlike the B-3, you can use all the percussion settings (2nd, 3rd and 5th, yes 5th!) at the same time. Also, you can use the 1' drawbar w/ the percussion, unlike the B-3, i.e. it doesn't cutout any drawbars because of percussion use. My unit has reverb (3 or 4 levels).
I also own a clone and found that i can drive the motion-sound's tube quite easily w/ the clone but for some reason the signal on the Porta-B is not that "hot" and even w/ the volume pedal "maxed" i find it somewhat difficult to drive the motion-sound's pre-amp into a distorted sound. In general I must have the motion-sound's output set much higher than any clone I've owned. All in All, it does sound decent. Another thing I've noticed; w/ my clone the sound is not as distinct coming out of the motion-sound than it is out of the Porta-B. In other words there is much more distinction between the rotating drum and the rotating horn w/ the Porta-B than there is w/ the clone. When I hold down a chord w/ the clone, I have to listen intently to hear the sound coming out of both the drum and the horn; when I play the same chord w/ the Porta-B, the sound coming out of the rotation of the drum and the horn are much more distinct.

Keys are quick but less "springy" than the clone; much more playable.

Only had it a couple of weeks. Everything works. Considering the Porta-B is 30 to 40 years old; nothing is broken on it; everything works i'm going to go out on a limb and say that the keyboard is pretty damn reliable. Buy something today and see if it lasts half that long. When you buy something today you can't even get parts 10 years from now. How many times have you seen "NLA", i.e. part "No Longer Available"? I'm told that if you get the keyboard to Goff Professional, they'll rebuild it; which means "PSA" (Parts Still Available).

Obviously, you can't send this keyboard back to Hammond since the company went out of business in 1985. There are numerous places to get them repaired (B3 Guys, Organ Doctor, Goff Professional, etc). Since it is heavy and freight would be expensive, you have to find a place that is w/in driving distance.

I like the keyboard, especially for the price I paid for it; If it were stolen, I might go for broke and buy a B-3 instead. I plan on using it for some gigs and I wouldn't be able to do this if I had a real B-3, so there is some advantage to replacing the keyboard rather than going w/ a B-3. For the price I paid, it is certainly worth the value, hence a good rating. Has the B-3 sound, it is portable and it was inexpensive, despite some of the drawbacks that it has.

Usually need two people to carry it around but it definately beats the B3 in weight! It can be loaded into a blazer with a 247 leslie and a kit.

It ha s anice crucn and distortion to it. It still doesn't have the same balls as a B3 but a close comparison

Mine is very dependable. Never been dropped!!! I use it at gigs all of the time without a back up.

I have a local guy that repair it when needed. The oil is a pain and kind of hard to get a hold of.
I don't think you can send these to Hammond anymore for a repair. Warranty?

I will never get rid of this organ. I found out that it is very rare and worth quite a bit more than I paid for it.
You just can't beat that sound.

I own a Ford Ranger with a cap on the back. First, I load the 147 Leslie, followed by the base, then last but most important -- the flat black beast, Porta B! I load it all by myself, it can be a pain in the back, but for the sound it produces it's well worth it.

I'm in a Doors tribute band. Not as the keyboard player, but as the singer! I haul the beast around because I own it! My keyboardist owns a Vox, along with a Rhodes bass keyboard. The extra sound we get with the Hammond is a bonus. Not too many rock bands I have seen feature a Hammond with Leslie sound.

Recently I have revamped the beast...let's say cut it up a little. All the internal speakers have been taken out! Less weight, who needs them anyway? I disconnected the bass pedals and foot pedal, less weight, who need's them? We have a keyboard bass and a string bassplayer. So off they went!!! Much lighter! He-he, my keyboard player had a tendency to pull alot of the drawboards out most of the way to hear the beast! Our stage volume can be deafening at times! So to alleviate that problem my brother and I bypassed the Leslie amp. We now use a more powerful wattage amp. I also ordered a hotrod kit from Vintage Sounds which is an 80watt driver! That should eliminate the problem of him not being able to hear the beast!

When the band went on hiaitus for a year, the beast sat in a shed behind my house, covered with a moving blanket. Bad move...F'N mice decided to turn it into a motel. When I lifted the blanket to move it, there were acorns all over the keys, along with mice poop and pee!! When I moved it into my garage to clean it up, I took off the lid and a mouse ran from it!! There in the center was a mouse nest with two newborn meeses!! I was pissed to say the least. Here they ate through the furniture blanket, used the stuffing from that to make a nest in my flat black beast! After vacuuming it out, I used some contact cleaner and some Hammond generator oil and I fired it up! The beast spoke! It's alive!!!

I ordered replacment capacitors from Goff, they haven't e-mailed me back yet.

I paid $200.00 for it 9 years ago and $400.00 9 years ago for a Leslie 147 in great shape.Long live the Hammond Organ!!!!!!!!!!

The Porta B? It's a baby, so easy to tame. No presets, no traps, not for jazz walkin' people, a great feature to play beat'n'rock. Be carefull with the manuals, the keys are a bit lighter for a frequency use. If you just play in the Hensley's way, you'll see your fingers bloody! At the end, it's a sort of a little dark limousine...

I love his percussions! The fifth it's a lucky stuff, if you play trought a good Leslie (I play with a 122) you can appreciate in toto his versatility. If you love beat and psychedelia, this percussion went wild, just increasin' the Hammond volume and tube saturation.
Vibrato-scanner?When I'll wanna it, I'll buy a good C3.

Great! It's aspinet, ok, but I was so surprized the first time. I use it at home, I prefer goin' wild around with a Roland VK7...my Porta B destroys the clone.His feeling and tonewheel underground are fantastic.

I give it only a 7, but I think that in this rank 1-10, three points to a B3 are almost enought.
Obviously the PortaB model isn't like his electromagnetic big brother; the sounds is believable and the hamd of sir. L.Hammond is over our heads.

I've bought my Hammond six mounths ago, so it's new ;)

If you are in doubt, the Porta B it's an excellent step. I put it in my car and let's go rock...

This is a follow-up to my original review.

I have done some major restoration and tweaking to my Porta-B and want to pass on some new information.

First off: Al Goff was right. If you own a Hammond tonewheel organ, even the newest one when they abandoned the manufacture of tonewheel organs in 1975, your tone generator caps have aged to the point where your organ will have dull and bright tones all over the map, because those caps no longer hold their original value. Those caps are CRITICAL to the tone of the organ. At the time of manufacture the best ones had a 15 year life, thus the newest Hammond tonewheel organ would now be 25 years old. Your caps are shot.

I did a before/after analysis of my organ and noted all the dull/bright tones of all the wheels. After I replaced all the tone generator caps with a new set from Goff Professional, the tones all evened out! ANYONE who owns a Hammond tonewheel organ NEEDS to get a set of these caps. THEY WORK!

Second: I tweaked the vibrato and it sounds a lot better, far closer to the purr of the old scanner vibrato. You have to do two things: there's a resistor in the vibrato module that selects the speed, if the vibrato is too slow then you need to decrease the value of this resistor. I'm not going to try to put the schematic details in writing, it's a lot easier if you get your own set of schematics and consult someone knowledgeable in electronics, because that resistor is highlighted on the drawings, you can't miss it. Why didn't Hammond use a trimpot instead of a fixed resistor? Because you'd need a 1Meg trimpot and that would be WAY too touchy. Turns out that if you replace the original tube in the vibrato amp (which I had done years ago), you have to adjust the speed because of element variances in the tubes. The second thing is to mess with the "WIDTH" trimpot on the module, you can access it with the top removed from the organ. Originally my vibrato was too slow and the width wasn't wide enough, and when I cranked them and added the blue cable for chorused vibrato, I got that nice purr.

Third: I had a frozen set of tonewheels and discovered that one of the pickup coils had locked up the wheel. I had to adjust the shaft of pickup coil to free the wheel, which FORTUNATELY began to spin again. Hammond REALLY built some failsafe stuff into the tone generator and saved me some $$$.

A word of caution here: Hammond and Goff do not recommend that users adjust the coils, it is a delicate process; they are right. DO NOT attempt to adjust the position of the pickup coils with the motor spinning. TURN THE ORGAN OFF FIRST! The coil shafts do not have to be moved even a millimeter to make a world of difference, they are SENSITIVE. If the wheels are turning and you move the coil too close, you will destroy the tonewheel by the scraping action. Turn the organ off and WAIT for the motor to stop spinning BEFORE you adjust the coil shaft, and lock it down with each adjustment. If you lock up the wheel with the motor off, there's little or no damage but if the motor is on and you hit the spinning wheel with the coil then it's toast. You'll have to send it to Goff for an $$$ tone generator repair.

The new tone generator caps took care of a lot of sound issues but I still had a couple of REAL bright tones, which meant I had to adjust the pickup coils. I found out how delicate this operation is.

Fourth: that bright biting percussion can be tamed. There's a trimmer on the percussion/preamp module that is accessable with the cover off the organ. Tweak that to taste. Mine was way too hot and sounds much nicer after being turned down, and the "beehive" noise is a lot better too. There's an RCA jack on the module marked "RED", this is the percussion "SOFT" switch. The Porta-B doesn't have a soft percussion switch but you could easily add your own. Just short the tip and sleeve and this enables "SOFT" percussion. I have

Oh, does this thing sing now. I have never liked the vibrato but after tweaking it I REALLY like it. The percussion is dialed just right and all the tones have been evened out with the new caps from Goff Professional. This sounds closer to a B-3 now than my XB-2 does. I'm in love.

I am VERY happy to get this baby up and running again :)

Plug it in, set your drawbars, percussion, vibrato, and reverb, and play. Easy.

The Hammond Porta-B is a portabilized L-100 that is in two cabinets.

The top cabinet contains the manuals, drawbars, rocker tabs, tonewheel generator, preamp/percussion chassis, and vibrato chassis. It weighs approx 150 lbs.

The bottom cabinet contains the pedal manual, expression pedal, power amp chassis, hinged supports for top cabinet, and audio/leslie connectors. It weighs approx 100 lbs.

If you get one of those moving carts, you can move the top cabinet yourself otherwise you'll need someone to help. The bottom cabinet is a one-person job, when the supports are laid flat the ends double as handles.

Assembly is easy. On the bottom cabinet, you swing the supports from flat to vertical, and a pair of handscrews secure the supports in that position. Then you install two crossbars and a chunky fastener at the junction. Then you get a friend to set the top cabinet on the supports; it's not too hard, you just line up the large pins to the holes. There's a multi-pin connector that mates the two cabinets when you set them together, and there's a little AC cable that protrudes from the support that you need to manually plug into the top cabinet. When the organ is set up it is REALLY rock solid. The crossbars make a huge difference because it makes the whole package stable and it does not wobble side to side at all. If you buy a used Porta-B, make SURE you get these crossbars.

Compare that to needing 3-4 people to cart around a big B-3 organ.

Electrical differences from L-100; no preset tabs, additional fifth harmonic for percussion (the only Hammond with this feature), and the tonewheel generator has all 91 tonewheels wired in (all 44 key manual spinet organs since the M series omit unused tonewheels in the generator, there's a gap between the lowest note of either of the manual and the pedal manual), and different output facilities.

There are nine drawbars for the top manual, seven for the bottom manual, and a 16' drawbar for the pedal manual.

There were two versions of the Porta-B. The early version has a Chorus rocker tab for the vibrato and the Leslie jacks were for the PR-40 speakers, not the 6-pin or 9-pin Leslies, and the traditional tonewheel generator with the unused wheels omitted. The later Porta-B replaced the Chorus tab with the ability to route the pedal tone to the lower manual, replaced the PR-40 speaker jacks with a 6-pin and a 9-pin Leslie jack, and the tonewheel generator had all 91 tonewheels wired to cover the 16' pedal tone across the lower manual, which is basically the same generator as the larger Hammond cousins like the B-3 etc. I have the later version. The circuitry for Chorus is still in there, all you have to do is route a cable between the jacks marked "BLU" on the percussion preamp and the vibrato preamp and you have chorused vibrato. You could add your own switch by the rockers for the chorus if you wanted. I added the cable in mine and the vibrato sounds so much better.

The tabs give you control over signal routing, percussion, reverb, vibrato, and Leslie speed.

You can route the signal to the internal speakers, to the external speaker/Leslie jacks, or to the 1/4" output. I hardly use the internal speakers except for private noodling. The Leslie jacks are handy, and there's a switch that lets you set chorale (slow speed) to the slow motor or no rotation at all. The 1/4" jack is great to have - you can use effects with the organ and then power the Leslie with an external preamp.

You have three levels of vibrato (one tab=V1, other tab=V2, both tabs=V3). The vibrato is not the scanner vibrato found on the B-3 and won't sound the same. On my organ it still sounds a little churchy with the Chorus cable added and I'm going to explore ways to make it sound better. The vibrato is much better with the chorus cable but still needs improvement.

Reverb is an excellent touch in this baby. Again, two tabs gives you three levels of r

IMO this organ can sound like a B-3, except it doesn't have the purr of the scanner vibrato. My XB-2 can get that purr and thus sounds closer to a B-3, but I like the tube sound of the old organs. The later Porta-B tonewheel generator is the same as the B-3 so the source is definitely there.

I use a 760 Leslie and it sounds great and it's loud enough for most bands. I haven't tried a 122 Leslie with the Porta-B yet and am curious how much closer it gets to the B-3 sound, especially when overdriving the tube preamp in the 122.

I like the extra percussion facilities and the reverb features that the Porta-B offers over a B-3.

The action is firm and fast. It's far nicer to play on than those plastic keys on today's synths, and that affects how you play. To me it doesn't feel any different than the B-3 action.

If it had the scanner vibrato, I'd give it a 10.

This sucker has been very reliable for many many gigs and I had to take it off the road because the cabinet came apart! Part of that may have been my fault because at the time I was stacking 200lbs of keyboards on top of it and that may have been too much stress for the cabinet.

I've had a couple of tube failures. Hammond doesn't stress the tubes like a guitar amp does - they'll fail from age before failing from stress. Last week I started a major restoration on the organ and had the tubes checked, and 90% of the original Hammond tubes were fine. Not bad for thrity year old tubes.

Probably the most common failure was broken wires to the drawbars, which I finally remedied by putting heat shrink tuning to reduce the flex stress on the wires.

Years ago Hammond (pre-Suzuki) promptly delivered a service manual for the organ. I haven't tried to deal with Hammond-Suzuki for this thing yet. Somehow I get the feeling they don't support any tonewheel organ because they have been out of production for over twenty five years. Hence the 7 rating.

This beast is built for the road. I bought the Porta-B with Leslie 760 cabinet from my piano teacher in 1981 and they have the wear and tear from all these years but they still rock. My teacher used to play jazz gigs with it and the keys still has the cigarettes burns. After years of me gigging with it, the wood on the organ cabinet is all scratched up and there is no tolex left on the Leslie. I was seriously thinking about re-tolexing the Leslie with snakeskin tolex like they used on the early Mesa-Boogie amps, but I like the idea of leopard skin tolex. Now you got me thinking. However, it would mean that I would have to get a flight case for the Hammond and Leslie because I wouldn't want to scuff up that nice tolex! I just joined a blues band and it gave me a purpose to finally dust off this beauty.

The extra stuff like the reverb and the more flexible percussion got a lot of use on the stage and I've grown to like them. I'd have trouble going back to the B-3; even though it's THE classic, I don't look forward to lugging around a 400lb console. The Porta-B gets what I want and I can carry it around and set it up myself. I just set the top cabinet on its back, assemble the bottom and set it on its back, mate the two, and then lift the whole assembly from the top cabinet and I'm ready to rock.

The only organ I've tried that I liked better is an A-100. But I like the compactness of the Porta-B.

When the cabinet finally fell apart from too much gigging, it sat in pieces for eight years. When I finally repaired the cabinet and fired it up for the first time since, it worked! It did develop some new problems though, one of the tube has become microphonic (you hear THUMP THUMP THUMP when you play the manuals or bump the cabinet) and the percussion now has this "beehive" sound of leakage when it is engaged. There are also some missing tones on the manuals. It didn't do this before, so I have a little more work to do. Last year I took it to a show and after a minute of being powered on, it would shut off on its own. That was caused by a bad tube.

Any tech will tell you that if you leave a Hammond organ dormant for a long time, the capacitors will dry out. I'm not sure this has occurred on my organ because it operates fine, and I will be checking the caps when I go through the thing just to be sure. You should ALWAYS take a dormant organ to a tech before turning it on, because you need to power it up using a variac and only a qualified tech should do this. What happens is that when the caps dry out over time, they can deform if they are subjected to a large sudden voltage transient. By using a variac to slowly ramp the line voltage you avoid damaging the caps. Again don't attempt this on your own, take it to a tech.

If you want the growl of a real Hammond tonewheel organ but don't want to cart around a huge 400lb console, the Porta-B is the axe. It's the least known of the Hammond organ line and it isn't even mentioned in Mark Vail's Hammond book. Peter Forrest consulted with Hammond specialist Al Goff in the early edition of the A-Z synth encyclopedia and the Porta-B wasn't mentioned there either! Seeing that I bought this during the period when everybody was dumping their organs for polyphonic synthesizers, I got a great bargain for the Porta-B *and* the Leslie for $650. With B-3s skyrocketing out of musicians' reach today ($5000 and up), they're just starting to realize how underrated the Porta-B was. I have been offered good money for mine and I will never let it go. Nowadays I see Porta-Bs WITHOUT Leslie selling for $2000.

Thank you for Harmony Central for your web site!
To be quite frank about the Porta-B I would not recomend this Organ to anyone. The other reveiws about this Organ ( except one ) were correct. The sound is very thin and weak ( what's up with those Tonebars on the Bottom Manual? No 16 or 8 or the range of keys? ! ), not enough Range and it's not worth ( in my opinion) breaking my back lifting this Organ for what little it gives.
I'am not about to try to lie to myself and try to convince myself that I can like this Organ...even when I bought it back in the 70's.
The Farfisa VIP at least at plenty of keys.
I would maybe recomend the Hammond XK5 which sounds good but I think it's a little too compressed. I dig the Roland Vk7.

Very Easy to use. Just turn it on a go.Gotta have Roadies because this thing is a Baby Beast.Heavy Man Heavy. I'd rather go with a VK7

I dig the Reverb. IT has that good Tube Spring Sound. And all of the Tabs are cool. Some Models had "16'to Lower" rather than the Chours Tab...This was cool, but it just did not enough Keys on this Beast.
44 keys was a joke... Man you can't even walk the Bass!!

Sounds too darn thin, but you may get by if there are no B-3 LOVERS IN THE HOUSE! Pecussion pops cool but once again Not enough Range on the keys

I never had any Problems with mine but just be careful with those overhanging keys and the Bottom part which has the Bass pedals, Tubes
and Spring Reverb

If it was lost or stolen? Well let's put it like this. If the theif can make it past all of the junk in the Garage that it's in and get past the two Pitt Bulls..he can have it. I bought a vk-7 and I have no regrets

You just turn it on and go. It's drawbars can change your tone in real-time as you play.

drawbars, chorus, vibrato, buttery keyboard action: If you can't shread on this, might as well hang it up.

You can tell it's a Hammond by the sound, but it's no B-3.

I've owned mine since 1982 and have had no problems except for broken plastic keys. I throw the thing around a lot on stange and have found it can take insane amounts of punishment. If keys are broken during a live performance they can be fixed in a pinch with electrical tape.

I never dealt with Hammond. Because supplies are finite, I'm not telling where I get replacement keys.

I love the thing. Sure, it's a beast to move, but it's the real deal. A few years back, I upholstered mine in faux leopard print fur. It can really put smiles on the people's faces!

a few corrections to the last review. the bottom part weighs about half of what the top part weighs. vibrato tabs are "on," "chorus," and "vibrato small/normal." this organ is a portable version of the L100 series. the original model was "L100P,"later renamed "PORTA-B." the early models had slide switches instead of flip tabs, (2) 5 pin 122 sockets. the later models had 6 pin and 9 pin sockets. this organ is far from the B3 series. it's best to avoid this organ as it's NOT going to give you the B3 sound. it doesn't have the keyboard range, sounds thin and doesn't have scanner vibrato/chorus. most of them are like most rhodes and wurlys - drug around and beat to death. I'd recommend Voce or a Roland VK7.