Jon Lord equipment
- Customized Hammond C-3 organ
- Yamaha DX-7 synthesizer
- Korg M1 synthesizer
- Roland piano
- 2 Leslie 122 cabinets
- 2 extra bass cabinets
The Hammond XB-2 used on the CHOHW tour was not used on the Purpendicular tour.
The above info is what I could gather from watching a video of the Moscow 1996 show. Please send me an email if you have further info on Jon's amplification and stuff.
In a couple of interviews following the release of Purpendicular Steve Morse admitted to have influenced Jon on his current organ sound:
I pushed Jon Lord to play the organ with more distortion the way he used to. We recorded it that way. I brought one of my guitar effects units and put it into his organ rig. That's what he still uses now. I programmed some effects for him. 'Cascades', for example, has a heavy organ and guitar lines like in the old days when Ritchie and Jon played a lot of triplet lines together.
Below is Roger Glover's response to someone on alt.music.deep-purple who had questions about the mystery box on Jon's Hammond in the pre-reunion days:
Subject: Re: Effect device on Jon Lords Hammond C-3 From: (BAsec5) Date: 10 Jun 1995 13:27:38 -0400
>This is something that's been puzzling me for a long time. >Since cirka 1972, Lord has had some sort of effect box on >top of his C-3. This box produces the strange noice that f. >instance can be heard on the intro to Lazy on Made in Japan >or the intro to You Fool No-one on both California Jam and >Live in London. >My question is: What precisely is this? Any ideas who make >them, what they're called etc.
The device you're referring to is a ring modulator. His one was made by
Gibson (NOT the guitar company, we think) and is no longer available,
certainly not a a 'stand alone' device. It was an ugly, square box
secured (nailed probably!) to the left side of his C3 so that his left
hand could control what he played with his right. The effect of ring
modulation is quite strange; - what one puts into it is transformed by a
process that I couldn't explain (harmonic distortion I think, maybe
someone more technically oriented could help?), but the resulting noise
bears no resemblance to the original signal, and can be 'modulated' by a
variable that the player has control of. One of the best examples of
this is on the middle section of Woman From Tokyo. I remember well the
session, I tried to get Jon to do the 'sweeps' very slowly and it worked
well. That was one complete take. He still has his 'somewhere' but it
is not an active part of his rig at the moment. These days, ring
modulation can be found as a programme on many good sound effects
modulators, or synthesizers, on the market, although the way Jon uses it -
the 'old fashioned - way, is far superior because it is more controllable.
And yes, you're right, he played it on the live tracks you mentioned.
Good luck :-)
RG