horn and rotor in a leslie speaker

shaneblyth · Post by **shaneblyth** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 5:57 am

Looking for some clarification of the inner workings of a leslie speaker. Just started mucking around with the Leslies and organ sounds as I find the new Organs sounds quite inspirational. I've never really been into the B3 before so I am trying to learn the inner workings of the B3 sound.
I always thought a leslie was just a spinning speaker that you speed up and slowed down but i see there is two distinctive rotating sounds and looking at the leslie setup I see the Horn and the Rotor settings that seem to hav exactly the same settings. So how does a Leslie work is there two sets of spinning speakers? A Horn speaker and a rotor speaker ?
If someone has some insite in how this all works and how to best manipulate these settings to get good sounds. I get the basic speed acceleration deceleration settings they are straight forward.
cheers

jurason · Post by **jurason** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 8:24 am

Very good question - I am very interested in this too - I guess the guys who did the heavy lifting in the analog world will answer this.
The question reminds me, that we are very deep in the digital age.

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 9:07 am

There are two speakers, think of them as a woofer and a tweeter. The rotor is bigger and does mainly the low part of the sound, vs the horn which is quite small and produces mostly highs. As a result, the rotor is much slower to speed up or down than the horn.

As for settings, they are entirely down to taste. Going digital means you can easily experiment with settings that go a little beyond what's normally feasible. If you want realistic, the KRS-06 presets are decent, you could go from there.

shaneblyth · Post by **shaneblyth** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 9:31 am

SanderXpander wrote:There are two speakers, think of them as a woofer and a tweeter. The rotor is bigger and does mainly the low part of the sound, vs the horn which is quite small and produces mostly highs. As a result, the rotor is much slower to speed up or down than the horn.

As for settings, they are entirely down to taste. Going digital means you can easily experiment with settings that go a little beyond what's normally feasible. If you want realistic, the KRS-06 presets are decent, you could go from there.

Yes loving the KRS-06 sounds especially like Keith Emersons contributions. I found a diagram seems that the horn rotates on a stork which spins horizontally and the speaker faces outwards, the the woofer or Bass speaker stays still and faces upwards and there is some sort of physical deflector box that spins on top of it directing the sound outwards at 45 degrees. Kind of hard to describe really but quite bizarre.

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 9:43 am

I used to have an old home version of a leslie and my horn also had a "deflector box" on it. Not sure if that's common. But it doesn't really matter for the emulation parameters, does it?

robbie50 · Post by **robbie50** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 10:10 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_speaker

robbie

runningman67 · Post by **runningman67** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 1:44 pm

I was brought up with the Hammond C3 and the Leslie was an essential part of the sound.
The thing is, they were all different, like a living breathing thing. I don't know why, was it the speaker, the organ or the position of both but now and again I would play one in a club and I was like a mad wizard, the organ seemed to take over my fingers and imagination.
I don't think that you can get that energy from a digital leslie. Remember, the old Leslie cabinets with their spinning speakers, were actually physically moving air, and wow, lots of it, throwing out the sound in every direction.
Wow I'm old

those were the days

shaneblyth · Post by **shaneblyth** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 5:38 pm

runningman67 wrote:I was brought up with the Hammond C3 and the Leslie was an essential part of the sound.
The thing is, they were all different, like a living breathing thing. I don't know why, was it the speaker, the organ or the position of both but now and again I would play one in a club and I was like a mad wizard, the organ seemed to take over my fingers and imagination.
I don't think that you can get that energy from a digital leslie. Remember, the old Leslie cabinets with their spinning speakers, were actually physically moving air, and wow, lots of it, throwing out the sound in every direction.
Wow I'm old those were the days

wow thats MASSIVE!

JPROBERTLA · Post by **JPROBERTLA** » Sun Dec 08, 2013 5:05 pm

Having used a C3 and a Leslie 122 for 20 years, I don't believe there will ever be a Leslie emulation that actually does what a Leslie did. The physical horn and rotor started and stopped a different speeds and the phasing effect because of the relative positions of the rotor baffle and horn flare (the second flare was for balance and did not direct sound) was random.

That said, the digital emulations probably produce much the same phasing effect, but they do not move air like the original speaker. For a live mix, the digital emulations are probably better because they are more consistent and controllable. The greatest audible difference is for the player who typically was positioned near the Leslie and hears what it does as opposed to the sound going to the main mix which usually used 2 or 3 microphones. Also, as a Leslie aged the belts and other mechanical rotating hardware tended to wear at different rates. This effected the speed changes making them even more inconsistent than when the Leslie was new or recently lubricated and/or adjusted.

The "custom" settings in the new organ programs released a few weeks ago are about as good as its going to get. The significant advantage the digital emulations have as compare to a real Leslie is that you can tailor the duration (time) of going from slow to fast and fast to slow to meet the specific requirements of each song; you could not do that with a real Leslie. That coupled with the logistical problems of using a real Leslie and the main mis consistency, make the emulations much better, in my opinion. Hope this helps.

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:01 am

The other thing to remember is that digital sims of Leslie's are sims of miced Leslie's. With a real one the sound source is actually moving. Not staying still like stereo speakers are.

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 3:34 pm

Everytime I look at the picture I wish I had the space to put a Hammond and Leslie in my living room. Along wiht a 7 foot grand piano!

runningman67 · Post by **runningman67** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 3:41 pm

jeremykeys wrote:Everytime I look at the picture I wish I had the space to put a Hammond and Leslie in my living room. Along wiht a 7 foot grand piano!

Yes I couldn't agree more! They are living breathing beautiful monsters.

I once played. A c3 from floor level, facing the stage and two Leslie's left and right on the stage. I nearly blew the Windows, the roof off and singed my eyebrows. I was 16, thirty years later and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Never had the pleasure of playing a grand piano, it's on my bucket list

phattbuzz · Post by **phattbuzz** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 4:26 pm

There is something about playing a vintage Hammond that you just can't get from any emulation. The first time I sat in front of a Hammond and learned how to start up the motor, I was hooked. There is a lot of glorious power behind that beast!

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 7:25 pm

This is my old Hammond M-3 with my Minikorg on top.[/img]

Jambo · Post by **Jambo** » Sun Dec 15, 2013 8:17 pm

[I was brought up with the Hammond C3 and the Leslie was an essential part of the sound.
The thing is, they were all different, like a living breathing thing. I don't know why, was it the speaker, the organ or the position of both but now and again I would play one in a club and I was like a mad wizard, the organ seemed to take over my fingers and imagination.
I don't think that you can get that energy from a digital leslie. Remember, the old Leslie cabinets with their spinning speakers, were actually physically moving air, and wow, lots of it, throwing out the sound in every direction.
Wow I'm old Shocked those were the days Very Happy
]

This is an extremely accurate description. I've owned a Hammond B2 and a Leslie for over 20 years and I've played many different Hammond setups (CV, B3, A100, B2, chops all thru various Leslies) and even within two of the same models they are all amazingly different which is why the guys that use them on a national level with a crew always haul they're own instead of having them supplied. Some of them are extraordinary others are just great and there is no emulation that can take the place of the real deal. But that is primarily from the players standpoint. Once they're mic'd and going thru the FOH there's less difference.
The guitar is my primary instrument and I equate it to the same thing as the difference between a really good tube amp and an amp modeler... you can get really good sounds out of amp modeler but from the players stand point they just don't respond the same way. For inspiration, there will never be the equivalent to a 400 lb Hammond coupled with a 250 lb Leslie... but at 53 yrs of age doing weekend gigs with a questionable back, hauling the "Beast" isn't in the cards for me. The Kronos is the closest thing which is why I got it.