Nord User Forum

[TNC1968]

lets not make it a B3 Vs Vox organ debate, keep it nice. Im just trying to help a friend out.
I dont wanna hear Alan Price playing a Hammond on House of the Rising Sun or Jon Lord using a Vox on Highway Star, lets not be totally ridiculous,
If you wanna be a real MAN try touring with a real B3, dragging one around lol .
thats the main thing, he has a real Wurlly but we dont wanna lug it around, he lives up on a hill with lots of stairs, we def want Hammond sounds but also all the cheesy stuff , thanks for you guy help.

[TNC1968]

I guess I should have also explained its an original band influenced by all the old 60's and 70s stuff, his playing style is a lil Nicky Hopkins and Ian Malagan

[Quai34]

I know a super version of House of Rising Sun with Hammond B3, A. Piano and brass that is, in my opinion, better than the original...But agree if you want to sound exactly like the original, use the original sound given by your "Clone"...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PqKENZ59FR0

[Gambold]

If the job calls for a Farfisa...that's a great line

"Dammit, where's my Farfisa? Nothing else will do!"

There are keyboards and then there are keyboards. Yeah, the Beatles used the Hohner Pianet a bit but does anyone really want to now? Even for those bands that ape every note and nuance of the Fab Four?

I'll have to dig around for musicians who have made their career as Farfisa players, a la Jimmy Smith on the B3. There is that guy in Blondie...

[analogika]

If the job calls for a Farfisa...that's a great line

"Dammit, where's my Farfisa? Nothing else will do!"

There are keyboards and then there are keyboards. Yeah, the Beatles used the Hohner Pianet a bit but does anyone really want to now? Even for those bands that ape every note and nuance of the Fab Four?

I'll have to dig around for musicians who have made their career as Farfisa players, a la Jimmy Smith on the B3. There is that guy in Blondie...

You wanna play Doors with a Hammond??? (not a Farfisa, I know. I've got a couple songs in the repertoire that need one, though.)

Yeah, there are numbers that call for that specific sound. People get hired more for getting closer to the original character of a production. Deal with it.

[anotherscott]

Yeah, the Beatles used the Hohner Pianet a bit but does anyone really want to now?

Pianet was used on lots of stuff, but it's not always easy to tell. The older models sounded a lot like Wurlis, the later models sounded more like Rhodes. They were a bit limited by the lack of a sustain pedal, though.

[Gambold]

>You wanna play Doors with a Hammond???<

It need to be said - what audience any of us might play for wants to listen to the Doors, regardless what keyboard is being used? Let's unpack it:

Wedding band: Doors almost never part of the repertoire. Very few twenty-something couples, if any, are going to ask for Doors music, or anything from 1960s California, to be added to the playlist. A second-go round couple might vie for Nights in White Satin, but that's about as old-timey as you're going to get.

Bar bands: Ditto. This is a venue where people come to drink and dance on the nights the Cubs aren't playing on the ten flatscreens. You start playing Light My Fire and everyone is going to sit down...and most of them won't know it. Yeah, that's a sorry truth. The old hippie in the back (me) will groove on it though.

Municipal events: You know, playing at your community rib-fest under a tent as part of a set of musical acts. How many cover bands are kicking out the jams with Hello I Love You while mom, pop and the kiddos are sitting around eating corn on the cob and pulled pork from a paper tray? MAYBE you get away with Seger, but on the whole you'll stick with 1980s and closer.

Finally, eclectic cover bands, the kind we all WANT to play in. Ok, maybe we get lucky and are in one of those bands, with a singer willing to do Jim Morrison's often inane lyrics. And maybe we get even luckier and book a gig where the audience will happily buy alcohol while we essay our version of People Are Strange. I suppose it can happen. But even if all those stars line up, you get one Doors song, tops - and it really won't matter if the keyboardist didn't have a Vox emulator. No-one will pine for it but you.

[Quai34]

I agree in the Vox/Doors. I tried few times to learn and play some Doors songs and we gave up, it was not "fitting" the crowd....

[analogika]

Heh. Them's fighting words, Gambold!

(In fact, I got hired once specifically because the host had requested "Light Me Fire" and they needed an organist. So there. )

I guess it's like accordion or banjo - objectively terrible instruments, but the show's better if they're there when called for.

[afroskully]

Just recently I had to learn a Doors tune for a private party... but it was LA Woman, and that one has no Farfisa, just rhodes and that saloon piano. And then of course we wound up not playing it.

I will say though that I've used the Farfisa more than I ever thought I would... a few early Dead tunes and Elvis Costello songs called for it. And, if you load it up with some good distortion, reverb and the wah effect, it makes quite the soloing option if you're ever looking for something a bit different.