I am a veteran recording engineer, and I am SO glad to see you verify what I knew all along, that only one of the top cones actually produces sound - the other is merely a counterbalance. This completely changes the way you mic a Leslie for stereo - you want to put one mic 180-degrees away from the other mic (on opposite sides). So many engineers used to mic Leslies with the mics at 90-degrees, and very few of them believed me when I told them that was incorrect, but they believed both horns were putting out sounds. I figured it out one day when I looked inside our Leslie (every studio had a B3 with Leslie in the 1980s) and tried to listen to both horns one at a time. I discovered one was completely covered deep inside just by looking at it.
@@notesl5576 not to sound like a butthole, but remember their designed to sound good while being as loud as humanly possible because of the lack of amazing PA systems back then
Back in high school, (Class of '70) , the music department had a B-3 and four Leslie speakers. Mr. Baker would have them set up in the auditorium on a permanent basis. At times he would go in and practice, playing some classical stuff, but most times he would rock out. Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Booker T & MG's Procol Harem, and the list is endless. His ending was the solo from Santana's "Soul Sacrifice ". He was a talented and gifted musician. Any rock band in the know, had a B-3.
The great thing was that the Leslie made ANYTHING plugged into it exponentially better. Voice, guitar, keyboards, even drums were enhanced so much. Ahead of its time.
Hi James, I used to repair these. The upper speaker was called a pressure unit because the voice coil fed directly into the cone. You are correct in assuming that the drum is baffled. From memory I believe it was in the shape of a scoop. The small model you mentioned was the 145. Some Leslies (can't remember the model numbers) had another socket at the bottom so that you could link up more than one Leslie cabinet. See you video brought back happy memories so thanks for that.
I had a Hammond C-3 (that was manufactured in the late 70's) with a 122(RV) Leslie speaker (that was also manufactured in the late 70's) for decades in my home. What a fantastic instrument & speaker! I ended-up having to down-size & sold them to a church. Of course, they were thrilled to purchase them as they were in super-great condition. I now have a Hammond Colonnade organ.... all self-contained with the Leslie inside the organ console. It has a great sound as well. Great vid from James there explaining the function of the Leslie Speaker!
used to hate dragging this beast around to the club back in the early 70s but what an amazing sound. always imitated but never duplicated. guitar or keyboard this made them all sound incredible.
Don originally did have the single driver powering both horns but found the effect to be much more pronounced when only one horn was projecting. Doppler shift and tremolo is such an acoustic marvel with this cabinet, it really has to be heard in person. The "goose bumps" are worth it!
Just the thought of it makes me tired. I love the idea of a real B3 in the studio, but on location I might be looking for options unless there are Roadies.
James nice demo, and i remember when, i toured with Uriah heep and we were known for that B3/LESLIE speaker sound like on stealin and Phil the awesome keyboard player that he was, had a leslie on each side of the drums and one was set at medium speed and the other was set at a slower speed and he would use a tube screamer on one to get that raunchy distorted sound on the medium speed leslie, his other leslie was set on a slower speed and both were in stereo in front of the house !!!! Awesome stuff and he had his hammond chopped so it did not weigh as much for his tech to carry and also chopped the leslie !!!!
WOW!! That is the most pristine Leslie cabinet that I’ve ever seen the inside of! And the mechanics with the cone diffusers spinning seems almost like the whole cabinet was made yesterday, so smooth and super fast without any asymmetry! That’s got to be one of the closest to original and newest if not the best one around. I had no idea that wheel had cloth over it originally. THANKS FOR SHARING THIS!
Great video about one of my favorite pieces of music gear. As someone who has owned and repaired these things for years, let me respond to a couple of your requests for info, and add some details: - Yes, Laurens Hammond hated the Leslie Speaker from the start. The very first thing that Don Leslie did was to offer the invention to Hammond, in return for a job at the Hammond Organ Co. His offer was declined. Hammond claimed that he heard no difference between the V3 vibrato on a B-3 and a Leslie on fast. - Those slots to let the sound out are called 'louvres.' - Under the scrim cloth around your drum rotor is a curved scoop that coverts the downward sound from the woofer in a sideways direction. The scoop is made of very light plywood, and usually has a bolt and nut somewhere around the circle with one or more washers, used to balance the rotor in the same way car tires are balanced. - That 'purple tube' is a rectifier, which adds to the sound of the Leslie because as lots of notes are played at high volumes, the output sags, compressing the signal a bit. - In an indoor setting, the amplifier is plenty loud for most uses. In large halls or outdoors, however, it was considered way underpowered. Most rock and blues bands of the '60s and '70s used multiple Leslies on stage -- often as many as 8 or 10 of them! - If one has two Leslies connected, a very lush sound can be had if the Leslies spin at slightly different speeds. The horn (top) rotor has three pulley settings; most Leslies use the middle/medium setting. Setting a pair with one on medium and one on low (or high) sounds awesome!
I have a Hammond that was actually sold with a reverb unit inside of it, my mom bought it new. I really like your video. As an electrical engineer, I deal with many frequencies from audio to microwave , but the way that Hammond creates the tones is great, and another great thing is that they never need to be tuned. I came to visit my mom once and found that her Hammond wouldnt make a single sound not even the spin up... I turned it off and found that the tone bar generator had seized from sitting and from not being used or having no maintenance done on it. I immediately went through it cleaned the dust from it and oiled all of the bearings by hand, it wasnt long before I heard the awesome sound of the tone bar generator , spinning up and the organ came to life, thanks for your videos on the Hammond B3 and the Leslie speaker. Unfortunately I dont have a leslie speaker cabinet, but I know how to build one and how it works. The tube that you like is the high voltage regulator . I hope you have spare tubes for your amp because most companies dont make tubes any more, they are like chicken lips to find.... again, thanks for an awesome video!
Utterly fascinating. Now I know how the sound was generated in my most favourite of all time songs ... Time is Tight by Booker T. & The MG's. I used to play it constantly in my youth and never fails to give me a buzz when I hear it. Thank You for video. Most appreciated 👍
Wow, fantastic look inside. I’ve heard about these and always thought it was such a strange way to process sound. Amazing that it works so well. The spin up is iconic...like an old radio drama!
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. My late dad (Mike Taylor) was a popular jazz musician back in the sixties and seventies on the west coast had the two speaker set up. I recall as a kid gazing into the back and being fascinated with all the moving parts. That is, when he had it home and not at the club, to work on it. He not only being a great musician was into electronics and built his own amplifiers.
Well done young man. That is a beautiful, well preserved Leslie. Most of my favorite classic rock bands of the late 60's had these, along with many blues bands. In my opinion, they were as important as the drums, guitars and bass, and maybe even more important. The only other instrument that intrigues me more is the Mellotron, used by early King Crimson and more popularly by the Moody Blues. Oh, and I love the Fender Rhodes Piano.
Don Leslie's speakers DO make the organ sound. What that sound is, is in the hearing of the audience. In my (never to be) humble opinion, the Hammond NEEDS the Leslie! steve
The Chorale setting ive always thought sounded good:) theres speeding up of a tremelo, the slowing down.....but have you ever heard the chorusing effect an OLD Leslie mskes whos belts and brakes are a bit worn?.. It takes it longer to slow from at speed... to slow....and it sounds really cool !!
My brother in law, who co-owned a recording studio/instrument/music in general need shop, showed me a Leslie speaker, once, I think you may have liked. It had three speakers mounted on a rod that ran across, rather than up and down, so the speakers would be bottom, toward you, up, then back. It had four speeds in the rotation. One would be stationary. The second, all in a line, going around like the cones you showed, the three speakers would divide by 1/3, so it was varied, and, the fourth speed, the inner speaker would rotate slow, the middle speaker would rotate medium and the outer speaker would rotate fast, with varying degrees in the speed for which they spun. It was beautiful to listen to.
Yamaha made a guitar amp that worked in the way you describe David, it was about the size of a Fender twin with three elliptical speakers inside spinning on a rod. I never owned one, but they sounded similar to a Leslie cabinet. S www.redtapemusic.biz
Sounds like a Yamaha. I have only seen one but they had a knob to vary the speed, with a complicated electronic circuit to drive the only motor. Weirder yet was the ear shaped Styrofoam "coned" bass speaker. Slow chorale speed simulated the sound of pipes. The fast speed is no accident. It is about 7 hertz. Which is the frequency of a human made vibrato, weather voice or instrumental. Leslie didn't mess around with any other speeds.
On my last year of high school(80-81) my music teacher owned one of those organs with 2 Leslie speakers and he set them up in the auditorium for the school harmony concert. While the stage was being setup he tested the organ by playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. That is an experience I will remember all my life.
jeez i just moved an m3 into my basement and that thing is not moving for a long time. I couldn't imagine gigging with it lol no thanks ill just use a digital organ and small leslie solid state
Thanks, James, you were right when you said there is not much content out there on the Leslie. Thanks for preserving this info by putting it out there for people who are unfamiliar to see and for us nostalgic old guys to revisit. It is gratifying to see a young person taking an interest in the topic, although one might expect that lots of younger folks who appreciate music from the earlier age of jazz and rock would know about this, I have met very few who have any idea what a Leslie Tone Cabinet is. (I believe that "tone cabinet" is a more proper name than "speaker.") Most any serious jazz or rock organ player in the 50s to 80s would have played a Hammond and a Leslie, and it was indeed one of the most dreaded combinations of equipment to carry up and down the stairs at a venue. If anyone wonders why they typically had a beautiful and delicate cherry or walnut finished cabinet instead of the typical black heavy duty exterior, think about it... it's an organ accessory. Before these were being used by jazz and rock musicians, they were being used in churches and funeral homes! They were designed to look like fine furniture, not like industrial equipment. Despite all the incredible electronics and digital instruments that have been invented and refined since the era of the Leslie, the sound can NEVER be duplicated for a couple of reasons. 1 - The sound will always be unique to the precise placement of the Leslie Tone Cabinet in its environment. It sounds different in a large venue than a small venue, and within any given venue it will sound different if it is placed close to a wall or in the middle of a room. It relies on physically bouncing the sound around the room - it's not only the warbling doppler effect of the spinning horns, but the reflection of the treble tones off the walls and ceilings in the live venue that give the ultimate effect. 2 - The specific tube amplifier built into the cabinet will have a different sound than a solid state amp or even a modern tube amp. The immortal sound of jazz, blues, rock, and even gospel players on the Hammond/Leslie combo of yesteryear will eventually exist only on record and in the memories of older listeners. It's not a matter of "they don't make 'em like they used to" so much as nobody's making them at all, and the original technology is obsolete... like the Stradavarius.
I use to repair the blueprint machine in the Engineering Dept at Hammond Organ on Diversey Ave in Chicago in the early 80's. I will always remember this "Marty McFly" type older genius guy in a white lab coat showing me some "cool stuff" he was working on whenever I was in the shop. I was too young to know to ask him anything. Regrets.
The world famous legendary Hammond was on Diversey Ave. and the equally world famous legendary Shure sits next to railroad tracks and across the street from Meinke Garden Center in Niles. So funny if you are familiar with these areas.
I still remember the time I saw Lee Michaels perform in the last 1960s. Just Michaels on Hammond B3 organ connected to Leslie speakers, Lee's vocals with Barry "Fosty" Smith on drums. God what a beautiful, soulful sound they made! I believe Lee Michaels was one of the first to chop a Hammond B3 and Leslie speakers to make them easier to move on the road.
The spinning horn assembly in the top of the cabinet is called the Upper Rotor. As you say, one of the horns is a dummy, for balance only. The "speaker" below the horn assembly is called a "horn driver," and it will be a Jensen model V-21 or V-22. The bass speaker is *not* mounted on anything besides a wooden baffle; the lower rotor has a curved panel on a 45-degree slope which directs the sound outward. The lower rotor is covered with cloth, which keeps it from making swishing noises as it rotates. The slots where the sound exits the cabinet are called "louvers." Most organists remove the top and lower backs (removing the middle back would be foolish, as it is part of the tuned woofer enclosure) and then point the back of the cabinet at the audience. Also, many organists prefer to remove the sound deflectors which are in the openings of the rotary horn assembly (easily done with a soldering iron to melt the plastic), which increases the treble output. The "little brother" to your 122 is the model 142, in which all the components are identical with the exception of the cabinet, which is about 8 inches shorter. (The 142 has a bit less bass response than the 122.) The motor assemblies each consist of TWO motors, one for the slow ("Chorale") speed and one for the fast ("Tremolo") speed. The "slow" motor drives the "fast" motor by means of a spring-loaded shaft which engages a rubber drive tire on the bottom of the fast motor. There are a total of FOUR motors in a 122 - two fast, two slow. MOST organists leave their volume controls set on 10, all the time. Your Leslie may be "loud" in the tiny room you have it in now, but it'll get eaten up fairly rapidly in a nightclub full of partying people. You will note that (for instance) the Allman Brothers (who I have done work for, back in the day) used TWO Leslies, and they were *always* turned up to 10. A Leslie is only 40 watts RMS, which ain't much when you have to fight a drummer who uses telephone poles for sticks, and a guitarist with a 100-watt Marshall or a Twin Reverb. Also, running the volume tab on the B-3 in the "soft" position cuts some of the treble - again, not something you want to do in a live band situation. The cloth-covered thing in the bottom of the cabinet which spins is called the Lower Rotor. The only thing in a Leslie which can correctly be called a "baffle" is the board that the bass speaker is mounted on. A lot of organists *remove* the cloth from the lower rotor, which gives a tiny (but noticeable) increase near the crossover frequency, which is 800 Hz. Service manuals and schematics for both the B-3 and the 122 are available online - try theaterorgans.com, or search for "Captain Foldback."
My grandmother's friend had one of these in her apartment. She had to keep the volume fairly low due to her neighbors. Of course, I got a peek at the spinning horns through the vent holes. Thanks for the great video, sir.
VERY INFORMATIVE! My late father played with various jazz bands, and explained the difficulties of assisting his fellow musicians with their organs to and from gigs in venues. Years later, at an OJs concert, I got quite up close and personal with the Leslie speaker (it almost deafened me with the rest of the speaker setup for the show). Your knowledge is quite extensive, and your presentation is quite professional ( though casual). I will refer others to your video sessions. Thank you!
The Leslie is an incredible invention. You can play pedal steel through it. Roy Buchanan used to play his Telecaster through one. Ronnie Montrose would you use 5 of them in series to get guitar effects. I worked in a recording studio growing up and we had one. It's an incredible sound effect. They make electronics that model the effect of a Leslie, but it's not the same. A Leslie provides a rotational Doppler effect. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I want one. The Hammond B3 is a very classic sound, and the Leslie is part of that.
The revolving doppler shifts are what makes the sound unique because the frequency continuously shifts up then down then up again that's why it is so difficult to emulate it. As the horn/trumpet/(what ever you want to call it) rotates twords you the frequency of the sound rises, and as it rotates away from you the frequency sounds as if it is falling, its is all a sound effect.
Note on connecting Multiple Leslies......The skating rink where I grew up had Leslie speakers mounted several around the entire rink, spaced maybe 10 feet apart. All connected to a Hammond B3. It was GREAT! I wish I could recall how many of them there were, had to be dozen or more.
Using 2 Leslies is also a conventional stage setup, but while one is up top on the stage, probably with its back open to show the revolving parts, the second is down below the stage, isolated and miked up for the main audio systems.
Rocco, do you remember what skating rink it was? I played in rinks 100 x 200 skating floor. We used the old Large Stationary Hammond speakers and they sounded great, but I always wondered how Leslies would sound. I figured there would be way too much reverb. I am Hammond and Leslie dealer for all of Indiana and other situations.
This brought back memories of when I was a teen and my mom bought a used B-3 with the taller Leslie speaker about 1963. Part of the deal was my sis and I got several lessons in "pop" organ from the previous owner (my mother was a piano teacher in the classical tradition and that's all I knew). Needless to say I never got into the rock/jazz/pop as I had other interests including the bassoon. However, I do recall that the belt driving the rotating tweeters broke and I replaced it with a simple cotton cord with ends sewed together which worked pretty well. In retrospect, I've recently listened to a variety of rock/gospel/soul/jazz performers on the old B-3 which makes me realize what a great instrument I didn't take advantage of when I was a teen!
This is very interesting. My grandfather used to have one of these in his house and played it nearly every day. I remember the distinctive sound well, but did not know how it worked until now.
I've always loved the sound of a B-3 and have worked with bands that used them. I can readily attest to how heavy they are (both organ and Leslie cabinet). In this one bar we played , the band stand was raised up behind the bar, about 5 ft or so and there wasn't enough room at the sides of the stage to get the organ or Leslie up there so about six of us had to manhandle the m up onto the bar the across to the stage. Fortunately, the band played all week at that bar whenever we played there.
This was really fun. The secrets of Hammond B3 revealed; the rotating speaker cones (The Leslie speakers) are the coolest sound in rock and blues I'd ever heard. I can't recount all the times blissed out at Wilebski's Blues Saloon while some cool Chicago cats performed epic blues as I danced with some chick (wondering WTH was going on with that B3 speaker!). Good memories, man. Thanks for the tour of this great instrument.
My Church recently sold their B3 and Leslie Cabinet to a collector. . It could fill the Sanctuary by itself, without help from the House system. I found out last week that i am inheriting a B series (not the 3) . I get to see it soon . Such well built classics
The largest tubes in the leslie are power tetrodes, the KT88 tubes, they amplify the signal power to drive the out put transformer that drives the 8 ohms speakers. There is a rectifier tube also. The spinning speaker baffles create doppler shift in the pitch of the note making the note higher pitch when the baffle move towards the listener and lower pitch when it move away.
@@hammondvoodoo9555 I was just gonna say... The two Leslie 122's that I have sitting in my music studio in my basement don't have KT88's in 'em! :D Yep - they be 6550's. I've replaced them a couple times. I recognize the white hot light flashing from a 6550 when it burns out when I see it! :D
Naughty!. My 147 still has the original Leslie branded 6550s. The 147 is the same as the 122 but with a single ended input to allow use with organs other than Hammonds. Mind you, I use mine with a Hammond!
you should always replace the output tubes as a "MATCHED PAIR", also the driver tube before the 6550's, is a phase inverter( 12AX7 ) tube . the conductance of both triode sections have got to be the same!!!!. also giving the age of this equipment, the resistors and capacitors must be checked, if not replaced. resistors will drift up in value as they age. caps will go down in value and will begin to "LEAK" D.C. voltage and will microwave tubes. you should see no D.C. voltage on the control grids of any tubes, if you do you will "KILL" that tube. depending on the cap that is leaking D.C. through will cause the tube to "BIAS ON". if you see any tubes "RED PLATING" cut power and correct the problem. the output tubes that have a "BLUE HAZE" on the glass is O.K. that is secondary electron emission. this "AMP" has a push-pull output, any tube shorts can cause output transformer failure, not to mention power transformer failure because someone put an over rated fuse in service!!!!
Brent Mydland regularly used the Hammond organ, and had a B-3 with ten modified Leslie speakers in his setup for his entire tenure. The Grateful Dead purchased three B-3 organs for his use when he joined the band, and he personally owned several B-3 organs at the time of his death. The B-3 he played for the majority of his tenure with the Grateful Dead
Thanks soooo much for the info. I've always noticed the spinning items in the speaker cabinet at rock concerts. So glad you took the time to make this video.
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I remember going to many concerts in the 70’s, and there were lots of guitar players and keyboardists that had these on stage.
My friend Mark Smith had a Hammond organ and a Leslie B3. So when you said you got the speaker from a guy named Mark it reminded me of him. He unfortunately passed away a few years ago. It was great seing you go over the speaker inner workings. It was good to think about my friend again. Thank you.
You are sitting at the world's best selling organ! Regardless of how advanced the technology is, no other organ in the world, along with a Leslie speaker can compete with the both of them. I would not own one for my self, but if I did have one along with a Leslie, I would make so much money on the sale.
This was an excellent video I knew of the Leslie speaker system and what it did but never thought it was this nicely made, it's own tube amp and all. That roller thingy it is sitting on is called a dolly. Cheers
I didn't really realize how awesome the Leslie effect was until I got one myself. You have to hear it in action to get the full experience, and even then it sounds different in different rooms. No recording fully captures the sound. They sound pretty cool as a guitar effect too but nothing beats the wailing sound of a Hammond played with the far out sound of the Leslie. I think the bass cone rotating slower and in the opposite direction as the horn cone makes it extra cool. Its one of the few gimmicky pieces of music gear that really stood the test of time.
To experience how it's played, Three Dog Night's "Around the World" album's Organ Solo is tops.Long version of their "Chest Fever" is another.The B3 was a crucial instrument in their music.
Thank you, a wonderfull presentation on the Lesli speaker. While I was reseraching these engineering marvels I found out some interesting tidbit's I'd like to share. First the accoustic prinziple of the Lesli rests on the doppler effeckt, that is that a frequency (pitch) of a sound source drops as it's going away from you and rises it aproches you (another example woulf be a police car with the siren on passing you). Then you might have noticed the the base baffel and the horn are spinning in oposite directions, this was done intentional to increase that effect, as the bass pitches low as the trebble pitches up and vice versa. Also if you look closely you will find that each driveshaft for the pulleys has two motors stacked on top of each other, one for the slow and one for the fast speed, so you basically switching motors. And last but not leasts I found a lot of people calling these "sound slits" in the cabinet louvers. They are designed in a ways to soften the amplitude change produced by the rotating horn and baffel. Many people have experimented with the shape up to the point of removing the cabinet alltogether - mostly when overdriving the organ to get that harsh wild rock sound. So long, enjoy your wonderful B3
Great Demonstration. I'm a Guitarist/wannabe keyboardist. In my 53 years of playing, I've jammed with several B3 Players. You can't beat a good B3. I have some Casio stuff and a few "Leslie" effects pedals for the times that I played keys in a Beach Band
Thank you James. So nice to have a full informative video showing us how it works. I don't know of any musician who doesn't love that sound. Like you said, "the spooling up" is totally awesome. Two, one with and one without the reverb must be the ultimate in sound. Subbed you straight away, just from the title. I wish you many many wonderful hour's of supersound. That sound inspires everyone. Totally cool!
I'm making sense of my plug in's in logic and had no idea what a rotor speaker was before watching this. So thanks a lot for the video, much appreciated! :)
Thank you so much for the excellent tutorial. The B-3 and Leslie are a match made in heaven, and are the only electronic instrument/amp with moving parts, as far as I know. No sound on earth gets my rock heart going like a B-3 through an over-driven Leslie. The master of that "grind" was the late, great Jimmy Greenspoon of Three Dog Night. I believe Leslie also made a 900 road series, if memory serves. You can see two of them parked on the cover of TDN's Naturally album cover. Guitaist Michael Allsup used a Leslie as well.
I have a true story that a pair of Leslie speakers and a B-3 saved my life and several of the band members of our band. The band and our instruments were in our panel truck heading for a gig (1962) when we came to a steep slope in the road. The weather was sleeting rain and the road was slippery. The truck spun out of control when we started down the slope. We rolled over a few times before we came to a stop with the truck landing on its roof. When we were rolling over, the roof crumbled down onto the two Leslie speakers and the B-3 but they didn't crumble. They withstood this disaster and saved us from being crushed to death. I owe my life to this great instrument combination. I am a grateful drummer.
Cool video showing the inner workings! I can hear Procul Harem in my mind when the Leslie plays. The big tubes in the front look like 6550's which are the audio output amplifier tubes. The glowing purple one in the back is an OC3 "Stabilitron" that is filled with Argon gas to give it that purple glow. It provides a regulated voltage for the screen of the 6550. It helps stabilize the operation and reduce hum.
I've often wondered what a *Leslie* speaker looked like, as a friend of mine told me he had one years ago and of course I could never forget that name :)
The spinning horn and speaker give a "doppler" effect. This is what gives that nice phase shifting. This physical experience is not duplicated completely electronically. The Leslie with the horn sounds much better. Another instrument that makes use of this phasing is the Vibraphone. It has rotating plates in tubes. Speed radars make use of the doppler effect for detection.
The sound reminds me of my home church in Louisiana. When I was a kid I would look at the top of the speaker and see something spinning and never knew what it was, but now I do 😊
Thanks for the look inside. While well acquainted with the sonics, I always wanted to see and understand something more, than merely seeing the treble speakers spinning.
Hey James. I really appreciate the video introducing people who are not familiar with the piece of furniture they might recognize but do not know how much of an impact or influence it is in their musical life. I am not a musician by any means but the Hammond B3 paired up with a proper Leslie is by far my favorite instrument. So much so I bought on old 1950's set to be one of a few resident instruments in my live music bar. That's right no lugging and no substitutes for quality sound. The best sound!! My next purchase is to get a second Leslie 122 with reverb to add texture and value to the sound. Thanks for posting. Looking forward to more Hammond vids.
I do not play, but I knew about the Leslie and theoretically how it works. But it didn't really "click" to me until I started watching several gospel organists who REALLY know to constantly switch it back and forth to get the effect across in the music. When you watch them and hear the music it then starts to make sense.
Never forgotten the first time I saw this in 68’ or 69’. In our small town dance club open on Saturday nights. The band kicked off with Booker T and MG’s Time is Tight. The band had a Hammond B3 with the grill removed and the sound cranked up.I had never seen a Leslie speaker before as a 14 year old kid. I grabbed a girl and went over to dance by that speaker so I could check it out.
Awesome... In my younger days, I used to be a "PA" guy and kept Joe's twin Leslie's humming along while we went smashing around from gig to gig..!! :-) BTW... The blue glowing tube you saw is actually the power supply "high voltage" regulator tube... Its job is to keep the output volume from changing on very dynamic changes... You will see it changing it conduction (brightness) as you ask the amp to drive harder... Usually the first tube to be ignored and not changed out... If not, the power supply could "over shoot" on voltage after a loud passage, and could blow the final drive tube....
The only Hammond model I’ve owned so far, an E, came equipped with the tone cabinet and without the electronics/controls for driving a Leslie. The man who helped me get the Hammond E organ gave me a complementary single-speed Leslie 31H, and I needed to have the organ retrofit to drive the speaker. I enjoyed having that organ and the 31H, but it ultimately wasn’t for me. Thankfully, I found a taker who specifically wanted that combination of the Hammond E, its tone cabinet and the single-speed Leslie. If I had gotten your specific models of B3 organ and Leslie 122 (or if it was an RT-3), I would’ve thought twice before parting with them.
Thanks much for the B3/Leslie info. My mom and both of her parents played professionally in the Chicago area. Grandparents started on theater organs for silent film at the old Chicago Theater among others. Mom did mostly night clubs, studio gigs, Cubs and White Sox games. I also really enjoy your acoustic piano comparisons. I grew up with Steinways, B3s and Leslies. At times mom had as many as 3 Hammonds and Leslies when she was between gigs. Most of her equipment was much more beat up than yours, as they got moved around a lot. One leslie I remember was significantly taller than the one you featured and it didn't have the cloth screen on the lower rotating drum. I can still recall the plywood construction of those lower drums with circular holes in the interior baffles. Keep up the good work! I look forward to more of your presentations.
Any of the keyboard players I've seen over the years take the backs off and have the open back to the audience. Also they took the cloth off the bass rotating baffle, basically it's just a plate slanted at 45 degrees to bounce the sound to the side... One of the big regional bands back in the 70's featured the keyboard player (B3 of course!) and he was always set up in the center of the band on risers and up to 6 Leslie's , three sort of stepping down on each side of the band! I don't wanna know how much work it was to move all that gear for a show!
The bass rotor catches too much air w/o the cloth, it doesn't reach the correct terminal rotational velocity. No biggie, still sounds great, just wanted to mention the reason for that cloth cover existing.
Really enjoyed that. That is a lovely speaker with such warm and funky sound. A musician friend of mine ignited my interest in the Hammond and Leslie, although not a player myself, I love how these work. Thanks for putting this clip together.
Fun Beatles trivia (quoted from Wikipedia): "Tomorrow Never Knows" was the first song attempted during the sessions for Revolver, which started at 8 pm on 6 April 1966, in Studio 3 at EMI Studios (subsequently Abbey Road Studios). Geoff Emerick, who was promoted to the role of the Beatles' recording engineer for Revolver, recalled that the band "encouraged us to break the rules" and ensure that each instrument "should sound unlike itself". Lennon sought to capture the atmosphere of a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony; he told Martin that the song should sound like it was being chanted by a thousand Tibetan monks, with his vocal evoking the Dalai Lama singing from a mountaintop. The latter effect was achieved by using a Leslie speaker. When the concept was explained to Lennon, he enquired if the same effect could be achieved by hanging him upside down and spinning him around a microphone while he sang into it. Emerick made a connector to break into the electronic circuitry of the Leslie cabinet and then re-recorded the vocal as it came out of the revolving speaker.
The tube that glows purple is a mercury vapor rectifier tube. I saw many a live performance back in the 70's that used the Leslie speakers, fantastic sound that they imparted, thanks for refreshing my memories :^)
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I am a veteran recording engineer, and I am SO glad to see you verify what I knew all along, that only one of the top cones actually produces sound - the other is merely a counterbalance. This completely changes the way you mic a Leslie for stereo - you want to put one mic 180-degrees away from the other mic (on opposite sides). So many engineers used to mic Leslies with the mics at 90-degrees, and very few of them believed me when I told them that was incorrect, but they believed both horns were putting out sounds.
I figured it out one day when I looked inside our Leslie (every studio had a B3 with Leslie in the 1980s) and tried to listen to both horns one at a time. I discovered one was completely covered deep inside just by looking at it.
As a guitar player who has stood in front of a Leslie cabinet all night, I can attest to the Loudness of the Leslie...eeeow.
going for a hendrix sound ?
Is it really loud?😂
@@notesl5576 not to sound like a butthole, but remember their designed to sound good while being as loud as humanly possible because of the lack of amazing PA systems back then
Back in high school, (Class of '70) , the music department had a B-3 and four Leslie speakers. Mr. Baker would have them set up in the auditorium on a permanent basis. At times he would go in and practice, playing some classical stuff, but most times he would rock out. Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Booker T & MG's
Procol Harem, and the list is endless. His ending was the solo from Santana's
"Soul Sacrifice ". He was a talented and gifted musician. Any rock band in the know, had a B-3.
The great thing was that the Leslie made ANYTHING plugged into it exponentially better. Voice, guitar, keyboards, even drums were enhanced so much. Ahead of its time.
Al Cooper sang through one on Super Session
Hi James, I used to repair these. The upper speaker was called a pressure unit because the voice coil fed directly into the cone. You are correct in assuming that the drum is baffled. From memory I believe it was in the shape of a scoop. The small model you mentioned was the 145. Some Leslies (can't remember the model numbers) had another socket at the bottom so that you could link up more than one Leslie cabinet. See you video brought back happy memories so thanks for that.
I had a Hammond C-3 (that was manufactured in the late 70's) with a 122(RV) Leslie speaker (that was also manufactured in the late 70's) for decades in my home. What a fantastic instrument & speaker! I ended-up having to down-size & sold them to a church. Of course, they were thrilled to purchase them as they were in super-great condition. I now have a Hammond Colonnade organ.... all self-contained with the Leslie inside the organ console. It has a great sound as well. Great vid from James there explaining the function of the Leslie Speaker!
used to hate dragging this beast around to the club back in the early 70s but what an amazing sound. always imitated but never duplicated. guitar or keyboard this made them all sound incredible.
Don originally did have the single driver powering both horns but found the effect to be much more pronounced when only one horn was projecting. Doppler shift and tremolo is such an acoustic marvel with this cabinet, it really has to be heard in person. The "goose bumps" are worth it!
I used to luge two of these around. One at each end of the stage, lol. Thank you so much for taking me back down memory lane.
Just the thought of it makes me tired. I love the idea of a real B3 in the studio, but on location I might be looking for options unless there are Roadies.
James nice demo, and i remember when, i toured with Uriah heep and we were known for that B3/LESLIE speaker sound like on stealin and Phil the awesome keyboard player that he was, had a leslie on each side of the drums and one was set at medium speed and the other was set at a slower speed and he would use a tube screamer on one to get that raunchy distorted sound on the medium speed leslie, his other leslie was set on a slower speed and both were in stereo in front of the house !!!! Awesome stuff and he had his hammond chopped so it did not weigh as much for his tech to carry and also chopped the leslie !!!!
In the day I played keys in a local band doing "Easy Living" by Uriah Heap! Thanks for the insight into the organ set up. I had no idea.
Funny, While I was watching this, I was thinking Uriah Heep July Morning.
That is rock and roll gear head history gold right there!! What a kickass sound Phil had!! Thanks man! ✌🏼
Super Group!
Ernie Flanagan, Sting Ray Bassman Nashville, TN. Those were some awesome concerts...one of my favs back in the day.
WOW!! That is the most pristine Leslie cabinet that I’ve ever seen the inside of! And the mechanics with the cone diffusers spinning seems almost like the whole cabinet was made yesterday, so smooth and super fast without any asymmetry! That’s got to be one of the closest to original and newest if not the best one around. I had no idea that wheel had cloth over it originally. THANKS FOR SHARING THIS!
The most beautiful sounding piece of equipment ever! Especially getting that distorted sound like deep purple and Uriah hero. Still brings chills!
My Dad played the B3 professionally for years in the Baltimore area and I was always fascinated by the leslie.
Well done! My uncle had an old Hammond he bought from a church and it came with a Leslie (it was hardly ever used) ... it all sounded amazing!
I was hoping for a little jam session
Great video about one of my favorite pieces of music gear. As someone who has owned and repaired these things for years, let me respond to a couple of your requests for info, and add some details:
- Yes, Laurens Hammond hated the Leslie Speaker from the start. The very first thing that Don Leslie did was to offer the invention to Hammond, in return for a job at the Hammond Organ Co. His offer was declined. Hammond claimed that he heard no difference between the V3 vibrato on a B-3 and a Leslie on fast.
- Those slots to let the sound out are called 'louvres.'
- Under the scrim cloth around your drum rotor is a curved scoop that coverts the downward sound from the woofer in a sideways direction. The scoop is made of very light plywood, and usually has a bolt and nut somewhere around the circle with one or more washers, used to balance the rotor in the same way car tires are balanced.
- That 'purple tube' is a rectifier, which adds to the sound of the Leslie because as lots of notes are played at high volumes, the output sags, compressing the signal a bit.
- In an indoor setting, the amplifier is plenty loud for most uses. In large halls or outdoors, however, it was considered way underpowered. Most rock and blues bands of the '60s and '70s used multiple Leslies on stage -- often as many as 8 or 10 of them!
- If one has two Leslies connected, a very lush sound can be had if the Leslies spin at slightly different speeds. The horn (top) rotor has three pulley settings; most Leslies use the middle/medium setting. Setting a pair with one on medium and one on low (or high) sounds awesome!
Listening to Jerry Garcia sing Rosemary through a Leslie. Great post. Thanks!
I have a Hammond that was actually sold with a reverb unit inside of it, my mom bought it new.
I really like your video. As an electrical engineer, I deal with many frequencies from audio to microwave , but the way that Hammond creates the tones is great, and another great thing is that they never need to be tuned. I came to visit my mom once and found that her Hammond wouldnt make a single sound not even the spin up... I turned it off and found that the tone bar generator had seized from sitting and from not being used or having no maintenance done on it. I immediately went through it cleaned the dust from it and oiled all of the bearings by hand, it wasnt long before I heard the awesome sound of the tone bar generator , spinning up and the organ came to life, thanks for your videos on the Hammond B3 and the Leslie speaker. Unfortunately I dont have a leslie speaker cabinet, but I know how to build one and how it works. The tube that you like is the high voltage regulator . I hope you have spare tubes for your amp because most companies dont make tubes any more, they are like chicken lips to find.... again, thanks for an awesome video!
Utterly fascinating. Now I know how the sound was generated in my most favourite of all time songs ... Time is Tight by Booker T. & The MG's. I used to play it constantly in my youth and never fails to give me a buzz when I hear it.
Thank You for video. Most appreciated 👍
Wow, fantastic look inside. I’ve heard about these and always thought it was such a strange way to process sound. Amazing that it works so well. The spin up is iconic...like an old radio drama!
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. My late dad (Mike Taylor) was a popular jazz musician back in the sixties and seventies on the west coast had the two speaker set up. I recall as a kid gazing into the back and being fascinated with all the moving parts. That is, when he had it home and not at the club, to work on it. He not only being a great musician was into electronics and built his own amplifiers.
Well done young man. That is a beautiful, well preserved Leslie. Most of my favorite classic rock bands of the late 60's had these, along with many blues bands. In my opinion, they were as important as the drums, guitars and bass, and maybe even more important. The only other instrument that intrigues me more is the Mellotron, used by early King Crimson and more popularly by the Moody Blues. Oh, and I love the Fender Rhodes Piano.
My favourite thing about it all is the Leslie speaker actually DOES make the Hammond sound like a pipe organ when chorale is used!
Don Leslie's speakers DO make the organ sound.
What that sound is, is in the hearing of the audience.
In my (never to be) humble opinion, the Hammond
NEEDS the Leslie!
steve
The Chorale setting ive always thought sounded good:) theres speeding up of a tremelo, the slowing down.....but have you ever heard the chorusing effect an OLD Leslie mskes whos belts and brakes are a bit worn?..
It takes it longer to slow from at speed... to slow....and it sounds really cool !!
My brother in law, who co-owned a recording studio/instrument/music in general need shop, showed me a Leslie speaker, once, I think you may have liked. It had three speakers mounted on a rod that ran across, rather than up and down, so the speakers would be bottom, toward you, up, then back. It had four speeds in the rotation. One would be stationary. The second, all in a line, going around like the cones you showed, the three speakers would divide by 1/3, so it was varied, and, the fourth speed, the inner speaker would rotate slow, the middle speaker would rotate medium and the outer speaker would rotate fast, with varying degrees in the speed for which they spun. It was beautiful to listen to.
Yamaha made a guitar amp that worked in the way you describe David, it was about the size of a Fender twin with three elliptical speakers inside spinning on a rod. I never owned one, but they sounded similar to a Leslie cabinet. S www.redtapemusic.biz
Sounds like a Yamaha. I have only seen one but they had a knob to vary the speed, with a complicated electronic circuit to drive the only motor. Weirder yet was the ear shaped Styrofoam "coned" bass speaker. Slow chorale speed simulated the sound of pipes. The fast speed is no accident. It is about 7 hertz. Which is the frequency of a human made vibrato, weather voice or instrumental. Leslie didn't mess around with any other speeds.
On my last year of high school(80-81) my music teacher owned one of those organs with 2 Leslie speakers and he set them up in the auditorium for the school harmony concert. While the stage was being setup he tested the organ by playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. That is an experience I will remember all my life.
I use to lug this exact rig around to local club gigs in the 70’s ..... makes my back hurt just looking at it again lol.
Me to!! Made the keyboard player buy a Porta B!!!
My husband as well ! Pretty heavy to lug the Porta B and the Leslie. But he says he didn't mind as he was in good shape then.
jeez i just moved an m3 into my basement and that thing is not moving for a long time. I couldn't imagine gigging with it lol no thanks ill just use a digital organ and small leslie solid state
Should have put wheels on it.
Chris Strobel Great combination, love it!
Thanks, James, you were right when you said there is not much content out there on the Leslie. Thanks for preserving this info by putting it out there for people who are unfamiliar to see and for us nostalgic old guys to revisit. It is gratifying to see a young person taking an interest in the topic, although one might expect that lots of younger folks who appreciate music from the earlier age of jazz and rock would know about this, I have met very few who have any idea what a Leslie Tone Cabinet is. (I believe that "tone cabinet" is a more proper name than "speaker.") Most any serious jazz or rock organ player in the 50s to 80s would have played a Hammond and a Leslie, and it was indeed one of the most dreaded combinations of equipment to carry up and down the stairs at a venue. If anyone wonders why they typically had a beautiful and delicate cherry or walnut finished cabinet instead of the typical black heavy duty exterior, think about it... it's an organ accessory. Before these were being used by jazz and rock musicians, they were being used in churches and funeral homes! They were designed to look like fine furniture, not like industrial equipment. Despite all the incredible electronics and digital instruments that have been invented and refined since the era of the Leslie, the sound can NEVER be duplicated for a couple of reasons. 1 - The sound will always be unique to the precise placement of the Leslie Tone Cabinet in its environment. It sounds different in a large venue than a small venue, and within any given venue it will sound different if it is placed close to a wall or in the middle of a room. It relies on physically bouncing the sound around the room - it's not only the warbling doppler effect of the spinning horns, but the reflection of the treble tones off the walls and ceilings in the live venue that give the ultimate effect. 2 - The specific tube amplifier built into the cabinet will have a different sound than a solid state amp or even a modern tube amp. The immortal sound of jazz, blues, rock, and even gospel players on the Hammond/Leslie combo of yesteryear will eventually exist only on record and in the memories of older listeners. It's not a matter of "they don't make 'em like they used to" so much as nobody's making them at all, and the original technology is obsolete... like the Stradavarius.
I use to repair the blueprint machine in the Engineering Dept at Hammond Organ on Diversey Ave in Chicago in the early 80's. I will always remember this "Marty McFly" type older genius guy in a white lab coat showing me some "cool stuff" he was working on whenever I was in the shop. I was too young to know to ask him anything. Regrets.
Doc. Brown :)
The world famous legendary Hammond was on Diversey Ave. and the equally world famous legendary Shure sits next to railroad tracks and across the street from Meinke Garden Center in Niles. So funny if you are familiar with these areas.
I still remember the time I saw Lee Michaels perform in the last 1960s. Just Michaels on Hammond B3 organ connected to Leslie speakers, Lee's vocals with
Barry "Fosty" Smith on drums. God what a beautiful, soulful sound they made! I believe Lee Michaels was one of the first to chop a Hammond B3 and Leslie speakers to make them easier to move on the road.
The spinning horn assembly in the top of the cabinet is called the Upper Rotor. As you say, one of the horns is a dummy, for balance only. The "speaker" below the horn assembly is called a "horn driver," and it will be a Jensen model V-21 or V-22. The bass speaker is *not* mounted on anything besides a wooden baffle; the lower rotor has a curved panel on a 45-degree slope which directs the sound outward. The lower rotor is covered with cloth, which keeps it from making swishing noises as it rotates. The slots where the sound exits the cabinet are called "louvers." Most organists remove the top and lower backs (removing the middle back would be foolish, as it is part of the tuned woofer enclosure) and then point the back of the cabinet at the audience. Also, many organists prefer to remove the sound deflectors which are in the openings of the rotary horn assembly (easily done with a soldering iron to melt the plastic), which increases the treble output. The "little brother" to your 122 is the model 142, in which all the components are identical with the exception of the cabinet, which is about 8 inches shorter. (The 142 has a bit less bass response than the 122.) The motor assemblies each consist of TWO motors, one for the slow ("Chorale") speed and one for the fast ("Tremolo") speed. The "slow" motor drives the "fast" motor by means of a spring-loaded shaft which engages a rubber drive tire on the bottom of the fast motor. There are a total of FOUR motors in a 122 - two fast, two slow. MOST organists leave their volume controls set on 10, all the time. Your Leslie may be "loud" in the tiny room you have it in now, but it'll get eaten up fairly rapidly in a nightclub full of partying people. You will note that (for instance) the Allman Brothers (who I have done work for, back in the day) used TWO Leslies, and they were *always* turned up to 10. A Leslie is only 40 watts RMS, which ain't much when you have to fight a drummer who uses telephone poles for sticks, and a guitarist with a 100-watt Marshall or a Twin Reverb. Also, running the volume tab on the B-3 in the "soft" position cuts some of the treble - again, not something you want to do in a live band situation. The cloth-covered thing in the bottom of the cabinet which spins is called the Lower Rotor. The only thing in a Leslie which can correctly be called a "baffle" is the board that the bass speaker is mounted on. A lot of organists *remove* the cloth from the lower rotor, which gives a tiny (but noticeable) increase near the crossover frequency, which is 800 Hz. Service manuals and schematics for both the B-3 and the 122 are available online - try theaterorgans.com, or search for "Captain Foldback."
Excellent comment.
My grandmother's friend had one of these in her apartment. She had to keep the volume fairly low due to her neighbors. Of course, I got a peek at the spinning horns through the vent holes. Thanks for the great video, sir.
VERY INFORMATIVE! My late father played with various jazz bands, and explained the difficulties of assisting his fellow musicians with their organs to and from gigs in venues. Years later, at an OJs concert, I got quite up close and personal with the Leslie speaker (it almost deafened me with the rest of the speaker setup for the show).
Your knowledge is quite extensive, and your presentation is quite professional ( though casual). I will refer others to your video sessions. Thank you!
The Leslie is an incredible invention. You can play pedal steel through it. Roy Buchanan used to play his Telecaster through one.
Ronnie Montrose would you use 5 of them in series to get guitar effects. I worked in a recording studio growing up and we had one. It's an incredible sound effect. They make electronics that model the effect of a Leslie, but it's not the same. A Leslie provides a rotational Doppler effect. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I want one. The Hammond B3 is a very classic sound, and the Leslie is part of that.
The revolving doppler shifts are what makes the sound unique because the frequency continuously shifts up then down then up again that's why it is so difficult to emulate it. As the horn/trumpet/(what ever you want to call it) rotates twords you the frequency of the sound rises, and as it rotates away from you the frequency sounds as if it is falling, its is all a sound effect.
Note on connecting Multiple Leslies......The skating rink where I grew up had Leslie speakers mounted several around the entire rink, spaced maybe 10 feet apart. All connected to a Hammond B3. It was GREAT! I wish I could recall how many of them there were, had to be dozen or more.
Using 2 Leslies is also a conventional stage setup, but while one is up top on the stage, probably with its back open to show the revolving parts, the second is down below the stage, isolated and miked up for the main audio systems.
Rocco, do you remember what skating rink it was? I played in rinks 100 x 200 skating floor. We used the old Large Stationary Hammond speakers and they sounded great, but I always wondered how Leslies would sound. I figured there would be way too much reverb. I am Hammond and Leslie dealer for all of Indiana and other situations.
Very nice explanation of the Leslie speaker. I was amazed many years ago when I first took the back off one. We had one in high school.
This brought back memories of when I was a teen and my mom bought a used B-3 with the taller Leslie speaker about 1963. Part of the deal was my sis and I got several lessons in "pop" organ from the previous owner (my mother was a piano teacher in the classical tradition and that's all I knew). Needless to say I never got into the rock/jazz/pop as I had other interests including the bassoon. However, I do recall that the belt driving the rotating tweeters broke and I replaced it with a simple cotton cord with ends sewed together which worked pretty well. In retrospect, I've recently listened to a variety of rock/gospel/soul/jazz performers on the old B-3 which makes me realize what a great instrument I didn't take advantage of when I was a teen!
This is very interesting. My grandfather used to have one of these in his house and played it nearly every day. I remember the distinctive sound well, but did not know how it worked until now.
Haven't thought about the B3 for years . What a classic.
I've always loved the sound of a B-3 and have worked with bands that used them. I can readily attest to how heavy they are (both organ and Leslie cabinet). In this one bar we played , the band stand was raised up behind the bar, about 5 ft or so and there wasn't enough room at the sides of the stage to get the organ or Leslie up there so about six of us had to manhandle the m up onto the bar the across to the stage. Fortunately, the band played all week at that bar whenever we played there.
This was really fun. The secrets of Hammond B3 revealed; the rotating speaker cones (The Leslie speakers) are the coolest sound in rock and blues I'd ever heard. I can't recount all the times blissed out at Wilebski's Blues Saloon while some cool Chicago cats performed epic blues as I danced with some chick (wondering WTH was going on with that B3 speaker!). Good memories, man.
Thanks for the tour of this great instrument.
My Church recently sold their B3 and Leslie Cabinet to a collector. . It could fill the Sanctuary by itself, without help from the House system. I found out last week that i am inheriting a B series (not the 3) . I get to see it soon . Such well built classics
The largest tubes in the leslie are power tetrodes, the KT88 tubes, they amplify the signal power to drive the out put transformer that drives the 8 ohms speakers.
There is a rectifier tube also. The spinning speaker baffles create doppler shift in the pitch of the note making the note higher pitch when the baffle move towards the listener and lower pitch when it move away.
@@hammondvoodoo9555 I was just gonna say... The two Leslie 122's that I have sitting in my music studio in my basement don't have KT88's in 'em! :D
Yep - they be 6550's. I've replaced them a couple times. I recognize the white hot light flashing from a 6550 when it burns out when I see it! :D
Naughty!. My 147 still has the original Leslie branded 6550s.
The 147 is the same as the 122 but with a single ended input to allow use with organs other than Hammonds. Mind you, I use mine with a Hammond!
16 ohms not 8. If you replace either speaker with an 8 ohm the crossover won't work right and the amp will be hurtin.
you should always replace the output tubes as a "MATCHED PAIR", also the driver tube before the 6550's, is a phase inverter( 12AX7 ) tube . the conductance of both triode sections have got to be the same!!!!. also giving the age of this equipment, the resistors and capacitors must be checked, if not replaced. resistors will drift up in value as they age. caps will go down in value and will begin to "LEAK" D.C. voltage and will microwave tubes. you should see no D.C. voltage on the control grids of any tubes, if you do you will "KILL" that tube. depending on the cap that is leaking D.C. through will cause the tube to "BIAS ON". if you see any tubes "RED PLATING" cut power and correct the problem. the output tubes that have a "BLUE HAZE" on the glass is O.K. that is secondary electron emission. this "AMP" has a push-pull output, any tube shorts can cause output transformer failure, not to mention power transformer failure because someone put an over rated fuse in service!!!!
Brent Mydland regularly used the Hammond organ, and had a B-3 with ten modified Leslie speakers in his setup for his entire tenure. The Grateful Dead purchased three B-3 organs for his use when he joined the band, and he personally owned several B-3 organs at the time of his death. The B-3 he played for the majority of his tenure with the Grateful Dead
Thanks soooo much for the info. I've always noticed the spinning items in the speaker cabinet at rock concerts. So glad you took the time to make this video.
I remember going to many concerts in the 70’s, and there were lots of guitar players and keyboardists that had these on stage.
My friend Mark Smith had a Hammond organ and a Leslie B3. So when you said you got the speaker from a guy named Mark it reminded me of him. He unfortunately passed away a few years ago. It was great seing you go over the speaker inner workings. It was good to think about my friend again. Thank you.
You are sitting at the world's best selling organ! Regardless of how advanced the technology is, no other organ in the world, along with a Leslie speaker can compete with the both of them. I would not own one for my self, but if I did have one along with a Leslie, I would make so much money on the sale.
This was an excellent video I knew of the Leslie speaker system and what it did but never thought it was this nicely made, it's own tube amp and all. That roller thingy it is sitting on is called a dolly. Cheers
I am amazed at how deep your knowledge given your young age. All power to you son.
Well done, congratulations. In this synthetic and sampled music era, youngest keyboardist often don't know the real origin of the sounds they use.
I played electronic keyboards in the 1970's and I always wanted a Leslie, but they were so big and expensive.
I love their sound thanks for this.
Since Year's before I just wondering how Hammond works, and you explain it perfectly for me this beauty morning, so thank you. Great video!!👏👏👏👏👏
I didn't really realize how awesome the Leslie effect was until I got one myself. You have to hear it in action to get the full experience, and even then it sounds different in different rooms. No recording fully captures the sound. They sound pretty cool as a guitar effect too but nothing beats the wailing sound of a Hammond played with the far out sound of the Leslie. I think the bass cone rotating slower and in the opposite direction as the horn cone makes it extra cool. Its one of the few gimmicky pieces of music gear that really stood the test of time.
I love the The Hammond B3 with a Leslie Speaker! I use it on many of my songs.
To experience how it's played, Three Dog Night's "Around the World" album's Organ Solo is tops.Long version of their "Chest Fever" is another.The B3 was a crucial instrument in their music.
Thank you, a wonderfull presentation on the Lesli speaker. While I was reseraching these engineering marvels I found out some interesting tidbit's I'd like to share. First the accoustic prinziple of the Lesli rests on the doppler effeckt, that is that a frequency (pitch) of a sound source drops as it's going away from you and rises it aproches you (another example woulf be a police car with the siren on passing you). Then you might have noticed the the base baffel and the horn are spinning in oposite directions, this was done intentional to increase that effect, as the bass pitches low as the trebble pitches up and vice versa. Also if you look closely you will find that each driveshaft for the pulleys has two motors stacked on top of each other, one for the slow and one for the fast speed, so you basically switching motors. And last but not leasts I found a lot of people calling these "sound slits" in the cabinet louvers. They are designed in a ways to soften the amplitude change produced by the rotating horn and baffel. Many people have experimented with the shape up to the point of removing the cabinet alltogether - mostly when overdriving the organ to get that harsh wild rock sound.
So long, enjoy your wonderful B3
Mothers Finest, Boston, Donna Summer, Cool & The Gang...Oh those Great Disco Nights...Love that Leslie...
Great Demonstration.
I'm a Guitarist/wannabe keyboardist.
In my 53 years of playing, I've jammed with several B3 Players. You can't beat a good B3.
I have some Casio stuff and a few "Leslie" effects pedals for the times that I played keys in a Beach Band
Thank you James. So nice to have a full informative video showing us how it works. I don't know of any musician who doesn't love that sound. Like you said, "the spooling up" is totally awesome. Two, one with and one without the reverb must be the ultimate in sound. Subbed you straight away, just from the title. I wish you many many wonderful hour's of supersound. That sound inspires everyone. Totally cool!
I'm making sense of my plug in's in logic and had no idea what a rotor speaker was before watching this. So thanks a lot for the video, much appreciated! :)
This is the same combo used by Santana at Woodstock in their epic session where they played "Soul Sacrifice".
I am sure the volume control would have been on 10 instead of 3 like the video
I believe that the rig also included a Twin Reverb or two...Stage volumes were crazy back in the day...
Not to mention the acoustic 360, by far the nastiest rig of its time, even more so than the SVT I’d argue
Thank you so much for the excellent tutorial. The B-3 and Leslie are a match made in heaven, and are the only electronic instrument/amp with moving parts, as far as I know. No sound on earth gets my rock heart going like a B-3 through an over-driven Leslie. The master of that "grind" was the late, great Jimmy Greenspoon of Three Dog Night. I believe Leslie also made a 900 road series, if memory serves. You can see two of them parked on the cover of TDN's Naturally album cover. Guitaist Michael Allsup used a Leslie as well.
I have a true story that a pair of Leslie speakers and a B-3 saved my life and several of the band members of our band. The band and our instruments were in our panel truck heading for a gig (1962) when we came to a steep slope in the road. The weather was sleeting rain and the road was slippery. The truck spun out of control when we started down the slope. We rolled over a few times before we came to a stop with the truck landing on its roof. When we were rolling over, the roof crumbled down onto the two Leslie speakers and the B-3 but they didn't crumble. They withstood this disaster and saved us from being crushed to death. I owe my life to this great instrument combination. I am a grateful drummer.
Cool video showing the inner workings! I can hear Procul Harem in my mind when the Leslie plays. The big tubes in the front look like 6550's which are the audio output amplifier tubes. The glowing purple one in the back is an OC3 "Stabilitron" that is filled with Argon gas to give it that purple glow. It provides a regulated voltage for the screen of the 6550. It helps stabilize the operation and reduce hum.
I've often wondered what a *Leslie* speaker looked like, as a friend of mine told me he had one years ago and of course I could never forget that name :)
The spinning horn and speaker give a "doppler" effect. This is what gives that nice phase shifting. This physical experience is not duplicated completely electronically. The Leslie with the horn sounds much better. Another instrument that makes use of this phasing is the Vibraphone. It has rotating plates in tubes. Speed radars make use of the doppler effect for detection.
The sound reminds me of my home church in Louisiana. When I was a kid I would look at the top of the speaker and see something spinning and never knew what it was, but now I do 😊
Thanks for the look inside. While well acquainted with the sonics, I always wanted to see and understand something more, than merely seeing the treble speakers spinning.
Leslies are such bizarrely beautiful things.
Hey James. I really appreciate the video introducing people who are not familiar with the piece of furniture they might recognize but do not know how much of an impact or influence it is in their musical life. I am not a musician by any means but the Hammond B3 paired up with a proper Leslie is by far my favorite instrument. So much so I bought on old 1950's set to be one of a few resident instruments in my live music bar. That's right no lugging and no substitutes for quality sound. The best sound!! My next purchase is to get a second Leslie 122 with reverb to add texture and value to the sound. Thanks for posting. Looking forward to more Hammond vids.
I do not play, but I knew about the Leslie and theoretically how it works. But it didn't really "click" to me until I started watching several gospel organists who REALLY know to constantly switch it back and forth to get the effect across in the music. When you watch them and hear the music it then starts to make sense.
Never forgotten the first time I saw this in 68’ or 69’. In our small town dance club open on Saturday nights. The band kicked off with Booker T and MG’s Time is Tight. The band had a Hammond B3 with the grill removed and the sound cranked up.I had never seen a Leslie speaker before as a 14 year old kid. I grabbed a girl and went over to dance by that speaker so I could check it out.
This is why America is great..wow ..I admire Moog too...the stories are awesome..makes you proud
The Leslie is a rather simple yet Beautiful Design! The Cabinets can be amazingly Striking! Yours is very nice indeed!
Thanks for the great example! I've always wondered what kind of effect the Leslie did, and you did a great job at showing an example!
Awesome... In my younger days, I used to be a "PA" guy and kept Joe's twin Leslie's humming along while we went smashing around from gig to gig..!! :-) BTW... The blue glowing tube you saw is actually the power supply "high voltage" regulator tube... Its job is to keep the output volume from changing on very dynamic changes... You will see it changing it conduction (brightness) as you ask the amp to drive harder... Usually the first tube to be ignored and not changed out... If not, the power supply could "over shoot" on voltage after a loud passage, and could blow the final drive tube....
Amazingly clean and new looking...the amp, motors...everything!
No I know how that distinctive sound is generated, thank you!! A revelation after all these years as I thought it was just the organ.
Hello,
Thank you letting The World know that there is Hope to ROCK ON.
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jcw
The only Hammond model I’ve owned so far, an E, came equipped with the tone cabinet and without the electronics/controls for driving a Leslie. The man who helped me get the Hammond E organ gave me a complementary single-speed Leslie 31H, and I needed to have the organ retrofit to drive the speaker. I enjoyed having that organ and the 31H, but it ultimately wasn’t for me. Thankfully, I found a taker who specifically wanted that combination of the Hammond E, its tone cabinet and the single-speed Leslie.
If I had gotten your specific models of B3 organ and Leslie 122 (or if it was an RT-3), I would’ve thought twice before parting with them.
The keyboard player in my band had this exact set up. It is the best sound you'll ever hear
Yeah, I sat next to a leslie speaker in an orchestra pit for 6 weeks. It's a fantastic sound.
Muchas gracias por tantos detalles técnicos del Hammond. Es una fantástica descripción.
Thanks much for the B3/Leslie info. My mom and both of her parents played professionally in the Chicago area. Grandparents started on theater organs for silent film at the old Chicago Theater among others. Mom did mostly night clubs, studio gigs, Cubs and White Sox games.
I also really enjoy your acoustic piano comparisons. I grew up with Steinways, B3s and Leslies. At times mom had as many as 3 Hammonds and Leslies when she was between gigs. Most of her equipment was much more beat up than yours, as they got moved around a lot. One leslie I remember was significantly taller than the one you featured and it didn't have the cloth screen on the lower rotating drum. I can still recall the plywood construction of those lower drums with circular holes in the interior baffles.
Keep up the good work! I look forward to more of your presentations.
Any of the keyboard players I've seen over the years take the backs off and have the open back to the audience. Also they took the cloth off the bass rotating baffle, basically it's just a plate slanted at 45 degrees to bounce the sound to the side... One of the big regional bands back in the 70's featured the keyboard player (B3 of course!) and he was always set up in the center of the band on risers and up to 6 Leslie's , three sort of stepping down on each side of the band! I don't wanna know how much work it was to move all that gear for a show!
The bass rotor catches too much air w/o the cloth, it doesn't reach the correct terminal rotational velocity. No biggie, still sounds great, just wanted to mention the reason for that cloth cover existing.
Fantastic! Can’t beat the sound. Thanks for showing us around the 122.
very good presentation, im so glad your not silly like most who present here. .Great job!!!!
I've seen/heard only a few Leslie speakers in person. Nice to see the inner workings of them! very cool!
Really enjoyed that. That is a lovely speaker with such warm and funky sound. A musician friend of mine ignited my interest in the Hammond and Leslie, although not a player myself, I love how these work. Thanks for putting this clip together.
I have owned many organs and Leslie's. Those with you look amazing.
I got into the music business when my younger brothers band played a theater and needed one more person to lift the B-3 onto the stage.
Heard 2 B3s each with 3 Leslies jamming with a drum player - awesome.
Great presentation👊🏾
A huge thank you! I've been really curious about the Hammond B3 w/ the leslie
When I build stuff like this, they tell me I'm crazy. Now I know I'm not alone.
Fun Beatles trivia (quoted from Wikipedia): "Tomorrow Never Knows" was the first song attempted during the sessions for Revolver, which started at 8 pm on 6 April 1966, in Studio 3 at EMI Studios (subsequently Abbey Road Studios). Geoff Emerick, who was promoted to the role of the Beatles' recording engineer for Revolver, recalled that the band "encouraged us to break the rules" and ensure that each instrument "should sound unlike itself". Lennon sought to capture the atmosphere of a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony; he told Martin that the song should sound like it was being chanted by a thousand Tibetan monks, with his vocal evoking the Dalai Lama singing from a mountaintop. The latter effect was achieved by using a Leslie speaker. When the concept was explained to Lennon, he enquired if the same effect could be achieved by hanging him upside down and spinning him around a microphone while he sang into it. Emerick made a connector to break into the electronic circuitry of the Leslie cabinet and then re-recorded the vocal as it came out of the revolving speaker.
Whoa! Thanks!!!
One of my favorite organ solos of this organ is "Green Eyed Lady" from Sugarloaf. Also, "you're the only woman" by Ambrosia. :-D
The tube that glows purple is a mercury vapor rectifier tube.
I saw many a live performance back in the 70's that used the Leslie speakers, fantastic sound that they imparted, thanks for refreshing my memories :^)
No. It is a cold cathode gas voltage regulator, not a rectifier. It is probably a 0C3. There is no mercury in this tube.
Yes, I DID enjoy that! Thanks a lot for all of your efforts, this is a fantastic insight into the (he-) art of this instrument. Great!
Uriah Heep was my favorite band in the 70’s . Jury morning sound great on the Hammond
I always heard about the rotating speakers but didn't know how it worked so thank you for that.