From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Tue Jul 16 19:10:16 2002
Subject:Re: instantaneous leslie spin control

Hi Lon,

>The other day I discovered the String Cheese Incident and the very subtle
>but wonderful B-3 sound on most of their tracks (Kyle Hollingsworth). Upon
>closer listening to the organ on their "Make a Joyful Sound", it appears
>that the leslie spins up and down almost instantly, as if he had total speed
>control, not just slow, fast, spin up and spin down.
>
>Come to think of it, some of Bill Payne's recordings with Little Feat have
>this instant rev feature, with clearly a B-3 sound.

There are two possibilities that come to mind:

1. If the lower rotor is disabled (easy to do), the upper rotor will provide all of the vibrato. Since the upper horn switches almost instantaneously, it will seem like the whole Leslie does so.

2. I've never played around myself, but I've been told that the newer Leslies with the DC servo motors have a trimpot to adjust the speed response -- or does it require a change of capacitors? Either way, it might be possible to alter the accel/decel rates of a 122A/122XB Leslie.

A bigger question is: Why would you want to? I think the spooling up and down is one of the nicest parts of the Leslie experience.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions™ http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group and HiNote moderator
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com