 The phrase "clonewheel" is a play on words in reference to how the original Hammond produces sound through "tonewheels".The first generation of clonewheel organs used synthesizer voices, which were not able to accurately reproduce the Hammond sound.In the 1990s and 2000s, clonewheel organs began using digitally-sampled real Hammond sounds or digital signal processing emulation techniques, which were much better able to capture the nuances of the vintage Hammond sound.