Hammond M-solo British Racing Green drawbar organ/synth

General

We know the old Hammond B3 mainly as a legendary tonewheel organ that made a name for itself in genres such as prog-rock, jazz and gospel. Its reputation was as big as its weight, those were the days! It was better to just leave it where it was and not carry it around. Nowadays, fortunately, things have become a lot more compact. Not that Hammond no longer builds large organs, but there are now compact digital organs available that sound very convincing. The Hammond M-solo for example, how compact do you want it to be?

Features of the Hammond M-solo

So, in terms of size, it is a shadow of what the B3 once was, but the M-solo is fun to perform on again. At 49 keys, it's a breath of fresh air by any means, but thankfully under the hood it's a lot less compact. The drawbars you had already seen, of course, that's the whole magic of this type of instrument. There are six sound groups these drawbars work with. To start with, there are four organ groups, based on four popular organs of the old days: B-3, Vox, Farfisa and Acetone. For that group, the drawbars naturally form the organ stops. The next group embraces a string machine with chorus. This is not a thick cinematic orchestra, but the classic string/vocoder machines you had back then. There again, registers are available there, male and female, and attack and release. The last group is about the synthesiser. it's in there too! It's basic, but for a lot of stage keyboardists it's enough. They are not going to spend an hour making all kinds of exotic sounds. Oscillator, filter, envelope, and just play.

Effects

Of course, a Leslie cannot be missing, so it's there too (digitally). Also present: vibrato and chorus, which is quite nice for pad sounds you make with the strings section, for instance. Anything else? Definitely: overdrive and delay/reverb. For such a compact device, there's a lot on it, and they are also exactly the things a keyboardist needs. Because what would have been the point of making something that is only small, it just has to sound good and have decent capabilities. Well: the M-solo is exactly that, one that you could put on top of a piano, for instance. In short, a real Hammond that you take under your arm, and the bands' keyboard players are delighted!

• Note: limited edition for this colour; gone = gone.