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Is there a good Leslie speaker pedal out there?


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Leslie actually released their own pedal a while back, but there are easily half a dozen rotating speaker pedals on the market...

EHX, Strymon, Keeley, Fulltone, Hotone, Digitech...google rotating speaker pedals, you will find plenty!

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Frampton used actual Leslies as did George Harrison. Cant beat the real thing.

 

Back in the 70's I used to own a Maestro Phaser which would ramp up and down in speed like a Leslie. I used to love slowing the thing down at the end of a song during a crescendo. Its tone wasn't very deep however.

 

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As a cheap alternative I bought one of those Dan Electro Rocky Road pedals.

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It worked well enough and even had adjustable preamp drive which gives it the growl of a Leslie tube amp.

 

The pedal was so friggin small though. Working the buttons with your foot was near impossible unless you were barefoot and you used your big toe.

 

The pedal had just enough room to drill a hole in the side and install a stereo plug so I wired in a two way external jack and use an external pedal for it. The one button switches between high and low speed rotation and the other bypasses the pedal. Works like a champ and I didn't have to bust my wallet on a more expensive version.

 

 

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The old Roland Phase Five doesn't claim to be a Leslie Speaker pedal but has a very useful, musical sound and it does speed up and slow down when switching between fast and slow.

 

It also has an adjustable Touch Control that allows the player to control the speed with picking intensity.

 

Definitely worth checking out if you can find one...

 

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Boss makes one in their large-format "double pedal" style.

 

In a previous musical life, I played a lot of organ, and can tell you hearing a REAL Leslie speaker is a fantastic experience, as the sound swirls around the room. No pedal or stereo recording of it can really do it justice, in my opinion.

 

If you're on a budget, a phaser pedal can often get a "close enough for rock'n'roll" sound of a Leslie speaker.

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Boss makes one in their large-format "double pedal" style.

 

In a previous musical life, I played a lot of organ, and can tell you hearing a REAL Leslie speaker is a fantastic experience, as the sound swirls around the room. No pedal or stereo recording of it can really do it justice, in my opinion.

 

If you're on a budget, a phaser pedal can often get a "close enough for rock'n'roll" sound of a Leslie speaker.

 

 

The first time I plugged into an actual rotary speaker it was incredible. The sound bounces around and come at you from all directions.

 

Since we have all heard stereo recordings of rotary speakers, a stereo emulation device may well produce an acceptable effect.

 

 

I really like the slow speed 'watery' sound of the intro guitar and the fast speed 'stabs' from the rhythm guitar bits in this recording.

 

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Rotary speaker emulations are difficult because there's so much going on with a real Leslie speaker.

 

First there's two elements - the rotating horn, and then the rotating drum. A crossover at 800Hz splits the signal, with the lows going to the drum, and the highs to the horn.

 

The horn and drum are different in size and mass, and so they accelerate and decelerate at different rates. They also spin at different rates once they're up to speed. All of that leads to exceptionally complex interactions, especially when "ramping up" or down. Phase and Doppler shifts, amplitude variations and the sound bouncing off the room surfaces all come into play. And then there's the tube amp inside and the way they overdrive and crunch up and add to the sound... all of that makes it a really complicated beast to try to emulate.

 

I went into a bit more detail about how they work and their various quirks in the article I wrote on how to mic a Leslie speaker if anyone's interested in checking it out...

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… I went into a bit mre detail about how they work and their various quirks in the article I wrote on how to mic a Leslie speaker if anyone's interested in checking it out...

 

Great article Phil. I like the foam baffles that are placed behind the mics in the pictures.

"Ask any ten engineers where to place a mic, and you're bound to get ten different answers."

 

I would be inclined to ask Alan Parsons. I really like the recorded Leslie sounds on Abbey Road and Dark Side of the Moon.

 

Just for a lark, have a listen to 'Sun King' and imagine it without the vocals.

 

 

 

 

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Great article Phil. I like the foam baffles that are placed behind the mics in the pictures.

"Ask any ten engineers where to place a mic, and you're bound to get ten different answers."

I would be inclined to ask Alan Parsons. I really like the recorded Leslie sounds on Abbey Road and Dark Side of the Moon.

 

Just for a lark, have a listen to 'Sun King' and imagine it without the vocals.

 

 

 

 

I love Leslies on guitars! In fact, the use of one on Abbey Road in so many places is one of the (many, many) reasons I love that album so much! :philthumb: But minor point - he was just the tape op on Abbey Road - the engineers were Geoff Emerick and Phil McDonald, although I'm sure Alan's approach to miking a Leslie speaker (as heard on DSOTM) was learned from working with them.

 

I'll see if I can break out my copy of Recording The Beatles and see if it has the particulars on their approach to miking one up in there, and if so, I'll report back with the specifics.

 

 

 

PS Thanks for the kind words about the article... :0

 

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Back about 45 years ago I built my own miniature Leslie cab from an old turntable and a car speaker mounted in a small box. Its actually quite simple and I'm thinking about building another for recording.

 

What you need is one of the old stackable LP type turntables which have the tall spindle. You remove the tone arm so it isn't in the way, then you drill a hold in the speaker box and set it on the spindle. You need to drill the hole where the box will be balanced when the box spins so the hole will be closer towards the speaker. You can use a counterweight on the back panel if needed.

 

Next you find a thin piece of copper tubing. I used a piece of gas pipe which is thin and flexible and soldered one of the speaker wires to it then slipped that over the spindle. You then use the turntables frame ground for the speakers negative signal which passes up through the spindle and the electrical contact is made through the copper tubing which spins freely on the shaft. You need to use conductive grease to maintain a contact without arching. A ball bearing might do the job too. I think I used a spring between the coupling and box to maintain positive pressure on the coupling too.

 

For the other contact, I drilled a hole in the top of the box, soldered the wire to a flat piece of copper and screwed it down in place. For the other speaker contact I simply used a cost hanger with a hook and centered it with pressure on the plate and connected the other speaker wire to it.

 

The turntable had 16/33/78RPM speeds so I could get the speaker to rotate at different speeds. I later used an old sewing machine pedal which had resistors to raise and lower the AC motor speed. A simple Dimmer switch might work but it uses zero crossing which might not work with a straight AC motor.

 

The results I got were actually pretty good. I did have to clean the electrical contacts every so often to prevent static but it definitely gave me that leslie sound, especially when you cranked the small speaker up to where it was distorting.

 

If I build another I'd likely use a dual contact plate on top with carbonized brushes. I have access to those kinds of parts at work. My company services mechanical gear that uses those kinds of electrical contacts. It would be easy to rig up.

 

The speaker being spun is different then a rotating drum and stationary speaker. The size of the speaker is a big factor. A computer monitor might be ideal for recording. Its small, has a wide frequency response and it would be easy to modify. The amp would need to be external however.

 

What would be really easy would be a battery powered wireless speaker. Then you wouldn't even need to provide the electrical contacts.

 

Something like this Bose Bluetooth would be ideal - all you need is a rotation device like a Turntable. You wont need the spindle, just some Velcro. .

 

Stick this

 

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On top of this and mic it and you have an instant Leslie. The tone arm and record arm can be removes and the spindle hack sawed off flush with the turntable, Velcro the speaker and away you go.

 

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What would be really easy would be a battery powered wireless speaker. Then you wouldn't even need to provide the electrical contacts.

 

Or even better yet, why not just use the turntable to rotate a directional baffle, and mount the speaker in a fixed position? That's the way a real Leslie works, and you don't have to worry about conductive grease or any of the electro-mechanical issues that come with trying to rotate the driver itself. :idea::)

 

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That Bose I posted is a wireless, battery operated, blue tooth. All you need to di is spin it in front of a mic while feeding it a signal and you got an instant mini Leslie.

 

Leslies for Keys use a spinning horn with a fixed driver as well as a rotating drum for the woofer. The guitar tones really need both to get the best sound.

 

There have been others like the Fender Vibratone which only use a speaker. Not sure how great they sound without the horn. The Hammond amps were a big part of that sound too. They would overdrive with a strong preamp signal from the keyboards and give them that driven reed tone.

 

If I ever played in an ideal band it would be with a Hammond organ player. So many of the bands I played with growing up from Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple, Bloodrock, Doors, Tull, ELP, Allman Brothers, Winwood and dozens of others. Playing through one is cool but given the choice I'll take a key player that has that gear ( especially if he can move it himself - those sucker are Heavy as hell)

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