Andrew Gilbert at the Hammond X66 Organ - The Girl From Ipanema

In August 2016 I had the chance to rekindle my love affair with the Hammond X66 organ, an instrument I first heard back in 1970. There aren’t many in the UK so chances to play them have been few and far between. I heard that there was one on the Isle of Wight, just a mile or two from where we were due to stay on holiday. What I initially thought would be just a private session for me to try out the organ blossomed into the chance to play a mini-concert for a small group of X66 fans, but one that would have absolutely no preparation, practice or rehearsal! All I had were my memories of the last time I played one in 1984, and a playlist of song titles running from 1964, when the X66 prototype was first shown, to 1967, when the organ came fully onto the market.

This X66 has been modified by top engineer Dave Page, with the addition of a Technics KN7000 keyboard as a third manual, full MIDI capability and uprated amplification. They call it the X666! However, in my concert I only used the original sounds of the X66, and didn’t even have an auto rhythm unit. Great fun, going back to real ‘old school’ Hammond styling.

Part of the concert was filmed on a phone cam by Dave Perry of the Isle of Wight Keyboard Music Club, who’s kindly allowed me to post the videos on line, so here is a snippet from that concert. Mistakes? You’ll see a few but I hope you’ll still enjoy this video of me having a ball on a fabulous vintage organ. Next time, I’ll have the opportunity to prepare and rehearse, as well as taking proper recording and video gear – and a vintage rhythm unit!

[massimomalaguti]

Bravo ottimi suoni di organo, esecuzione superba..

[madjazzmike]

Hi all 🤪👍 = Andrew - A LIVING LEGEND 🍷 fabulous 🌈

[buddyburden]

Very Nice work Andy.... You definitely have Hammond Ears... You develop that with the drawbars, much the same way that Guitarists develop fret chord And that's something that never goes away... no matter how many other types or instruments you bb

[richardrobbins]

Your hand and eye coordination are extraordinary. Well done and played

[dazboot]

Bloody hell - keeping all that going without the aid of a rhythm unit whilst fishing around for
suitable registrations on an unfamiliar organ in an unfamiliar environment - hats off sir. Plus
the full technicolour stereo only sprang into life at 3:28!

[pauljtonehead]

Awesome Andy! Look forward to another performance, and quality camera(s) and mics. The X66 is an absolute wonder, lacking nothing IMHO except maybe a volume for the Orchestral and Percussion voices. Below is a mod I highly recommend for the owner of this 'X666'...

If this particular " X666" has the TREK 3 TRANSPOSER, and the owner reads this comment, or you pass it along Andy, I actually added a pedal-edge-pitch-bend (A.K.A Lowrey & Wurlitzer 'PEDAL GLIDE)' to my X66 very simply, by tapping off of the 1/2 step-lower transposer knob position. It does work about 80% as well as the Wurlitzer and Lowrey, but if you don't operate it quickly it can sound 'pitch glitchy' like a digital artifact. There is a solution...

The way the Wurlitzer achieved pedal glide on their 77'-79' 950 consoles, 625t, 630, etc.spinets, was by shifting the INITIAL MASTER 2.2 Megahertz OSCILLATOR ITSELF, preceding the various shift registers for the 12 notes. THIS IS A SMOOTH GLITCH-FREE OPERATION:)

Having both a WURLITZER 625t, it's schematics of the Master Oscillator, AND also having the TREK 3 TRANSPOSER and it's schematic of the Master Oscillator, I can relate to you that these circuits are very much the same, so it would be easy to adapt the same circuit modification to the TREK that is on the Wurlitzer. I know the TREK 3 TRANSPOSER schematic is online as an image if you do a search, and if you are interested at all in doing such a mod, I can scan my schematic of the Wurlitzer 625t. You will notice that the actual Mghz frequency is slightly different ( like 2.00Mghz for the Trek and 2.2Mghz for the Wurlitzer, but this shouldn't matter. It would be easy to change a resistor value or two to adjust the difference.

Interestingly, looking at the Trek Transposer schematic next to the Wurlitzer 625t master oscillator schematic, they are almost exactly the same, less those few parts added to the Wurlitzer for the pitch bend. In other words, a person modestly knowledgeable of circuits can isolate the exact circuit and recreate it from scratch for the Trek Transposer. There are no unique parts either btw.

As for the PEDAL EDGE MOMENTARY SWITCH AND IT'S HARDWARE, I actually salvaged one from a WURLITZER 4300 'parts organ' I acquired a few years back. The physicality of the switch is sturdy and mounted on the edge of the X66's upper left side by putting a small thickness of wood under the hollow underside of that part of the X66 expression pedal.

One thing though, on the old 64' Wurlitzer 4300's pedal glide, the switch contacts had to be modified* so that they are normally open and close upon activating the switch ( or the exact opposite of that, it's been a while since I modded it, but it did require removing the open blade type switch and doing the simple modification using common sense. OTHERWISE THE ENTIRETY OF
THE ORGANS NOTES WOULD BE 1/2 STEP LOW and depressing it would make the organ 'normal pitch'...in other words, not working correctly.

*NOTE however, this was in dealing with my TRANSPOSER KNOB pitch change. I have a strong feeling that no mod of the switch would be needed for the shifting of the actual Master Oscillator.

[gabrielmikhail]

Sponsored by HAM SANDWICH Mr HAMMONDS FAVORITE SNACK.

[andreasduda]

was für ein scheiss sound
das soll hammond sein ?