The Mighty Hammond C3
While winter aproaches and the mist has lain thick over Hønefoss, we've stayed indoors recording Hammond Organ. Øystein Vesaas brought his studio down to my basement; the hammond lair. We thought it was best to bring the studio to the hammond and not the other way around, concidering it weighs over 200 kg and doesn't fit into any of our cars. Still we didn't know or think Øystein would bring all of the things he did.. We packed and rigged for over four hours.. Over 12 microphones should cover the whole spectrum of the (Leslie 122) rotating speaker's sound; at short range - top and bottom - right and left, ambience, noise from the actual keyboard manuals when I slapped and occationally played gently on them, and the squirky wheels of the combat tank - C3. There was even a microphone on the outside of our house for a while! All mikes would then go into several ultra fantasic tube preamps, making a stunning sound to say at least! The Leslie 122 breaks up at very hi volumes, so to get the Emerson sound (who used a 147 and breaks up much faster) I had to turn everything up to 11.. close to 12.. And the room came to life along with the growling sound. There are no neighbours around the farm so this is no problem. The only concern was weather or not the over 30 years old speaker could take it. It did! As a matter of fact it did very well!
To play on the hammond C3 is a very fysical thing, with the big uncomfortable seat (at least after 9 hours), huge "church organ pedal manual" and heavy volume pedal. And after a couple of hours finger tips had blisters and nails popped. Sweatty.. Short of breath.. Focusing on the playing, sounds, expression and everything.. And of course there's the common Hammond electro shock, which is a part of the game; making my arm go numb. According to Martin sparks stood out of my ear phones. The next day my finger's felt like seaweed.. Like i'd been standing on my finger tips an entire day. But today, on day three, we finished the job! And it was great fun! Big thanks to Øystein!