Question on "IKTAA" Organ Overdub

[Stephen W. Desper]

COMMENT:

Whatever the organ is at 12:32 is is a crappy recording and an obvious edited insert. It sounds like any electronic organ to me and not an acoustic reed organ.

I learned to play a keyboard when in grade school by playing the reed organ in our family home. When it would break I would fix it, so I'm well acquainted with these old instruments.

I am very familiar with the reed organ Brian recorded and have recorded it several times. It was featured on A Day in the Life of a Tree).

The pump-reed organ pictured with Carl is NOT the organ Brian recorded -- at least in the house studio. Brian used a rented reed organ of 19th century vintage from Studio Instrument Rental (( http://www.sir-usa.com/ )), a large rental firm that supplies studios with any kind of instrument needed -- from tune-able gongs to pipe organs, whistles to ten-foot marching drums, and every make and model of guitar you can imagine. The reed organ we rented was converted to a motor driven bellows.

In the photo at 12:32, the buttons showing under the keys are not stops (another pipe organ term meaning, it stops the flow of air over a pipe or set of pipes), rather they are "preset buttons" that combine any number of stops to activate when pushed.

About the Hammond drawbars . . .  Each is a slider switch that you pull out. Each drawbar is driven by a lightwheel within the organ itself. Each drawbar has detentes of one to eight (I believe). The drawbars are arranged in sets that represent musically related harmonics making up a complete sound. By pulling out the drawbars you can specify the tonality of the note you are playing. Example: Drawbar one is the fundimental tone, Drawbar Two is the third harmonic, Drawbar three is the fifth harmonic, Drawbar four is the seventh harmonic (I think), and the next few drawbars repeat the harmonics only an octave higher -- and so on. 

About the Hammond percussion stop . . .  This stop, which is actually a set of switches, works in combination with one set of drawbars. Depending on how far out you pull the drawbars (1-8 clicks) you can adjust the ratio of tone to percussion. Thus, if you don't pull out any drawbars, you only can hear the percussion sound, which sounds somewhat like a xylophone (metal bars). If you rotate a Lesley speaker and just play the percussion sound, it sounds somewhat like a vibraphone. So if you combine the drawbars set to 1, 2, or 3 (a low volume setting) with the percussion, it can fool you into thinking it's an organ and a vibraphone.

~swd

[c-man]

I think the photo of Carl with the Packard harmonium organ is from the studio in Holland. Not 100% sure, but I think so.

[Ebb and Flow]

Wow - that's amazing, guys! Based on the isolation provided at 12:22 in the video above, I think it safe to say it's "organ only". And, the reediness evident in that isolated track does make me think "harmonium rather than Hammond". On the finished product, it sounds like the "highs" have been tweaked via EQ, but here it sounds more "flat" and "reedy". What was your source for the isolation?

I'm the author of those videos and the source for the organ audio there is from the SOT Pet Sounds box, which is essentially a haphazard dump of the multis.  I think I used the vocal track from another track on there to pan the organ out and further isolate it, which is why it sounds a little phasey.

Here's another question related to "IKTAA" - Glen Campbell's banjo overdub appears twice in the song: during the bass harmonica solo, and again during the tag. Does anyone think that there's also a woodwind part on the same track as the banjo in the tag? To me, listening to the stereo mix, it kinda seems like a prominent clarinet line might be doubled on the same track as the banjo, but the separation isn't profound enough for me to tell for sure. The reason I suspect this is that both Glen and Steve Douglas were paid a full hour of overtime on that recording date, and they're the only two musicians who were (engineer Chuck Britz also was - but the other players only got a half-hour of OT)...Glen's extra half-hour of OT is obviously because he stayed behind after the others were dismissed and played that banjo overdub part. I hear no woodwind during the solo, but during the tag, not only do I hear the clarinets (and likely alto flutes) from the basic track, but as I said, possibly another clarinet on the banjo track, doubling the main clarinet part from the basic track. Anyone else hear that? Is it possible to isolate the banjo track during the tag?

The full banjo track can be heard in the far right channel on the SOT Pet Sounds box also on the track labeled "Take 12 Master Take".  The first part of the song Glen can be heard tuning up and practicing.  From what I can hear there's nothing else on that track but the banjo.

[c-man]

I think the photo of Carl with the Packard harmonium organ is from the studio in Holland. Not 100% sure, but I think so.

In fact, the Packard may have been used on the Holland cut "California Saga, Part Three: California". If you listen to the very end of that song, you can hear the organ and Moog bass pretty much by themselves for a second or so, and I think the organ sounds "reedy" enough there to tell us that may be the case.