Leslie Speaker Experience

Back in the very late 60’s and early 70’s I actually hung with more than one Hammond player who actually used their Leslie speaker units for Music reproduction in their rooms(they always lived in rooming houses for some reason). Anyone out there done the same and if so do you remember the sound?

 

I think it sounded kinda warbly!

 

A good friend of mine in mid 70's had a b3 with a giant leslie with the motorized tweeter that he sometimes played music through. It had a unique sound which was perfect with the Hammond not so much with music though.

 

That sounds like a crazy idea. The Leslie was famous of course for mechanically rotating speakers that are used to create that characteristic warbling sound. Also, some of the old tube model Leslie's could deliver a great gritty overdriven distortion. Great for organ players (I used to gig with a little solid state Leslie which just had a rotating cone that a woofer fired into, not the full rotating horn), but I would think you could do a lot better with purpose build cabinets and crossovers and cleaner amps for hifi. And I'm not sure what you'd have to do to get accurate HF performance and dispersion for home hifi out of a Leslie built for rotating HF horns, even if you turn the rotating motor off.

 

I hear ya but these were pro musicians and worried more about where their next feed of rice and beans was coming from than buying audio speakers. I just always ended up being caught in the middle.

 

I have a Leslie 21H speaker. It has the 30 watt amp, (32H Series III), and I've converted it to be a 2 speed unit, like the later 122 model. I've got it attached to a Hammond C2 organ, but I've run my phone through the RCA input that is on the swell capacitor box that is inside the organ. I think it was meant for a mono turntable, or perhaps a microphone to play with or through the organ

The sound is very, "spacy", when I played music through it. "Unforgettable", by Nat King Cole, sounded pretty cool through it, as I recall. Echoey, kinda haunting when played in the slow mode.

I believe Pink Floyd put instruments and some vocals through a Leslie. On DSOTM, I believe the background singers are run through one. You can hear their vocals "spinning" up and slowing down.

 

The sound is very, "spacy"

So were we.

 

With those units equipped with the "Combo Preamp", it was an easy way to feed a guitar into it. Nice effect.

Most famous vocals through a Leslie would probably be "Tomorrow Never Knows" by The Beatles. Another nice effect.

 

My first experience with a Leslie speaker was when I was a college student who was on vacation in Miami FL with my girl friend on New Years Eve (circa 1974 or 1975 IIRC).

We went to a restaurant/night club somewhere in Miami Beach and Bill Pinkney and The Original Drifters were the entertainment.

The organist had a Leslie speaker built into his bench. He used a pedal to control the RPM of the Leslie speaker. Kinda fascinated me.

Great show!

 

The guitar break in Cream’s “Badge”, assuming that is a Leslie, is a great example. Also, Frampton uses one quite a bit in his live rig.

 

we used to go see a local band back in the day that had a guitar player who would play some songs through the organists leslie........very interesting.

 

The Leslie speaker doesn't so much produce a warbling tone but more of a come and go effect. Not all Leslies were multi-speed and the regular or lower speed turns fairly slowly. At a higher speed it is more like batting at the sound. The warbling effect is produced by the vibrato and is there whether or not a Leslie is used. Because a Hammond B3 has no internal speaker(s), external speakers must be used. The B3 does have an internal pre-amp and often uses the Leslie's power amp. The overdriven sound is from using the amplification at near peak and not so much a rotating horn.
Inside the Leslie, though it looks like there are two treble horns, one side is blanked off and only used for weight balance. The bass or main driver speaker fires down into a rotating baffle with one side blanked off, enhancing the come and go effect.
Just as electric guitar players prefer amps driven by 6L6 tubes, they also realize a different effect playing through a Leslie. Your basic Leslie wasn't quite loud enough for amplifying guitars in large concert halls. Leslie responded with introducing the Pro-line solid-state amps with 100W 3-channel amps. Many amps are the push-pull type and utilize a pair of 6L6 tubes per channel. Using different brands of tubes can tailor the sound.
I remember attending one of the Rolling Stones' "Bigger Bang" concerts and they were using 3 of the largest Leslie-type speakers I've ever seen.

 

Your explanation is spot on and is known as "the Doppler Effect". That one active horn (of the two in the array) spinning toward and then away from you is what is achieving the effect. The same applies for the lower baffle.

By definition, Doppler effect is a change in frequency and wavelength of a wave. It is caused by the change in distance between the thing creating the wave (causer) and whatever is measuring seeing or hearing the wave (watcher or observer). Another word for "causer" is "sender".