After my national holiday modding marathon, work as ground to a halt. There should be some time to play, explore sonic posibillities and familiarize myself with the instrument. That's not quite interesting stuff for a blog, but still. Having shot the cell phone video movies, I learned something.
Despite the deplorable quality of the recording, it unmistakenly demonstrates the another essential element of the classic hammond sound: OVERDRIVE.

We know that our T-series is different from the classic consoles in a waythat puts off many a vintage lover: they are solid state amps. Now, as you know, the Russian miniature tubes are on their way, but there's more to done on the tube preamp. I'm still looking for reports on this, but I really would like to build:

Kon Sizzis' Diode-Based Distortion

The idea is quite simple: maybe vacuum tubes aren't as essential to the Hammond sound as is the proper distortion, we are talking specifically in combination with the Leslie here. Of course, tube distortion sounds much sweeter its solid state counterpart, but starting from the premise of a solid state Hammond, overdrive closer by than you would think.

Carsten's tube preamp is tempting, but it only makes for a valve state
amplifier: transistors in the power amp, tubes only in the preamp. It will make your organ sound more organic and tight, but I don't really see it creating the real tube overdrive. Tube overdrive means overdrive the power tubes, not the preamp tubes.

This is why I will be looking into Kon's very simple circuit first. I know, it's more switches than components, but still...


Hope to get started on this tonight. Will have to find some way of hosting
the mp3 samples I made and give a more realistic impression of the sound
than the video clips:

T-522 Sound Clips; do require updated version of media player.

Mostly Top and Bottom drawbars, no leslie