Kon Zissis

Kon Zissis ( born in 1971 ) is a Hammond tone wheel organ organ and Leslie enthusiast from Melbourne Australia . He is an amateur, self taught audio electronics tinkerer who is very interested in the intricasies of what makes Hammonds and Leslies sound great and because of his many years of working on his own small collection of console and spinet organs he has learned how to repair, modify and customize Hammond organs and Leslies.

Kon's restoration and modification work on his Hammond organs includes replacing the aged wax paper capacitors with new capacitors and recalibrating the tone wheel generators to produce a smooth and fat sound, replacing the most important capacitors and resistors in the AO28 preamps, adding switchable tonal modifications to the AO28 preamps and the L-100 series organ preamp, extensively modifying the solid state preamplifier in his XTP organ and a friend's T-100 organ, removing and dissassembling the manuals and removing all traces of the black foam in his 1963 L-102 and his 1965 C3 and a studio owned 1965 L-122 organ and repairing hundreds of foam damaged resistance wires in his 1965 C3, and cleaning the busbars,

Kon is knowlegeable about and experienced with tone wheel generator recalibration and he has compiled a large spreadsheet containing the measured TG output levels of over ninety Hammond organs including organs from the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's.

Kon is the designer of the ?ProfKon ZD-1 overdrive unit for the Hammond console organs with the balanced GG outputs including the models A, AB, AV, A-100 series, B, BC, BCV, BV, B2, B3, C, CV, C2, C3, C3G, D, DV, D-150 series, E, EV, G, K, RT, RT2 and RT3 which is currrently being manufactured by the Melbourne, Australia based manufacturer called "Audio K".

Kon has also designed and built a 12AX7 based EQ/Overdrive unit for the Hammond organ models A-100 series, B2, B3, C2, C3, C3G, RT2 and RT3 and this tube based overdrive unit will also be built by the manufacturer "Audio K".

Kon's favourite Hammond organ style is the grand gothic sounding Hammond/ Leslie sound from the late 1960's / early 1970's Heavy Rock / Heavy Metal/ Progressive Rock/ Krautrock / Psychedelic Rock / Blues Rock music styles and some of Kon's favourite organists include: Jon Lord ( Deep Purple ) , Ken Hensley ( Uriah Heep ), Peter Hecht ( Asterix, Lucifer's Friend), Tony Kaye ( early Yes ), Gregg Rollie ( early Santana ), Gary Wright ( Spooky Tooth ) , Rod Argent ( Argent ), Czeslaw Niemen, Steve Walsh ( Kansas ), John Paul Jones ( Led Zeppelin ), Keith Emerson, Ray Vanderby (Cosmic Nomads), Ian Mclagan ( The Small Faces , The Faces ), Mathew Fisher and Chris Copping ( Procol Harum).

Kon also enjoys listening to the Blues /Funk / Jazz organists such as Dr Lonnie Smith, Brian Auger, Booker T Jones, Jimmy Smith , ?Jack McDuff etc.

Apart fgrom the Hammonds and Leslies, Kon is also into electric guitars and vintage tube amplifiers of the 1950's, 60's and 70's and he is into the sound and the look of the Gibson electric guitars such as the Les Pauls,the ES-345, the ES-335, the Flying V and the SG and the classic valve guitar amplifiers such as the old Marshalls , Fenders , Vox and Hiwattt amplifiers.