Yes you are right here, where Hammond tried to copy pipe organs, the european electronic organ manufactorers tried to copy some of the functionallity of the hammonds...but also some of the functionallity of the pipe organs (which hammond forget to copy)

And while the sound was different and certainly less expressive, the japanese decided to join the europeans (GX1 was a true beast), and they both kept adding features and features to these organs till in the end they evolved into todays arrangers, even trying to make people forget they where electronic organs one day.

Anyway, being less expressive for sure does not make them sound bad, just different. And as said before these sounds are a major part of traditional european music like schlagers and such...


all in all i think its funny to see how different our roots are, every american thinks B3 when we are talking about organs, while us europeans have a much broader view on organs.. When i envision the modern day organ i vision an instrument that has Pipe, B3, electronic, FM based, theatre and more different type of organ sounds on top of the whole arranger pallet of sounds. it has at least 2 manuals and pedals and a build in arranger accompaniment.

The orriginal B3 and its clones dont even fall in my definition of modern days electronic organs... If i mneant a B3, i would have written B3 or Hammond(clone)

This different view on things might even be the reason why Arrangers are much much more popular in europe then in the US.. To many of us an arranger is a mini organ, to you guys its just an arranger. Even now in euopre most OMBs have still 2 keys on stage, from which atleast one is an arranger, which again shows how deeply double manuall organs are routed in our minds.